Brees is 1-0 against Rivers and chargers since leaving. Rivers has to beat Brees to show two things. 1. He can out play one of the best QB's in the game. 2. He can show everyone he was the better choice back in 2005. I don't think he will though it would be good for his career.
I think it would be completely irrelevant for his career outside of the context of putting the Chargers to 4-1. Rivers doesn't have to "beat" Brees, he has to beat the Saints' defense. Further, nothing is going to show whether the Chargers made the right decision with regards to Brees in 2006. Simply put, they had three options, let Brees walk and get a comp 3rd in 2007, resign Brees to a huge contract without any guarantees that he'd be able to recover from his arm injury, thereby implicitly devaluing Rivers and reducing his potential trade value but moving him anyway, or burdening the roster with 2 huge QB contracts should the Chargers have decided to keep both. Brees is the more accomplished QB, and until Rivers sets the single season passing record and wins multiple SBs, that's not going to change. (Rivers could become more accomplished while winning multiple SBs without the passing record, but not vice versa) Long story short, and getting back to my first sentence, your contention is preposterous.
This game will be meaningless in the 'Did the Chargers do the right thing in 2006?' debate. If you want to go with hindsight, the Chargers were on a one-way track once they picked up Manning and traded for Rivers. To really make the case that we should have kept Brees, a person would have to argue that we should have had the Giants pick up Vilma rather than Rivers. That way we would have stuck with Brees, played Vilma instead of Wilhelm etc, and obviously won the Super Bowl in 2006. In this scenario, Marty would still be our coach, we'd be a dynasty, tickets would be hard to come by (in our new stadium), and the notion of moving to LA would be laughable.
I'd just love it if we could snap that record streak of his, that'd be so funny. If we win this game though I'll be extremely impressed with the job Norv has done with this team. Getting to 4-1 would be huge as we face the Donks next week.
If Brees would have played football like he does now when he was a Charger, then I do not believe we would not even be having this conversation. Once Brees came back from that shoulder injury, he was a better quarterback and he fell into the right spot with the Saints. So that debate is now over, both teams have moved on since then.
The dude who started this topic is like that donkey from Whinnie the Pooh. Anyways River does not need to beat Brees to prove he was the right choice, 2005? thats a long time ago anyone who still dwells on that is just silly. Brees had what some thought would be a career ending injury, Chargers had a young QB who was a 1st round pick ready to go. The time was Now! for us. Many teams were unsure of what Brees had and were unsure if he'd play the same. N.O. took that gamble and it paid off. end of story. Now to say Rivers needs to beat Brees to shut the boo bird up that yes I'd say that is a fair assumption.
Beating Brees would be a piece of that monkey off his back. Winning the superbowl will completely remove it. But beating Brees this year means the first win vs. a quality opponent. Because Brees is still a great QB... and teams with great QBs generally do not suck... ...and the Chargers are the underdogs vs an 0-4 opponent. They win this one and you'll start to hear the positive chatter again. Lose and we can still say they haven't beaten a good QB yet.
Last I checked Rivers' offense needs to score more points than Brees' offense. perception is reality.
Nick Hardwick has to beet ManBearPig! He has to beat him to show two things: 1) A half-man, half-bear, half-pig abomination will not be allowed to attack humans everywhere while Hardwick is on the job! I know JohnnyX (JX) would prefer for us to think of MBP as a red hering, but for pitty's sakes... who ever heard of a red colored MBP?! Further hering is some kind of fish... MBP doesnt live in the water! B) He MUST prove that Al Gore is not mad, and that ManBearPig is real... He's cereal.... Contrary to the ramblings of JX, Al Gore DID invent the interwebs, and the combustion engine is the root to all evil. MBP struggles against the interwebs, and hoards of them work the Detroit autolines for free, spreading the evil of the combustion engine. 4) MBP will not be allowed to hide in the national parks and caves of this great nation. Nor will he be allowed to haunt Burbon street looking for cheap hookers, and fermented koolade. While everyone loves fermemted Koolade, I would ask JX to put down the cheep hookers and face reality. Nick will stop the evil that is MBP, it cant be denied... z) MBP fur undies are going to be all the rage around Christmas and Nick has to get Pilip a fresh pair. Ahhhhh.... MBP fur undies..... I hope that MBP gets away, I dont think he will but it would be good for his health...
