One of the winners in the 2017 NFL draft? Philip Rivers. One of the potential losers?

One of the winners in the 2017 NFL draft? Philip Rivers. One of the potential losers? His team, the San Diego — sorry, Los Angeles — Chargers.

We here at Shutdown Corner deemed Rivers a winner because of the supporting cast the Chargers added for him, including Clemson receiver Mike Williams, Western Kentucky guard Forrest Lamp, and Indiana guard Dan Feeney. Those players will give Rivers both protection and offensive options.

What they won’t do is take years off Rivers’ driver’s license. He’s 35 now, he’ll be 36 in December, and that’s the point at which teams need to start thinking succession plan. But for the fourth straight year, the Chargers didn’t draft a quarterback. And that’s starting to raise a few questions about who’s the next top dog for the Chargers.

   Who’s going to replace Philip Rivers? No one knows yet. (AP)“When you go into the draft, there’s a lot of different things you’d like to do and don’t always get it all done,” Chargers general manager Tom Telesco told ESPN, when asked why Los Angeles didn’t take a quarterback. “There were a couple situations where we thought it might happen, but we didn’t quite get there.

 

”Granted, quarterbacks are playing longer than ever before. Drew Brees is almost three years older than Rivers. Tom Brady will be 40 when the season starts. So it’s not like Rivers is on his valedictory lap just yet.But Ben Roethlisberger, who flirted with retirement this past offseason, is three months younger than Rivers. There’s always the injury possibility. And the Chargers aren’t exactly stacked with backup options. There’s Kellen Clemens, the well-traveled backup who’s 33 years old. There’s Mike Berkovici, who hasn’t played a single snap in the NFL after starting only 16 games at Arizona State. And there’s Eli Jenkins, a quarterback from Jacksonville State who doesn’t even have a number on the current Chargers roster.A strong, franchise-level quarterback is cost-of-entry for an NFL team today; the list of teams that make the playoffs without one is minuscule, and the list of quarterback-weak teams that could make the playoffs in competitive divisions like the AFC West is shorter still. 

The Chargers are holding an ace in Rivers, but if they’re going to stay relevant in Los Angeles over the long term, they need to decide on the quarterback that’ll be under center in 2025 very soon.

NFL exec warns San Diego that time is short on stadium front....

By BERNIE WILSON (AP Sports Writer) 23 hours ago AP - Sports

 

 

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- With momentum building for an NFL team to move to Los Angeles, ''time could be quite short'' for San Diego to resolve the contentious issue of building the Chargers a new stadium, the NFL's point man on relocation said Tuesday.

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Eric Grubman, the NFL's executive vice president, met with a sub-group of Mayor Kevin Faulconer's Citizens Stadium Advisory Group a week after holding a conference call with the full group.

Afterward, Grubman said that while the advisory group seems enthusiastic about finding a solution, ''as of yet, there hasn't been any proposal that would get everybody on the same page. That to me is really the next task.''

Grubman said, however, that he didn't come to town expecting everybody to be on the same page.

''That's not unusual,'' he said during a news conference. ''At the point in time where everyone decides to dig in and try to get a project done, almost always people are on different pages. They have to work to get on the same page. What's different here than in some of the cities that we've worked with, is the time frame to work through those differences and get on same page, that time could be quite short.''

That's because the Chargers and their biggest rivals, the Oakland Raiders, in February announced plans to build a $1.7 billion stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson if they don't get new stadiums in their current hometowns.

The AFC West foes were responding to the possibility of the St. Louis Rams moving to Los Angeles. Rams owner Stan Kroenke is part of a joint venture that wants to build an 80,000-seat stadium in the L.A. suburb of Inglewood.

The advisory group has set May 20 as its deadline for announcing the plan it will recommend to Faulconer for financing a new stadium at the site of aging Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley.

''I haven't heard the Chargers express support for what we're doing yet, but we're at the early stages,'' advisory group chairman Adam Day said during a separate news conference. ''This is just the beginning. When we hand off our recommendations to the mayor, that really is the starting point for the city and the team to start negotiating the final details. But I would agree that what we recommend will need to be embraced at some level by the team, and we hope we'll put together a plan they will support.''

Day said the meeting with Grubman was positive and ''helped bring CSAG and the Chargers closer together today. We discussed the art of the possible and the importance of working together to develop a financing plan that's fair and works for San Diego and the Chargers. We all left the meeting feeling good about where we're at and what's ahead. That said, we still have a lot of work to do to meet our objective.''

Faulconer has said he wants the issue decided by a public vote, which could be county-wide. That vote could be in June or November 2016.

