Fleet first brought it up, TTK posted the link, but it deserves it's own thread. Just when you think it can't get any lower, you have their two greatest active players getting into it.
Gates to Rivers: "I'll beat yo ass!"?
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Originally posted by 6025 View PostFleet first brought it up, TTK posted the link, but it deserves it's own thread. Just when you think it can't get any lower, you have their two greatest active players getting into it.
http://uproxx.com/sports/2015/11/ant...gers-sideline/
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Tempers flare between Gates, Rivers
By Chris Jenkins | 7:06 p.m. Nov. 22, 2015 | Updated, 7:06 p.m.
Even when the glass was half-full, Philip Rivers could make it sound like it was up to the brim. Brimming with hope. Brimming with optimism. Brimming with thoughts of … next week.
While a sixth straight loss and a no-touchdown game, certainly, the Chargers’ glass would appear to be bone dry after their sixth straight loss. Their quarterback clearly had had a lot of the half-full outlook pounded out of him by the Kansas City Chiefs – heck, by the months of October and November -- but he could still find a metaphor in the glass.
“Every guy cares, every guy cares for different reasons and every guy’s full glass of caring is different,” Rivers said after the 33-3 defeat. “It’s not to say we all care the same. That just wouldn’t be a true statement. We do have guys that it means something to them.”
Two of them were seen screaming angrily at each other during the game. One was Rivers. The other was tight end Antonio Gates, who appeared to be threatening the quarterback.
“Yeah,” said Rivers. “Really, what he said doesn’t matter. Brothers fuss and fight, if any of you have brothers. I love Antonio and I think he’ll tell you the same thing. It’s two of probably the most competitive guys on the team, been here long as anybody. I think we’re kinda at our last straw, you know?
“You’re sitting at 2-8 and he and I both, from being together so long, we’re like “C’mon, we gotta figure this out!’ I think it’s more that than anything. It’s kinda …whatever. We argued for a second. I don’t think either of us thought about it twice. Obviously, the cameras do. It’s no big deal.”
It is when the team’s star quarterback and a Hall of Fame-bound tight end are raging at each other in public. Especially these two.
Rivers and Gates – the two three current Chargers players who most appreciate the halftime induction of LaDainian Tomlinson into the Chargers’ Hall of Fame – have for years maintained a special friendship while hundreds of teammates came and went. With the intense focus they put into their epic card games in the center of the Chargers Park locker room, they can tune out everything but the competition between them.
Not surprisingly, then, Gates basically echoed Rivers’ post-game assessment of their flare-up.
“It’s just the losing,” said the tight end. “We’re two guys who love each other, out there competing. Things over the last six weeks, the struggling. That’s what it comes down to. Don’t nobody want it as bad as we do.
“We’ve tried so hard for so long. We both are in position to help the team. He saw something one way. I saw it the other way.”
The way the game shook out in the second half, though, there was a real question about whether some of the Chargers on the field cared at all.
“If we want to keep getting embarrassed like this, then we can lolly-gag around and we will. Jacksonville will beat us (next week) just like this if we do have that approach. Or we can go out there and beat Jacksonville. Either outcome is possible.
“I don’t know that one (possible outcome) is greater than the other. One would say that the former is probably greater just going off the last six weeks.”
For his part, Rivers said he thought the Chargers had themselves in the right place to upset the Kansas City Chiefs, thought they’d benefit from the bye week and thought they’d had a good past week of practice for K.C.
Indeed, the Chargers were only nine points down at halftime, albeit with only one 52-yard field goal by Josh Lambo on their ledger. Things went haywire in the third quarter, however, with a harried Rivers tossing an interception on a screen intended for Danny Woodhead.
The ball was picked off by linebacker Justin Houston, who’d actually been rushing on the play, then slid back with the read. He returned the theft 17 yards for a touchdown, the fourth pick-six against Rivers this season.
The touchdown-free game was Rivers’ first at Qualcomm since a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in 2012. In the end, then, Kansas City stuck the Chargers with their largest final deficit of any game this desultory year.
That’s thirty.
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Originally posted by richpjr View PostThe ball was picked off by linebacker Justin Houston, who’d actually been rushing on the play, then slid back with the read. He returned the theft 17 yards for a touchdown, the fourth pick-six against Rivers this season.Prediction:
Correct: Chargers CI fails miserably.
Fail: Team stays in San Diego until their lease runs out in 2020. (without getting new deal done by then) .
Sig Bet WIN: The Chargers will file for relocation on January 15.
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Originally posted by richpjr View PostWho said Rivers was never at fault?
Maybe I'm just getting tired of the "Oh poor Philip Rivers has to play in this mess" comments when the dude signed a hefty contract to do so knowing exactly what he was getting himself into.Prediction:
Correct: Chargers CI fails miserably.
Fail: Team stays in San Diego until their lease runs out in 2020. (without getting new deal done by then) .
Sig Bet WIN: The Chargers will file for relocation on January 15.
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Originally posted by KNSD View PostYeah you're right.
Maybe I'm just getting tired of the "Oh poor Philip Rivers has to play in this mess" comments when the dude signed a hefty contract to do so knowing exactly what he was getting himself into.
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