I’ll never understand how people can even comment on the whole situation on why Drew was let go, it’s obvious why the thing went down the way it did.

So annoying.

I suspected they were noise cancellers, but I did see Drew talking to the kid while the kid was still was wearing them… Perhaps they tied into the coach’s headset so the little guy knew what was coming.

the Rivers – Brees part very clearly for people who are not “real” Charger fans. But I think you were a little hard on Marty.

Are you going to stake your future employment on a QB who had:

Posted a 10-17 record as a starter.
Had thrown 29 TDs against 31 INTs.
Completed 59.4 % of his passes.
Tanked down the stretch in his first year as a starter – partially costing a division title or playoff spot (our awful defense late in 2002 also had much to do with it).
Regressed from his 2nd year to his 3rd year.
Been benched in his 3rd year in favor of a 39-40 year old QB.

No, I don’t think you would, and I wouldn’t have either.

Let’s say they don’t give up on Brees, and decide he’s the guy going forward. Who do they draft first overall instead? Trading down is likely impossible—your only trading partner is the Giants, and if you trade with them you get a QB, what we don’t want in this scenario.

Robert Gallery? Perhaps he would have developed differently/better in San Diego instead of Oakland. Larry Fitzgerald? I guess that would have been nice. Sean Taylor? Also good, but you only get three years of him.

So the question you have to ask is, was Larry Fitzgerald, Roberty Gallery, or Sean Taylor worth Nate Kaeding and Shawne Merriman (and Roman Oben)? Tough call. The best argument I can come up with is Wonko’s—having one of those players instead of Rivers/Kaeding may have made the difference in the playoff game vs. the Jets. But on the flip side, Kaeding and Merriman have helped win a lot of games for the Chargers the last few years. Would they win all those with an extra wide receiver/offensive lineman/defensive back instead? Maybe. Again, tough call.

In the end it’s probably a wash, because we don’t know if those players would have made any sort of difference, and any difference they did make would have to be weighed against the differences made by Merriman and Kaeding.

Butler… beyond Tomlinson, Brees, Jammer, and Ben Leber, give me one other player Butler drafted or signed as an undrafted FA who has made a difference for this organization or anywhere else beyond 2005? Furthermore, remember the $$$ wasted on Marcellus Wiley, Wade Richey, Alex Molden, and David Boston in FA?

As for Marty… yes I want a coach who commits a personal foul penalty and sits on the ball in OT when the opposing defense has been on the field for the last 9 minutes of game time.

I want a coach who goes for a 4th-and-11 on the opponents’ 30 yard line early in a scoreless game, a coach who burns timeouts following an opponent’s injury timeout, or challenging a play that clearly could not be overturned.

Those were playoff gaffes. Norv hasn’t made a single mistake in the postseason that rivals those errors.

im just curious what ya’ll think of that. Anyways, Im happy for Brees. Im glad he got that 2nd chance to prove he still can play. To think, if LT left n ended up on the Saints last year n he won a SuperBowl I’d be happy for him to … but eh then again thats me. I love Philip Rivers! He’s a really good qb. I hope this inspires him to play n prove that the Chargers didnt make a mistake with all this talk.

Brees is a winner.

Thankfully, I haven’t been as inundated with questions about Brees and the Chargers as I expected. Mostly because most of the people I interact with are pretty knowledgeable about football and have been in town long enough to remember Brees’ tenure here. However, occasionally I run into the odd person out of town who asks about it and the easiest way I basically put it is this:

When Brees was a Charger, he wasn’t really that good so we drafted Rivers. After that, Brees got kinda good but then majorly f—ked up his shoulder, forcing us to release him and go with Rivers. Thus far, I think it’s been cool for everyone. River’s numbers are very close to Brees, but is bigger, stronger and younger. Brees matured and developed from his difficulty here, Payton’s coaching and Katrina – he revitalized and became the face one of the league’s worst franchises.

I’m really happy with Rivers since he and Norv not only have developed well together, but he still has such massive upside and potential for someone so young. And I’m really happy for Brees, because of the way he’s grown from all the adversity he and New Orleans experienced and how he’s become a player he really could never have been had he stayed here in San Diego with the coaching staff he previously had in place.

And that’s pretty much it. And before more people go about lamenting Brees’ departure from the Chargers, please remember that nothing exists in a vaccum. He doesn’t do everything himself and his Super Bowl victory, heck even his appearance in that game came from fantastic play by the other members of his team. Brees was totally ineffective in the second half of the NFC Championship game and despite his defense supplying 5 turnovers they needed to go to OT to win a game they had every reason that they should have lost. In the Super Bowl, Brees was pretty much nowhere to be found in the first half and his defense did a fantastic job of nutting up and frustrating the Colts offense after a shaky start.

Within the past few weeks, I’ve generally encountered a lot of absurd commentery throughout the internet in regards to Peyton Manning, Brees and Rivers. Primarily how that while some consider Rivers to be elite, he just doesn’t seem to currently be in Manning’s and now Brees’ level of player.

And to that, I generally respond that… yes, obviously that is and should be true. Philip Rivers’ ability to win is remarkable and his numbers are very similar to Manning’s and Brees’ this year – and he was drafted in 2004. This is the first year he’s shown real flashes of becoming an amazing quarterback. Peyton Manning was drafted in 1998, six years before Rivers was even in the league. Brees was drafted in 2001, three years before Rivers and really it wasn’t until 2007 that he showed “elite” level of play. Even then, it wasn’t until this year’s Super Bowl run that he even got more playoff wins than Rivers.

Anyway, as I said above I’m really happy for Brees for the adversity he’s overcome, the player he’s become for a historically bad organization like the Saints and the figurehead he’s become for a city that has seen some bad times recently. Additonally, I’m really happy with Rivers, his accomplishments thus far and the strides and development he seems to be making every year.

