Remeber the last time fans wanted to run a QB out of town when he couldn't win with a horrible OL?

Exactly. Revisionist history is STRONG with Brees. Nobody seems to remember that dudes in the locker room didn't have his back and he got benched for old man Doug Flutie.

Hell, Champ Bailey was sad to see him leave and said that Brees was the best QB the Donks had.

I wasn't talking about 2005. I was talking about 2004 when we made the draft pick for a new QB in the first place after Drew struggled in 2003....behind a ****** line. That was before the shoulder injury.

And the line IS making Rivers scramble and throw off his back foot. If he had protection he wouldn't have to scramble so much.

And, by the way, I'm long LONG over Drew Brees. I'm just making a point by highlighting the last time fans gave up en masse on a quarterback claiming he wasn't any good due to the overall team's performance.

In other words, the thread has less to do with "Damn, we should have kept this guy" and more to do with "See, he wasn't as bad as you all thought he was then when he played like ****, and now we have another QB playing like **** in similar conditions".

By the way, it wasn't hindsight for me.

Check the UT forum archives and you'll see that I was dead set against the notion of drafting another QB in the 2004 draft. (I was ok with the play time incentive laden contract offer post-shoulder injury in 2005/06 that led to him taking the guaranteed money in New Orleans considering the circumstances....and still am)

It's also not hindsight for me when I say it would be a stupid move to give up on Rivers right now. So, I'll stand by that and see what future 20/20 hindsight tells me.

Didn't Tolliver beat out Favre in Atlanta under Glanville and made Favre expendable in a trade to GB???

Wow... You mad bro...

If you want to put all of Rivers' problems on the line, you are wearing blinders. They stem from the line agreed. But he is flushing evern when the protection is there. That is on Rivers, not the line. It can be fixed, part of it is improving this horid line. RIVERS has to fix the other part.

Who has hacked Concs account? He has made sense lately with his posts.

Agree 100%! Rivers has made many bonehead throws that were all on him.

Here's a test. Go to your local gym, and find a 250 lbs bodybuilder. Let him hit you in the face once a minute, after exactly 1 minute, for 10 minutes, then for the next 10 minutes, he's only allowed to hit you 50% of the time, but all hits must come at the "one-minute mark". Tell me whether or not you flinch when he has the opportunity to punch you, whether he actually chooses to or not.

Ha Ha Rivers is one of Pavlov's Dogs! Seriously if he is out of the pocket and there is not a defensive player within yards of him, why then does he make boneheaded mistakes? No bells and no meat powder.

for the money he is making, and with all the pads he has on, I will do that for 1/3 of Rivers salary

Honestly, I'd be far more afraid of a 150lb professional boxer than a 250lb bodybuilder, but I get your point!

WAIT! I thought going to New Orleans was "a calling." You mean he just took the most guaranteed money he was offered (like most would) and then tried to play the messiah thing?

Do you stop at red lights in the middle of the night with clear sight-lines when no one is around? Which pocket do you put your wallet in? When you call a friend who knows you on his cell phone, do you tell him who it is? (in spite of him having caller ID and obviously knowing that it's you)

Conditioning is a part of all of our lives. You ask why he makes mistakes even though there's no defender around him, and the answer is, because 50+% of the time lately there is one, and being out of the pocket doesn't make him not have a blind side, or somehow remove pursuit from the equation as he looks downfield. There's a reason that they use the phrase "rattled" to describe QBs who are getting hit a lot.

And he isn't "getting his head on straight" as long as we have a terrible OL and a play caller that doesn't account for zero protection when calling in the plays

With the line this team had in 06, hell yeah

He is playing scared and feels pressure even when it doesn't exist, and that is happening because the line is terrible

That'd be part of a major reconstruction.
Agree with Conc on this one--the OL is the source of the problems. But some of it is now rooted firmly in Rivers head.
In fact, that's in line with your post above.
The damage is done. But if Rivers is flushing without pressure, as you said above, then there are mental problems as well as OL problems.

To say nothing of complaining at refs and talking to the opponent's sideline. No one's ever going to call this guy 'Ice'

Once Turner is gone and if they get some decent O-linemen River's will be fine. Even at his worst he's better than his predecessor ever was, in fact, that's is why River's ended up a Bolt. Brees stunk Mission Valley up and when a non QB HC in Shotty was to bench him for half the season tells the tale in it's own right.

The TV camera crews showed him yelling at his own team mates too...

WHAAAAAAA-WHAAAAAAA, Philip is being mean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and he was seen talking to himself out loud too. Talking in tongues, perhaps?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, the deeper you go the higher you fly....

My guess is that dudes yell on the sidelines of every game ever, yell at other players, etc., you rarely hear about it. But that's the stock story with Rivers, so they probably have someone assigned to watch him in case he yells.

Not really, the line we had in 06 was pretty much the same as 04 which is the year we replaced all 5 of our linemen and turned Brees into a pro bowler. Not saying it would be easy to do again, but we did it once, and if they really wanted to, could do it again.

And just to clarify, the 04 offseason we traded for Oben(LG), signed Goff(RG), drafted Hardwick(C) and Olivea(RT), and by week 2-3 Dielman took over at LG, and we showed what an OLine can do for a QB.

And yes, there is a mental issue with Rivers caused by the line, and that is easily fixed with a line he trusts

What's Flutie up to these days?

Sure, that's what it takes sometimes. But does he yell at his teammates for minor *** shite the way he yells at refs and jaws at the opponent's sidelines?
Point is, he takes himself out of the game when he gets into the smack talk with other teams. He just pisses the refs off with his whining, which is always a bad idea. He's a hothead. That works at ILB, not so much at QB.

Open question: how often do SD fans see Rivers running up to opponent's sideline and talking shite after a 3 and out?
And it's a question for the fans at the games since, at least in Denver, CBS didn't show it..

Bastard should be online defending Rivers.

We can quibble forever about the definition of 'major reconstruction.' You get me a new LT, LG, C, RG, and RT--cause that's what's needed--I call that major.
Even with that, Rivers head will **** with him in the playoffs. Need a good D to back up his inability to handle pressure (be it from inept OL or playoff situation). So let's reconstruct our secondary while we're at it. Would be nice to have a viable run option too.

No major reconstruction: No Super Bowl for our boy Rivers.