Hot! Philip Rivers

Philip Rivers has become the unquestioned leader of the San Diego Chargers. One of the first to arrive at Chargers Park each day, and last to leave, Rivers is one of the team s most popular players and a reigning three-time team MVP, as voted by his teammates. Charismatic both on and off the field, Rivers can usually be found exchanging friendly banter with locker room neighbor Antonio Gates or engaged in a game of dominoes with fellow signal-caller, Billy Volek.

Ranked as the NFL s 26th best player in a recent poll conducted among his peers, Rivers had an all-star season in 2010, one that ended with him finally getting to play in the Pro Bowl. A three-time all-star selection, Rivers missed the previous two opportunities due to injury and the birth of his son, but he finally made it to Hawaii and played in this year s game.

Rivers 2010 numbers were astounding. With a cast that included a team-record 17 different pass catchers, he threw for an NFL-leading 4,710 yards, 10th-most for a single season in NFL history. On pace for 5,000 yards much of the year, Rivers eventual total was third-highest in franchise annals. And he set a new career high with six 300- yard games, including a team-record 455 in the Chargers Sept. 26 game at Seattle. The 4,000-yard season was Rivers third-straight, tying Fouts for the most-consecutive 4,000-yard seasons in team history. By the midpoint of the 10 season, Rivers managed to throw for 2,649 yards, a new NFL record for the first eight games of the season, another mark which Fouts (2,580) had previously set (1982). Included among his yardage totals, Rivers completed an NFL-leading 66 passes of at least 20 yards, while 12 of those went for touchdowns, second-most in the NFL.

Speaking of touchdowns, Rivers again found the end zone with regularity in 2010, tossing 30 touchdown passes and becoming the first quarterback in team history to throw more than 25 in three-straight seasons. It included a team-record stretch of 23 straight games with a touchdown pass, surpassing the previous mark of 20-straight set by Fouts in 1979-80. Among that streak was a pair of four- TD efforts in consecutive games at Houston and against Denver, equaling a feat that only Fouts (1985) and Drew Brees (2004) both accomplished for the Chargers. Eleven different players caught touchdown passes from Rivers in 2010, most in team history for a non-strike season.