Philip Rivers' POTW nomination is pointless and wrong

Just about every time the San Diego Chargers win a football game, I get a billion notifications on Tuesday about Philip Rivers being nominated as the 'FedEx Air Player of the Week'. Sometimes, they even have a running back from the Chargers nominated as the 'FedEx Ground Player of the Week'.

People have asked me why I don't write about this. The player is nominated for an award, and the people should be notified!

This week, when Philip Rivers was nominated as one of the three best QBs in the league, is exactly why.

According to Pro Football Focus, Rivers was the 12th best QB this week. That's mostly because Rivers threw as many interceptions as he did touchdowns (1). It's also because he took a potential scoring situation (on the opposing team's 1-yard line) and turned it into negative points with a 99-yard pick six. Rivers also took 3 sacks and never really threw down the field. In fact, Rivers relied heavily on his running game and yards after the catch from his wide receivers, regularly throwing passes short of the first-down marker on third down (which is a good way to boost pointless stats).

According to Passer Rating, one of the dumbest and most antiquated stats still around in professional sports, Rivers was still the 12th best QB this week (just barely ahead of Geno Smith, who was 13th).

According to ESPN's QBR stat, Philip Rivers was the 20th best QB this week. In fact, his 28.9 QBR puts him just a tick above Rams QB Shaun Hill, who posted a QBR of 27.4. An "average QBR" is 50, so they were both well below that mark.

In short, despite the team's win, Philip Rivers was not one of the three best QBs in the league this week. Not only does he not deserve your vote, he did not deserve the nomination. This is why the FedEx awards are absolutely pointless and this is the last time you'll hear about them from this blog (probably).