Phillip Rivers liked what he saw Sunday in Oakland.
OK, the San Diego Chargers' quarterback, who is in the midst of a terrific season, didn't like what he saw, but he liked the way it ended. He liked the way his team reacted.
Rivers is the first to admit that he didn't play up to par individually against the Raiders -- in what now will be remembered as Lane Kiffin's last stand as Oakland's coach -- and the team didn't play up to its potential. Yet, somehow, the Chargers found a way to win.
That's what thrilled Rivers. Trailing 15-0 at halftime, San Diego looked dangerously close to falling to 1-3 for the second straight season. All the progress that was made six nights earlier against the New York Jets on Monday Night Football looked as if it was going to disappear.
That was before the Chargers put together an incredible fourth-quarter run, outscoring the Raiders 25-3 to take a 28-18 victory back home. No, it wasn't San Diego's greatest moment. In fact, as a 60-minute affair, the win over Oakland was worse than San Diego's losses to Carolina and Denver, games in which San Diego had the lead in the final 30 seconds only to lose.
"We didn't play very well," Rivers said after the Oakland game."Sometimes, you have to win those type of games, though. You have to fight through it. You have to find a way to win those games that are a clunker ... Good teams do that. Good teams fight. I think this was a very good sign of things to come. This was a significant win for us. We fought."
Then Rivers, the Chargers' unabashed leader, smiled and said that if the NFL knows anything about the San Diego Chargers, it is that they are fighters.
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No Need To Panic
No Need To Panic
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