Chargers' Philip Rivers 'a little bit numb' about team moving to Los Angeles
Philip Rivers has been a San Diego Chargers quarterback for his entire 13-year NFL career. He is the franchise’s all-time leader in several categories, and while fans in other cities mock him for his demonstrative ways, he’s beloved in the city he’s called home for well over a decade.
As noted by Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, when he arrived in San Diego in 2004, Rivers and his wife Tiffany had one child; now they have eight.
The idea that the Chargers might be leaving San Diego has been hanging in the warm, salty air there for well over a year, as franchise and city officials sparred over building a new stadium to replace the outdated Qualcomm Stadium. But still, the reality of the move startled Rivers.
Speaking with NBC San Diego on Friday about how he learned of the news, Rivers said, “Like most things these days, nowadays, they start to leak a little sooner than it’s actually official. I thought the report was probably accurate the night before we were all hearing and I spoke with John Spanos early yesterday morning right before the whole thing went down at 8 a.m. and there on. Found out that way. Gosh, guys, I think like I told you a few days before a little bit numb about it all even beforehand and now even more so. I think it hadn’t really settled in.”
There was speculation at one point that if the Chargers went to Los Angeles Rivers wouldn’t go with them, but in interviews (he did several with San Diego media outlets), while he sounded remorseful that he wasn’t able to bring a Super Bowl title to San Diego, he was also resigned to heading to L.A.
“I want to be clear that my love for San Diego, the time here, the memories we’ve had, the games, practices – everything about it is special and awesome. That’ll never go away,” Rivers said. “But at the same time – and I hope that people will understand this: I have to get excited and fired up about going up to a new area and representing our team, our organization and going and trying to, shoot, win as many games as we can win and be the same guy that I’ve always been. That’s the only way I know.
“So, I’m kinda in the middle of that, leaving behind something that, shoot, you love and you’re thankful for and you want to make sure everybody knows that and then, at the same time, I don’t want people around here to go, ‘Golly he sure seems so fired up to go up there.’ I’m just fired up all the time for whatever the task is. That’s just the only way I know. I hope as the dust settles a little bit. I know there are a lot of emotions right now, I hope people can understand that.”
(As an aside, I had no idea Rivers said “shoot” quite that much.)
“I hope that when the dust does settle that people who have been fans here for a long time can still watch the game on Sunday and go ‘Hey, that’s our quarterback,'” he continued. “You want them to still feel that. Because you always do, it’s like your hometown.
“I hope they can still claim that here not just for me but all the guys and players they pulled for and the team in general. And hopefully up there, shoot, it’s brand new. It doesn’t happen overnight. You got to go there and build relationships and meet people. Shoot, guys I’ll be talking to for radio and print and TV and all those things, it’s all brand new. Then we gotta go play and still fight like crazy to win football games with the same group of guys in a different area. It’s really weird for me. It’s uncharted territory.”