Say what you will, but you know it's the truth. Rivers probably knows it too. Losing this game solidifies that brees is the better QB. We haven't beat a quality QB since the Giants in '09. Need to do it now.
You gotta know Brees has had this game circled on his calendar for a long time! Going to be a tough game
Don't tell Jared Allen about the MBP. He's living in fantasy land up in Minnesota: 'Asked Thursday if teams are blocking him differently, Allen said, “No. They’re still using human beings.”' Naive basticle
The Brees that left the Chargers and the Brees that now plays for the Saints is not the same quarterback. If it was the play calling and he was not allowed to audible out of it, I do not know. But it was very rare for the Brees on the Chargers to throw deep down field. With Brees at quarterback we averaged about 8 minutes to move the ball downfield to score points. Almost everything he threw was the short stuff. Once he left the Chargers and started playing for the Saints he started throwing the deep ball, and we all know how he has done since then.
So the system we had in place justified the lowball offer that had him looking elsewhere? I don't buy it. Either, the Bolts just didn't assess his ability well enough or he actually did need that lowball offer to get him playing better. But like I said above, it's a chain of ifs that gets the Bolts to a Super Bowl victory with Brees, and like you said, it's water under the bridge. As for the premise of this thread, I doubt there's a monkey on Rivers' back about the Brees thing. The only thing he cares about, football-wise, is winning a Super Bowl, independent of Brees' successes and failures.
Lowball offer? His throwing shoulder was a wreck, as his arm strength was a question here, and Rivers was sitting in the wings. The Saints were the only team that took a chance on him. Brees injury helped both teams as the Chargers and the Saints have a Quarterback. The Saints became a much better team with Brees as their quarterback. And Like I have said earlier, had Brees put up the numbers that he now is, he would not have walked. But he did not, his numbers did not justify a pay raise.
I want to see the Bolt defense bring a full beat down on Brees, no injuries just a good old fashion beating. He was useless as a charger and I have even less use for him now. H8er is right though, if Brees play half as good after he left while in SD the Bolts may have never picked Eli in the first place. River's was just a byproduct of Brees failures in SD and the eventual trade that brought him to SD. Point is, SD did very well and are none the worse for how it all played out. Move on, it will do y'all some good.
But you also hinted that his numbers were affected by the Chargers system ie he wasn't going to put up those numbers under Marty. The Chargers certainly weren't powerless to accurately assess the man. And like I said it's possible that the Chargers did accurately assess him and he did need the motivation after the lowball offer. And in retrospect, it was a lowball offer. Put another way, the Saints certainly justified their offer. I get that Chargers fans hate admitting we let a good thing go, given 20-20 hindsight etc, but it is what it is. Finally, full perspective on the situation requires dialing it back to '04: everyone knew what was going to happen when we drafted Manning and traded for Rivers. The clock was ticking at that point. I think so far we agree on everything except whether it was a lowball offer or not, and whether it was a Chargers' mistake. But that's enough fodder to keep going for awhile.
the bottom line is we have Rivers and the Saints have Brees, the Saints with Brees have one Lombardi and we have none. The Saints could justify their offer because they were able to see him and work him out AFTER his surgery. We saw him walk off the field with his right arm elevated and not moving.
In the game of football that I know, the opposing QB's aren't on the field at the same time. It will be Rivers' challenge to defeat the Saints' defense, Brees' to defeat the Chargers defense. The rest, IMO, is merely fodder for the media to use as a story angle. Not much to see here except another opponent standing in the way of reaching the post-season.