…lets at least give the man some respect. He did, after all, lead the Chargers to two of their greatest seasons in 2004 and 2006, helped LT win an MVP, and developed much of the core Chargers that are currently on the roster… and although it had to end in such a distasteful manner, he IS one of the greatest Charger coaches of all time. The Chargers would not be where they are right now without Marty.

And in his defense, im sure there was something more to the whole Drew Brees injury fiasco… i personally dont believe that any coach would use one of their players as a scapegoat for trying to prove a point.

Other then that, good writing as always.

The only two players I think that the Chargers should have never let go were Fred Dean and John Jefferson. I think that right there they lost a couiple of SuperBowls.

I’m so happy for Drew, I love the guy but I’m happier to have Mr Rivers handling the Chargers offense.

The fourth year was the year he was supposed to be NFL ready. He wasn’t: That’s why the Chargers drafted Rivers. Everyone forgets the questions about his arm strength and his accuracy. You can only judge the Rivers draft decision based on the information available at the time.

Why did they let Brees go…a) the shoulder b) Rivers is a stud…end of conversation.

about whether Robert Gallery/Larry Fitzgerald/3 years of Sean Taylor was of equal or greater weight than Nate Kaeding, Shawne Merriman, and Roman Oben. I’m not sure I can say yes or no definitively either way. I don’t remember who we had kicking before Nate, but there’s no guarantee they make that kick against the Jets either.

I have a few points/corrections. Drew Brees was atrocious the first part of his SD career. I was at his and PRs first pro games. The fans loved them and were glad they were playing. As a group in the stadium, no one was playing favorites. We loved them both and we ready to be patient. Brees showed a lot of spark and came into a game we were losing and almost brought us back (until a mental error sealed the loss.)

The fateful game.
Marty knew what was on the agenda. The whole two seasons (post PR) AJ wanted Brees out until he realized what he had. At that point he wants PR to start, show how great he was, add value as a trading chip, and promptly trade him in the off-season while offering Brees a long-term deal. At the same time, there were constant rumors that no matter how good Brees was, it was a matter of time before he was out. PR was jawing about how sick he was at not starting and heavily hinted he wanted to be traded if he wasn’t going to start (and at that time he wasn’t going to.) But Marty’s whole deal was that this was Brees’ team, Brees made it known that he wanted to start no matter what. Brees was insecure as a starter precisely because AJ showed that PR was his guy. I like it when teams play to win, no matter what their record. Actually, that is what gave us the 2004 first overall pick as the cardinals beat the Vikings last second to give us the pick. (Side note: we beat the raiders that day and still got the #1 pick. Delicious.) I don’t consider Marty being selfish (he may be, but not here. ) Indeed, he was being loyal to the guy he believed in.

Also, Brees was not in the final year of a rookie contract. He was franchised that year and probably would have been again if we didn’t want to trade Rivers. He was also guaranteed $10 mil by the saints, that is not back-up money.

One more thing. That was a brutal injury. I work on orthopedic procedures all the time, and everyone worth their salt knew Brees was a risk not work taking after that injury. But it all worked out and we lived happily ever after.

One of the main reasons why the Chargers wanted Rivers over Rothlessburger is because Marty fell in love with him at the Senior bowl. There was talk before the draft that the Chargers were going to draft Rivers #1 before Eli went all John Elway on us. Going into training camp in 04 Rivers was pretty much already dubbed the starter and the only reason why Breese got his shot (Which he obviously took full advantage of) because of River’s contract dispute. Marty changed his tune on Breese after the 04 season but up until that point he was ready to kick him out the door.

I’m guessing that if the team was ready to move on after the 03 season Breese was not showing much promise in practice and they knew that it was more than just the 52 players around him that was the cause for his 67 QB rating. Sure we can look back with the advantage of hind side but in the end a lot of people who make a living off of player evaluation and who have been incredibly successful at it all though Breese was done so its hard for me to believe that anyone who did not have access to the team in 03 or has no scouting background can really make an accurate assessment of the situation.

But one disagreement. 6 years $60 million with $10 million guaranteed is nowhere near backup money. The Saints signed Drew to be the starter and paid him starter money.

As an outsider(Titans fan), I always wondered why AJ drafted Rivers. This post and its responses made it more clear for me now. I myself thought Brees was decent back when AJ pulled the trigger on the Manning/Rivers deal so I kinda questioned the logic too. But I really do think you guys made out better as it is. Sure you could have traded down and still picked up Sean Taylor or whatever DT you wanted, but you would have never got as much value out of the pick as AJ did with the Manning deal. The Merriman pick is what makes me believe this.

I do believe there is some truth to what some posters are saying about AJ having a predetermined image of what his players should be physically. And honestly I think thats why you all are going to be winning for a long time. You have a basketball-player-sized QB throwing to basketball-player-sized WRs, in a league where 6 foot DBs have been the norm for a long time. Everyone in the league has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to covering the receiving core that you guys have. AJ might look like an @$$ to a lot of people because of his persona and some of the moves that he has made, but someone has to make the tough decisions.

I think its going to be real interesting to see how the Chargers draft this year. Over on our blog(Music City Miracles) we are having a community draft and I have selected the Chargers which is how I stumbled upon this very informational post. Since the draft doesnt seem to be a hot topic for you all yet, I will check back later to read up on what you all are wanting out of the first two rounds. If LT is gone, then I am thinking RB, but I have been hearing rumors that the Chargers are interested in LenDale White, so I will have to wait and see on that situation.

And BTW, Rivers and Brees are both better than Manning so it looks like AJ kinda knew what he was doing right?