Philip Rivers legacy forever at the mercy of New England Patriots

Philip Rivers has had the kind of career that will likely get him into the Hall of Fame one day. However, it may be called a career that is incomplete.

If anything people may end up calling him Dan Fouts 2.0. A phenomenally productive quarterback who kept his team successful for years but in the end failed to even reach a Super Bowl. Let alone win one. Usually the biggest explanation for that failure was one team always getting in his way. For Fouts, that was the Oakland Raiders. They went 17-7 against him and ruined his best opportunity to reach a Super Bowl in 1980, knocking the Chargers out in the AFC championship.

It’s been the same story for Rivers, except even worse. Looking back over his career to this point, one could say he had four teams that were legitimately good enough to win the Super Bowl. The first was in 2006 when the Chargers went 14-2. The second was the next year when they made the AFC championship, then it was 2009 when they were 13-3 and lastly came this year with a strong 12-4 finish where everything clicked.

Three of those four playoff trips ended at the hands of the New England Patriots.

Rivers has had the worst luck whenever facing New England in playoffs

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It started in 2006. San Diego was hosting the Patriots and it looked like they were about to win. Tom Brady had just been picked off. All the defender had to do was go down and Rivers would be able to run out the clock. He didn’t go down, instead being stripped by wide receiver Troy Brown to give the ball right back to New England. They would go on to score and win the game.

The next year, Rivers suffered a tear to his ACL in the divisional win over Indianapolis. He tried to play through it in the conference title game but clearly wasn’t able to bring his best. The Patriots ground out a 21-12 win to advance. Sadly, that same streak of poor luck followed him into Foxborough yet again as his defense which had been so good all year failed to show up.

The Patriots hung 35 points on the Chargers in the first half, using that big lead to cruise the rest of the way. Rivers did everything in his power to bring them back, throwing for 331 yards and three touchdowns but it wasn’t enough. At the end of the day, it seems the football gods just don’t favor him enough to end this Patriots curse.

He’s 37-years old now. It’s hard not feeling like this may have been his last good chance to reach the big dance. Brady and Belichick just would not let it happen.

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