What Does the Future Hold for Philip Rivers?

For the past nine seasons, the San Diego Chargers have been led by quarterback Philip Rivers. The 33-year-old member of the famed "QB Class of 2004" has guided the Chargers to five playoff appearances, coming within a game of the Super Bowl in 2007.

Now, with Rivers heading into the last year of his contract and the Chargers facing an uncertain future, what would have not so long ago been unthinkable now appears a real possibility.

Just as the Bolts might, well, bolt San Diego, Rivers may just be about to begin his final season as the team's signal-caller.

Usually, by the time a superstar of Rivers' caliber hits the final season of his contract, player and team are already in overdrive where negotiations on an extension are concerned. With a quarterback, it's doubly so.

However, with the possibility of a move to Los Angeles hanging over the team like a rare Southern California raincloud, Rivers told Kevin Acee of U-T San Diego that he intends to play out the last year of his deal:

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What I can control and all I know as of today, I am signed up for one more year. I guess things could change, but with all the uncertainty in many aspects, I don’t see it changing before camp gets here, and when camp gets here I’m even more certain to play it out.

What we’ve established here with my growing family is hard to recreate. It’s hard to up and recreate that. I know that moves are part of life. But that certainly is fair to say that (not being sold on moving to Los Angeles) is part of it. The good thing is I’m not under contract in a year where we’d potentially be in Los Angeles.

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Growing? Phil, you've got seven kids. That family is grown.

Those statements were all it took to set off a firestorm of speculation on social media. Could 2015 really be Rivers' last season with the Chargers? Could the five-time Pro Bowler be traded before we even reach that point?

Back in December, Chargers general manager Tom Telesco sounded like a man who was intent on Rivers finishing his career in San Diego while speaking with Acee.

“We are committed to making sure Philip retires as a Charger," Telesco said, "and we will address that at the appropriate time.”

Now, however, Telesco refused to dismiss the idea of trading Rivers, instead telling Acee "I don’t like Philip as our QB, I love him. And I’ll go to war with him.”

Nice sidestep, Tom.

If Telesco truly is open to the idea of trading Rivers, there would be no shortage of suitors.

After falling off a bit and struggling with turnovers in 2011 and 2012, Rivers bounced back in a big way in 2013, passing for nearly 4,500 yards, posting the second-highest passer rating of his career and leading the Chargers to the playoffs en route to winning Comeback Player of the Year honors.

Rivers' numbers weren't quite as good in 2014, but he still ranked seventh among all NFL quarterbacks at Pro Football Focus and ninth in DVOA at Football Outsiders.

Even with Rivers well over 30 and commanding an annual salary in the area of $20 million a season, given the dire straits so many NFL teams find themselves in under center, Telesco's phone would be ringing off the hook.

Will Brinson of CBS Sports mentioned the Tennessee Titans as a potential fit:

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The Titans can say whatever they want about Zach Mettenberger but they need a quarterback. Ken Whisenhunt and Rivers would go together like spaghetti and meatball in terms of style, attitude and general intensity. We know they work too, because Whisenhunt did such an excellent job as Rivers offensive coordinator (in 2013) that he landed the Titans job in the first place.

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It would probably take a team like the Titans to pull a trade off. Because as Acee pointed out, were the Chargers to pull the trigger on this blockbuster, it would likely be with Rivers' replacement in mind:

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Numerous people in and around the league have speculated that the team could be serious about acquiring Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, whom they are scheduled to work out next month. While there are plausible explanations for investigating a first-round QB to that extent without intending to acquire him, Mariota is expected to be gone well before the Chargers pick at No. 17.

"

The plot thickens.

There are problems with the notion of trading Rivers, however. Assuming that compensation could be agreed on, there's no way an NFL team is going to pony up a package of picks unless Rivers agrees to a new contract as part of the deal.

And if Rivers is really dead set against uprooting his family from San Diego, that could put us right back where we are now.

A trade is probably the only way we'll see Rivers in another uniform, either this year or next. Letting a top-10 NFL quarterback reach the open market is the sort of thing that gets general managers fired.

The franchise tag remains very much in play as well. Yes, using the tag on Rivers would set the Bolts back over $20 million in 2016, but it beats the heck out of watching Rivers walk out the door without getting anything in return.

At that point things could get really ugly. Rivers has a reputation for being stubborn, and if he's that hell-bent on not playing for the Los Angeles Chargers he could (in theory) refuse to sign his franchise tender. He could even walk away from the game altogether. $20 million is a lot to leave on the table, but Rivers has already made well over $100 million as the quarterback for the Chargers.

This is as likely as not much ado about nothing. It's possible Rivers' statements are posturing. Just because he said today that he's going to play out the string doesn't mean that a week from now Rivers won't be grinning as he inks a fat extension.

And even if he does play out the last year of his contract, at this point there's zero guarantee that the proposed joint stadium venture between the Chargers and Oakland Raiders in La-La Land will come to pass. If I had a dollar for every time so-and-so was going to build a shiny new stadium in L.A. so that the Hoboken Whoevers could move there, I could take a nice vacation.

Maybe to San Diego.

Still, the longer we get into the 2015 season without Rivers having a new deal, and the farther along that new stadium proposal gets, the more the rumblings are going to grow.

That's bad news for the Bolts, because odds are replacing Philip Rivers isn't going to come as easily for the San Diego Chargers as the last time they switched out their franchise quarterback.

Gary Davenport is an NFL Analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter at @IDPManor.