Rivers - and his Chargers mates - ran through them
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SAN DIEGO - With a nagging toe injury limiting Chargers star running back LaDainian Tomlinson, the San Diego passing attack has been forced to carry the load.
And that's been no problem for Philip Rivers.
Despite wide receiver Chris Chambers being inactive, the Chargers signal-caller was unstoppable in last night's 30-10 blowout of the Patriots. Rivers was 18 for 27 for 306 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions.
It's clear Rivers is up to the task of sparking the offense.
"Philip's been awesome," said Vincent Jackson, who had five receptions for a game-high 134 yards.
Playing against a team that has knocked him out of the playoffs the last two seasons, Rivers made sure everyone knew that the Patriots were in for a long night on the first play of the game.
About two minutes before the start, coach Norv Turner told Jackson and Rivers that they were going to open the game with the deep ball. On the play, Jackson faked an out route, and Patriots corner Deltha O'Neal bit.
Rivers hit Jackson for a 48-yard gain, a harbinger of things to come.
"It was big," Jackson said. "It kind of got us going."
With the 6-foot-5-inch Jackson and spot starter Malcom Floyd's (also 6-5) decided height advantage over the Patriots corners, O'Neal (5-11) and Ellis Hobbs (5-9), it was open season for Rivers.
"We knew we had the height advantage [on their corners]," Floyd said. "It's going out and executing, that's what we really needed."
Floyd got into the act when Rivers exploited a mismatch with Hobbs. With Floyd singled up on the deep post, Rivers threw a jump ball Floyd wrestled away from Hobbs for a 49-yard touchdown with 4:06 left in the first quarter.
"Philip threw it in a good spot," said Floyd. "I knew the ball was kind of short, so I knew I would have to go up for it and battle for it in the air. I ended up coming down with it."
Floyd filled in admirably for Chambers, finishing with three receptions for 75 yards.
"I knew I had some big shoes to fill with Chris being out," Floyd said. "So I knew I would have to step my game up. I was ready, and I was anxious to get a win."
Add another 59-yard reception for Jackson and that's three passes of 45 yards or more. Rivers, though, cautioned against thoughts that this may be a regular occurrence.
"There may be a week where we don't hit anything down the field more than 20 yards, and we've got to be high percentage and dink-and-dunking," Rivers said.
Since the Patriots were the team that sent the Chargers to the golf course each of the last two postseasons - last year's AFC Championship game at Gillette Stadium and at
"Playing New England was big; we didn't intentionally downplay it," Rivers said. "It wasn't necessarily a payback game at all. It doesn't replace those three losses.
"But it was big to beat these guys. I think the main reason it was big [was] because of the situation we were in. We're 2-3 and it gets us back to .500."
It seems this game was just as important as any other on the schedule. Rivers certainly has the age-old NFL mantra down, take each game one at a time.
"This is certainly what we can do and how we can play," Rivers said. "But again, you've got to keep doing it week after week."
