INDIANAPOLIS -- The biggest talk surrounding the quarterbacks in this year's NFL Draft has been about who will go first, Mississippi's Eli Manning or Miami of Ohio's Ben Roethlisberger, giving off the perception that this is a two-franchise quarterback draft.
Well, make it three.
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| Philip Rivers completed 71 percent of his passes his senior season at N.C. State.(Getty Images) |
"If I had to play a game right now," said one NFC scout, "Rivers would be the guy I picked. Now that might change for the long run, but he is the guy I think is most ready to come in and play. I love the guy."
What's not to love? Rivers started an NCAA-record 51 games in his four seasons in college, he measured in at a prototypical 6-feet-5 and 229 pounds Friday at the NFL's scouting combine here and he completed 71 percent of his passes last season as a senior.
Want more? He was the MVP of the Senior Bowl, watches more film than a college kid with that grainy Paris Hilton video and he loves working on improving his game.
That's why Rivers has become such a hot commodity, with word that the Pittsburgh Steelers will give him strong consideration with the No. 11 pick of the first round in April. Well, now he might not even last that long.
"I've heard some of the same things you all have heard," Rivers said when asked about his move up the boards. "I try not to take too much into the positive and too much into the negatives you hear and just keep on working."
On most team's boards, Manning and Roethlisberger are fighting for the lead, but Rivers is pulling up fast.
"I went there to study him this year thinking he would be a mid-round pick," said one AFC personnel director. "Then, the more I watched him the more I liked. He's productive. He gets the job done. Isn't that what this is all about anyway? Don't we look for guys who make the plays, no matter how they make them?"
The how they make them talk is a reference to Rivers' somewhat awkward throwing motion. Although he has a cat-quick release, the ball comes out lower than scouts would like, almost a sidearm motion with a shotput delivery.
Some scouts and coaches have mentioned changing the motion, but why mess with the success? Rivers is deadly accurate, he can make all the throws and the ball gets out on time. At 6-5, he shouldn't have problems getting passes knocked down, even coming lower with the ball than most coaches prefer.
"The ball gets where it needs to go," said the NFC scout. "Does it matter how it gets there? It doesn't have to look right. It just has to be right. In the past, that used to bother me. But the more I'm around players like that, the more I'm convinced it's about production. And he produces."
The unorthodox throwing motion is something Rivers said he has had since he was a kid. His father, a high school coach, once theorized that perhaps it came from his trying to throw a regulation football as a 3- and 4-year old while hanging around his dad's practices.
Whatever the reason, or the cause, it works. So why change it? Why make him do something that isn't comfortable just for the sake of aesthetics?
"If you took all 32 quarterbacks in the NFL right now and said, 'You throw, you throw,' none of them would look the same," said Rivers. "None of them throw the same. To me, everybody has a comfort zone about how they want to get rid of the ball. If it works, and it's not getting batted down and you are not inaccurate, then I don't see any problems with it."
The motion talk did come up Senior Bowl week, and he expects teams to bring it up again as he rolls through the scouting process, including in-depth interviews with the teams.
"For the most part, the feedback I've gotten is they're not going to mess with the motion," Rivers said. "If it ever became a problem, I will do all I can to get better and make it work."
No one doubts that. That's who Rivers is as a player, a hard-worker who tries to get better day in and day out.
Take the scene from last summer during Peyton Manning's football camp in Louisiana. It was a scorching July day, with temperatures near 100 and even hotter numbers on the artificial playing surface, and Rivers, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning were shirtless on the field going full-speed through quarterback drills.
These three were going at it as if they had a game the next day, prompting this question: What they heck are they doing out there in that heat?
Peyton, we know, is a tireless worker, and Eli doesn't fall too far behind in part because of peer pressure. But why in the heck was Rivers out there, too?
"I enjoy the game and working," said Rivers. "To be out there is great. To finish a day where you've thrown and worked hard and had a lot of fun, that's the kind of day to have in the offseason. That's one thing a team is going to get from me, the kind of guy who is there every day to work. I will give my all, which is one thing a team will be getting for sure."
They will also get a man mature beyond his years since he has been married for three years and has a son. This is not a street runner who will get into trouble. His life is his family and football, where he is a true student of the game.
Rivers, like both Mannings, is the type of quarterback that kills you with his head as well as his arm. He knows where to go with the football, cutting up defenses with his knack for finding the open receiver at the right time.
With his unorthodox motion and his ability to find the right receiver, Rivers has drawn comparisons to former Cleveland Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar, who never looked pretty passing for all his yards.
"Rivers has a better arm than Kosar," said the NFC scout. "But they do have similar styles. And all anybody said about Kosar was that it looked ugly but it worked."
It will work for Rivers, too. And that's why he has suddenly become the hottest player in this draft, a guy who could find his way into the top 10 -- which is where he belongs. Five years from now, we will look back on this quarterback class and consider it special with three franchise passers, one more than most thought a month ago.
