Reason #17

I was going to balance the Philip Rivers criticism I had in the 16 Reasons posts with some stats and observations that point out just how good a season Rivers is having, but those got left out because I was in a hurry to get it posted and forgot to put the information in there...

1. The Chargers have scored 244 points this year and Tomlinson has only scored 30 of those points. To put that in perspective, they scored 412 points in 2007 and Tomlinson was responsible for 114 of those. In 2006, the ratio was 492-198. So, yeah. He's being phased out (or at least is less effective, so they need to find other ways to score) and Philip Rivers is being phased in. They have 244 points and Rivers has 21 touchdown passes, so he's responsible for 126 of those 244 points.
2. Against those 21 touchdowns, he's thrown only eight interceptions. He also has 2,354 yards passing and is averaging 8.7 yards per attempt. He's only been sacked 12 times. That's just a bunch of rare statistics right there. Usually, if you have that high of an average, you're throwing high-risk passes. That means more chances for incompletions (he's hitting on 65.4% right now), more chances for interceptions, and more opportunities for the defense to sack you. But, that hasn't happened to Rivers.
3. Pretty much, he's having a hell of a season.
4. Still doesn't scare me, though.