Chargers should deal Rivers for Mariota
— -- During the Oakland Raiders' dominant run in the 1970s, team owner Al Davis would periodically ask head coach John Madden if it was time to consider trading starting quarterback Ken Stabler. Madden always said no to the trade consideration, but understood Davis was asking the question because he wanted to be able to trade Stabler when his perceived value was higher than his actual value.
The San Diego Chargers may be in a very similar situation heading into the 2015 NFL draft. Philip Rivers has indicated he does not want to move to Los Angeles if the club relocates there. His reticence looks to have opened the door to a potential blockbuster trade with the Tennessee Titans in which the Chargers would land Oregon QB prospect Marcus Mariota.
Trading the face of the franchise for a rookie passer might not seem like a good idea for the Chargers at first glance, yet the truth of the matter is there are many reasons to think that Rivers should be traded -- as his perceived value is currently higher than his actual value.
Rivers is not a top-five quarterback -- and he may not even be a top-10 quarterback by the end of the 2015 season
This finding shows up repeatedly in Rivers' rankings in the Total QBR metric. Last season he finished 10th in this category with a 66.8 mark. That ranking rises up to fifth if the measurement is moved to the past two seasons (69.3), but it moves down to 11th if the time frame is stretched to three seasons (61.2).
The latter trend holds up over the past four seasons (61.8, ranked 11th) and past five seasons (62.1, ranked 11th) and thus lends much credence to the idea that Rivers is a borderline top-10 NFL quarterback.
Some of this relatively low ranking stems from Rivers' subpar rushing totals, which hurt his value in relation to more mobile quarterbacks, but he ranked ninth in Total QBR last year when the measurement is limited to passing plays. That is not an anomaly, as Rivers also ranked eighth in Total QBR over the past three and four years when passing plays are the only elements accounted for.
His age almost assures some level of decline
Rivers just completed his 11th season as an NFL quarterback. Given the successful track record of some aging passers over the past few years, it may seem like Rivers should be able to continue producing at his current pace for as many as five more seasons.
Those exceptions notwithstanding, there is still a downward trend when passers get past their 11th season under center.
The evidence can be found in the league-wide average Total QBR marks for passers in the season they played in. (Note: The Total QBR metrics date back to the 2006 season.)
Quarterbacks in their 11th NFL season posted a composite Total QBR of 63.8. That number dropped to 62.3 in their 12th season, 61.6 in their 13th season, and 59.1 in their 14th season. The number moves up to 60.4 in the 15th season, but that number is skewed by the fact that Tom Brady and Peyton Manning account for 30 percent of the pass attempts of the 15th-season group.
This slow but steady drop-off is an indicator that Rivers will be hard-pressed to improve his Total QBR, much less keep it at its current borderline top-10 level.
Rivers' career game workload also goes against his being able to register five more productive seasons. He has already logged 148 career regular-season games. If he plays five more seasons, that would give him another 80 starts (assuming he does not miss any games) and would move his career total to 228 career games.
To get an idea of just how rare a feat playing that many games is, consider that a mere 102 players in NFL history have registered 228 or more career games. Only eight of those were quarterbacks and two of them (George Blanda and Earl Morrall) were backups for most of their careers. Rivers may buck the trend and end up starting for all of those seasons, but if he doesn't, or if he ends up missing starts due in part to the maladies of aging, his five-year value will decline even more.
Quarterback prospects with Mariota's attributes don't come around very often
There is risk inherent with any draft pick, but players with all of the positives Mariota brings to the table are quite rare.
Mariota mastered the Chip Kelly Oregon system to a level unseen before his arrival. Over the course of his college career, Mariota racked up a single-game Total QBR mark of 80 or higher against a major conference team 25 times, with 18 of those games occurring in the past two seasons.
He is the only Pac-12 quarterback to ever post two streaks of 200 or more consecutive passes thrown without an interception. Mariota also does a superb job on deep pass (16 or more yards) production, as he ranked first nationally in deep pass yards (1,777) and completion percentage (56.3) and ranked second nationally in deep pass touchdowns (20).
Another major factor in Mariota's favor is that he passes all of the "Parcells Rules" for drafting quarterbacks. Not many first-round caliber quarterbacks have done this since 1999, and doing so places Mariota in a category with Rivers, Drew Brees, Andrew Luck and Eli Manning.
The Chargers could end up getting nothing for Rivers if the proposed move to Los Angeles happens
With the recent report that an NFL executive warned the city of San Diego that time is running short for the city to complete a stadium deal that would keep the Chargers in San Diego, it seems the team's odds of moving to Los Angeles are getting stronger by the day.
If the move happens and has the side effect of either forcing Rivers to retire or to play out his current contract and then sign with another team, the Chargers will end up losing him while getting nothing in return. Trading him now may be the only option to prevent this scenario from happening.
Even if the franchise ends up staying in San Diego and/or it is able to keep Rivers beyond this season, this deal makes sense from a long-term perspective. Swapping Rivers for Mariota would likely result in a decline in the team's performance over the next one or two years, but after that time window, Rivers will likely be fortunate if he can keep his Total QBR mark at the 60-level. That bar is notable because, according to ESPN Stats & Information, since the 2006 season, starting quarterbacks in their third season have posted an average Total QBR of 52.3. Mariota should be capable of performing at least to that level, which would make him nearly equal in value to Rivers at that point and still leave the Chargers with another seven to 10 years of upper-tier starting-caliber value in their quarterback.
If San Diego is convinced Mariota has what it takes to be a franchise NFL quarterback, going up to get him now by trading away Rivers and suffering a slight short-term downturn is worth it for the long-term payoff.
The win-win structure of a trade with the Titans
The preferred trade type for most NFL personnel directors is one that offers a win situation for both teams. A deal that lands the Titans Rivers and the Chargers the No. 2 overall pick would certainly qualify as one of those.
San Diego's win would be getting a potential franchise quarterback in Mariota. Tennessee's win would be getting a passer who had one of his best seasons while operating in Titans head coach Ken Whisenhunt's offense when Whisenhunt was the Chargers' offensive coordinator in 2013.
Rivers would also get a win in that the Titans are located only 100 miles away from the town he grew up in.
Bottom line
The Chargers are certainly not the only team to want to move up for a chance at drafting Mariota, but no other club has quite as many motivations to make the move as San Diego. In fact, the number of reasons that favor making this trade far outweigh the case against it and should push the Chargers to do whatever needs to be done to make this deal happen.