While you've been blissfully ignoring the "Philip Rivers to the Tennessee Titans" trade rumors that have been flying around over the last few weeks, they've been getting progressively crazier.
Rant Sports has caught wind of one that might be nothing or might be something(!), and it breaks down as such:
- The Eagles would receive the No. 2 overall pick from the Titans, which they would then use to draft Mariota.
- The Chargers would receive Sam Bradford, the Eagles’ first-round pick and the Titans’ second-round pick.
- The Titans would receive Philip Rivers and the Eagles’ third-round pick.
Or, to put it in more Chargers-centric terms....
The Chargers would trade away Philip Rivers. In return, they would receive Sam Bradford (in the last year of his contract), the Eagles' first-round draft pick (#20), and the Titans' second-round draft pick (#33).
Now, we could argue all day about the merits of Rivers vs. Bradford (although we won't), but this trade would be incredibly unfair in favor of the Chargers. They would be replacing Rivers with Bradford, both QBs in the final year of their respective contracts, and for their trouble, they would have 4 of the first 50 picks in the 2015 NFL Draft.
Now, would this trade be a symbol that the team isn't necessarily trying to win in 2015 and is in "rebuilding mode"? Absolutely. However, with the haul they would be receiving as a part of the three-team trade, Tom Telesco would be able to (somewhat easily) create the fastest and most-effective rebuild this side of Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts. (Also, if he could stay healthy, the team could actually compete with Bradford as QB in 2015.)
I don't want to get into what the trade would mean, or how Antonio Gates would react (although it sounds like he's just in it to cash a paycheck at this point), but I do want to say that if this crazyballs trade goes down we should all look past the Philip Rivers jersey hanging in our closet and prepare for an upcoming decade or so of utter domination and multiple Super Bowl runs.