Philip Rivers is the overlooked great quarterback for the often neglected Chargers

With the Chiefs losing two of their last four and the Chargers winners in 10 of their last 11, the teams are tied atop the AFC West. Kansas City holds the tiebreaker due to a one-game advantage in games played within the division. There are no head-to-head matchups remaining, so it’ll take one more Kansas City stumble and L.A. winning out over the last two weeks to unseat the Chiefs. But that’s a remarkably precarious status for a Kansas City team that has been considered the presumptive top seed in the AFC since midseason.

Though the Chargers are steadily inserting themselves into the discussion of legitimate contenders, it’s not quite fair to say they are catching everyone off guard. In fact, several prominent analysts picked them before the season to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. That makes sense given that the Chargers won six of their last seven to close out the 2017 season and boasted emerging young stars like Joey Bosa.

2018 has mainly been Rivers’ show, however, given that Bosa has missed most of the season due to injury, and there has been no other new breakout player. He’s within range of putting up career-best numbers in completion percentage, yards per attempt and touchdowns with what is likely to be his fewest passing attempts since 2009. 

Rivers is still a dark horse to win MVP because Patrick Mahomes has been the face of the league this season and may get within sniffing distance of the single-season passing touchdown record. And for as good as Rivers’ numbers have been, Drew Brees’ have been otherworldly, and his team will most likely have a bye, a factor that is considered for MVP however counterintuitive .

So why has it been so hard, up until last week’s victory, to take the Chargers seriously?

The Chargers as a franchise are an odd duck in a number of ways. Even though they now match their L.A. cohabitants, the Rams, with an 11-3 record, the Chargers play second fiddle when it comes to media attention, prestige, fan interest and expectations. They play in a soccer stadium, the smallest venue in the NFL and one that will soon be named for a regional hospital chain largely unknown outside of California. This disparity is in part because the Rams had prior history in Los Angeles, whereas the Chargers blew off a dedicated fan base in nearby San Diego for the big brother market to the north. It also doesn’t hurt that the Rams currently have more star power on their roster.

The Bolts have all of one postseason appearance since 2010, and that was still five seasons ago. Reputation, fair or not, is forged through long-term history, even if it has little bearing on individual seasons. The Chargers haven’t won a championship since they were in the AFL, got humiliated in their only Super Bowl appearance (a 49-26 loss to the 49ers) and have just one conference title game appearance since Rivers took over. That’s the kind of background that makes a franchise an afterthought.

That head coach Anthony Lynn is 20-10 in less than two full seasons in Los Angeles deserves more attention and likely will come once the Chargers enter the postseason and have the eyes of the entire football world on them. Their only two prime-time games of the season were within the last three weeks, and those were wins over the Steelers and Chiefs.

Rivers is among the likely Hall of Fame quarterbacks on their way out in the next few years — Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning — and he is the only one without hardware and therefore gets forgotten about most often. Due to rarely hanging around past the second round of the playoffs and being overshadowed in their own market, the Chargers are similarly obscured. 

Will that finally change this season? There’s no way to know yet, but it feels like a real possibility for the first time in forever.