Faceoff - QB Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers

Posted 6/7, exclusive to Footballguys.com

Upside - by Colin Dowling

The arguments against choosing Philip Rivers as a fantasy quarterback, much less a starting fantasy quarterback, are pretty easy to make. He's only going in to his second season as a starter...he is one LaDainian Tomlinson or Antonio Gates injury from being in a hampered offense...he has a new coach and there will be some new wrinkles in the offense to assimilate. Frankly, those are all very good points.

The problem with that thinking it that it assumes that Philip Rivers is immune to changing with his environment and unable to improve. That, in my opinion, is a mistake.

Rivers' path to the starting job in San Diego has been hashed and rehashed plenty, so I won't bore you with it again. However, once Rivers assumed the role of starter, he was impressive with regard to his efficiency, accuracy, and game-management ability. It certainly helps to have the league MVP lining up behind you, but Rivers was better than many expected nonetheless. Rivers finished the fantasy season ranked ninth among quarterbacks, throwing only six interceptions against 22 touchdowns. A ratio like that is phenomenal for any player but shows an excellent amount of maturity for a player as young as Rivers. His lack of interceptions is a fairly strong demonstration of his arm and his understanding of a Charger offense. Considering the results in the win column -- the Chargers had the best regular season record in the NFL -- I wouldn't expect Norv Turner to tinker with things too much.

Speaking of Turner, he has had tremendous results with players as an offensive coordinator. Furthermore, as a head coach, Turner has been in the top ranks of the league in passing attempts and touchdowns numerous times. That said, he hasn't exactly been the head coach of a runner like Tomlinson, who will no doubt get the ball a ton.

There is already a lot to like about Rivers, but we haven't even gotten to the best part: his average draft position (ADP). Rivers is available as the eleventh quarterback off the board, right around the middle of the 6th round. In my opinion, the value is staggering; drafters are coming to the consensus that Rivers will be statistically worse this season even though he now has an (1) offensive minded coach, (2) another year of experience, and (3) the team has added another received in the first round. By my estimation, Philip Rivers has done nothing to minimize his value coming out of last season's disappointing AFC playoff loss. He had a foot sprain, but there was no surgery involved and he has participated in offseason training activities.

Is Philip Rivers the next Peyton Manning? I have no idea. However, I do know that it is a safe bet that, barring a new injury, he should finish better in fantasy rankings than he did last season. That makes selecting him the sixth round a good gamble.

Downside - by Jeff Pasquino

Philip Rivers enters his second season as the starter for the Chargers, and I don't expect much once again out of him. Sure, he finished as the ninth best QB last season, but is he the type of quarterback that you would want on your fantasy squad?

Right now, the current Footballguys projections have a large number of QBs slated to perform all about the same -- less than 20 fantasy points separate #6 (Jon Kitna) from #17 (Michael Vick), and Rivers is right in that pack at #15. What about the expert rankings? Many have Rivers in the 10-15 neighborhood, and even a few have him in the Top 10. I, on the other hand, put him at #21, and here's why.

If I were to pick a quarterback (or two) from this batch, I would want someone with solid upside and big play potential so that I could go after certain matchups during the season. Well, let's start with Rivers and his history. We only have one year to go on, which is scary in of itself, but let's see how many times he has had a stellar game. In 2006 he had 20-25 fantasy points four times and 25+ once, three touchdowns just once and 300+ yards only twice. Not exactly setting the world on fire, so then certainly you would expect him to have a minimal downside then, correct? Unfortunately that is not true, as he had three games (and a playoff game) without a touchdown and he also had three games with fewer than 10 fantasy points and four more (including the postseason game) with less than 12 fantasy points.

So it seems that Rivers, based purely on 2006 numbers, has limited upside and quite a bit more downside risk. Let's see what else there is to make me want to avoid him.

Start with his supporting cast. Of the mid-range quarterbacks, nearly all of them have big play receivers (at least one). Rivers has TE Antonio Gates and a bunch of young and unproven WRs along with Eric Parker, who doesn't keep any NFL defensive coordinator up at night. That role belongs to Gates and RB LaDainian Tomlinson, who is the Charger offense. Looking at San Diego, every team game plans to stop Tomlinson and force Rivers to beat them -- yet he still doesn't make any defense pay for that. Even if Tomlinson lost time to injury, Michael Turner is regarded as a stud backup and the Chargers would still emphasize the run game.

Not only does Rivers rely on Tomlinson and the run game, he also doesn't bring much to the table as a runner himself. Rivers has never scored a rushing TD and averaged under a yard per carry last year.

Let me bring up two more reasons to look elsewhere for a QB -- the Chargers and their schedule. First, San Diego is a very good team, which is bad for your fantasy football QB. Why? Well, it will be a very rare occasion where the Chargers are down by two or more scores and be forced to throw -- there will be no "garbage time" benefits to the passing game. Just like Week 1 last year when Rivers threw just 11 times (and they won), San Diego is perfectly content to take the air out of the ball. The Chargers should win a number of games and their defense should also keep them in close contests, reducing Rivers' opportunity to post great fantasy numbers.

Compounding this issue is the schedule. San Diego plays eight games against either a Top 10 defense or a Top 2 pass defense from 2006. Only two teams that were in the bottom ten (Houston and Minnesota) are on the docket before Thanksgiving, meaning that Rivers will struggle your entire fantasy regular season to perform. Things do improve for December with games in Weeks 14 (Tennessee) and 15 (Detroit), but in order to be playing for anything in those weeks you better have another QB to get you to the playoffs.