The star running back who once had to leave San Diego believes the star quarterback that used to be his teammate wants to move on, too.
Via Tom Krasovic of U-T San Diego, former Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson said on NFL Network that he thinks current Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers won’t be back with the team in 2015.
“I personally don’t think so,” Tomlinson said. “I really think this is a situation where Philip Rivers wants to move on. The reason why I think that and the reason why I feel like that is the Chargers have already approached Philip about doing another contract and he declined it. He doesn’t want anything to do with it; he didn’t even want to talk about another contract with the San Diego Chargers. That tells me that he’s thinking about moving on.”
Tomlinson didn’t say that Rivers actually told Tomlinson that; instead, Tomlinson surmises Rivers is thinking about moving on because he rebuffed the team’s desire to extend his deal.
So should the Chargers trade Rivers, if he doesn’t want to be there?
“You never want to trade your franchise quarterback,” Tomlinson said, “that’s never the case. However, in this situation they might have no choice but to do so because I don’t know if Philip [Rivers] wants to be there anymore. I think he’s lost confidence in the organization. He’s seeing a lot of changes going on and the L.A. thing is valid; him not wanting to go to L.A., that is very valid, I can see that. So no, it doesn’t make sense to move on from Philip because he’s a franchise quarterback and he still has three to four very good years left.”
Why he has lost confidence in the team?
“The receiving corps keeps on changing; Eddie Royal is now gone,” Tomlinson said. “We talked about this before with Vincent Jackson leaving years ago. There are so many parts that are leaving where Philip is looking around that locker room and he doesn’t see anyone he’s familiar with other than Antonio Gates. Now to that point, Antonio Gates next year is a free agent. Eric Weddle is going to be up. Next year the Chargers have a lot of decisions to make with a lot of key guys, so Philip could be looking at the situation and thinking we’re not close to winning a championship anytime soon.”
Rivers hasn’t addressed his situation since going on the record about his reluctance to extend a contract that runs through the coming season, comments which coincidentally emerged only four days after the Steelers gave quarterback Roethlisberger a gigantic new deal.
As Krasovic notes, Rivers and coach Mike McCoy were shielded from the media on Monday, the first day of offseason workouts. At some point Rivers needs to say whether he wants to stay or whether he wants to go. Unless and until he does, the perception will linger that he wants to move on.
Tennessee continues to be the most likely destination, primarily because only the Titans are in position to give the Chargers a potential franchise quarterback to replace Rivers, via the second overall pick in the draft. If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen in less than 10 days or not at all.