At 36, Philip Rivers of the Los Angeles Chargers will be heading into his 15th season in the NFL come September. The veteran quarterback hopes to continue playing for at least a few more years but knows that the time has come for the franchise to start looking for his eventual successor, via NFL.com.
“I look around at places, some guys that have had far more success than I have had, and they're drafting quarterbacks,” Rivers said, per Chargers.com. “So, it's inevitable. It's going to happen at some point. It's happened at other places, we all know where they are. And those guys are either still sitting, or they've been traded. … You know at some point we are going to draft a guy, and I don't see that as any negative.”
Although the team's departure from their longtime home in San Diego didn't go smoothly and the franchise currently plays in a stadium built for an MLS team in the Los Angeles Galaxy, the Chargers did better than expected last season.
Rivers helped lead the team to a 9-7 record and fell just short of the playoffs. The team showed a lot of promise in 2017 while trying to adapt to their new surrounding and situation in Los Angeles with Rivers continuing to show he can still compete with the best of them at his position in the NFL.
“I think [Chargers GM] Tom [Telesco], [team president] John [Spanos] and Coach [Anthony] Lynn, these guys know my desire to continue going and hopefully play at a high level for a handful of more years. But at the same time, shoot, as an organization you've got to prepare for down the road. If the right guy [is there that] they see fit, at some point they're going to have to make that decision.”
The question now is if the Chargers will draft a quarterback on April 27. The 2018 NFL Draft class is chalk full of talented quarterbacks with Los Angeles potentially able to get their hands on one of them.
Los Angeles currently owns the 17th overall pick in the upcoming draft and although they likely won't get one of the top-tier talents at that position, they may be able to snag Louisville's Lamar Jackson. The top quarterback prospects in the draft like Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and Baker Mayfield are all expected to be taken within the top-10 picks made, but anything can happen on draft day.
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