However, Grubman said waiting that long could be ''a risk that's probably difficult for a team to bear. ''
Currently, the window for a team filing an intent to relocate is between Jan. 1 and Feb. 15.
Chargers point man Mark Fabiani declined to comment.
Fabiani, who represents Chargers chairman Dean Spanos, criticized Faulconer in January for forming the advisory group. Fabiani then warned the panel not to come up with any ''half-baked'' stadium schemes and said the team has ''no intention of quietly participating in any effort to provide political cover for elected officials.''
While telling the advisory group that the team would support a stadium either downtown or at the current site, Fabiani has suggested that Mission Valley is a ''complicated site.''
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Task force members holding line in Chargers stadium tussle

 

 

By BERNIE WILSON (AP Sports Writer) 44 minutes ago AP - Sports

 

 

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Members of Mayor Kevin Faulconer's advisory group are holding the line against Chargers point man Mark Fabiani, who is lobbying for a new stadium downtown even though the task force determined the best spot for a new home for the team is in the area where it plays now.

The advisory group members also discount reports that financing a replacement for aging Qualcomm Stadium would require a massive development in Mission Valley. The group has said the financing plan will be diverse.

The advisory group was under the impression that Fabiani plans to tell NFL owners meeting in Phoenix this week that the Chargers have figured out what the nine-member panel will include in the financing plan.

However, the group isn't due to announce its financing plan until May 20.

''Anyone who suggests they know what's in our plan is lying,'' advisory group chairman Adam Day said Monday.

The advisory group moved up its timetable after the Chargers and their biggest rivals, the Oakland Raiders, announced plans to build a $1.7 billion stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson if they don't get new stadiums in their current hometowns.

The AFC West foes were responding to the possibility of the St. Louis Rams moving to Los Angeles. Rams owner Stan Kroenke is part of a joint venture that wants to build an 80,000-seat stadium in the L.A. suburb of Inglewood.

Fabiani declined to comment when asked what he planned to say at the owners' meetings and why he continues to lobby for a downtown site.

Advisory group member Jim Steeg said the panel is looking forward to meeting next month with Eric Grubman, the NFL's point man on Los Angeles. ''We'll tell him exactly where we stand and what we plan to get accomplished. It's not going to be tainted by other things, such as, 'This is what I think they're thinking,''' Steeg said.

The advisory group announced March 11 that building a new stadium near the old stadium would save at least $250 million and avoid delays since the city owns the 166-acre site.

Last week, Fabiani told KPBS that Mission Valley ''is a complicated site'' and ''the community there is very much against a huge development, as they should be because the community is awfully crowded the way it is.''

The advisory group is ''not going to be distracted by people who are trying to pull us back downtown,'' Day said.

''Obviously a handful of people have spent a lot of time and invested a lot of money for plans for a stadium downtown,'' Day said. ''I can understand if they're frustrated. But what might work for them financially doesn't work for the taxpayers. Mission Valley is the superior site. It's cheaper, quicker, easier. Anyone who believes that a stadium downtown can be done more cheaply and more quickly is delusional.''

Day and Steeg pointed out that a decade ago, the Chargers wanted to develop the 166-acre Qualcomm site at maximum density to pay for a new stadium.

''Could there be development? Absolutely,'' Steeg said. ''Massive? Not happening.''

Day has reiterated that the advisory group will not recommend a financing plan that needs approval of two-thirds of the voters. Most people think such a measure would have no chance of passing.

A downtown stadium would have been financed in part by a hotel tax that would have required two-thirds approval.

Any franchise would need the support of three-quarters of the league's 32 owners to move to the nation's second-largest market, which hasn't had an NFL franchise since 1994.

Steeg is a former NFL executive who ran the Super Bowl for 26 years. He also worked for the Chargers from 2004-10.

Steeg said Fabiani could be trying to create the impression there isn't unity in trying to solve San Diego's long-running, contentious stadium issue.

Having worked for the NFL for so long, Steeg said he's confident the owners will make the right decision regarding the Chargers.

''That's the great advantage of requiring a three-quarters vote of ownership,'' Steeg said. ''It's not five guys controlling it. It takes 24. Collectively, historically, they have made the right decisions.''

Steeg said he thinks Faulconer's intention to solve the stadium problem has thrown Fabiani ''off script.''

''Potentially, they were marching down the road to Carson quietly last fall,'' Steeg said. ''Now they can't quietly slip out of town. I'm not a believer that magically out of nowhere, from January to February, Carson developed in one month.''

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Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/berniewilson

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