Report: Philip Rivers Would “Love” To Play For Titans

Sources tell Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports that Chargers QB Philip Rivers would “love to be in Nashville” and he would be “very amenable” to working out a long-term deal with the Titans.

Interestingly enough, La Canfora mentions that there’s a even chance that Rivers could take a discount to play for the Titans. La Canfora suggests a $64 million deal over the course of four years as a deal that could make sense for the two parties.

In the event that the Titans would want more for the No. 2 overall pick than just Rivers, La Canfora suggests that the Chargers could include another player or 2016 draft picks to bridge the gap.

There has been talk previously that in order for the Titans and Chargers to reach an agreement on a deal that would send Rivers to Tennessee for Oregon QB Marcus Mariota they would likely need an agreement in place some time soon, given that Rivers only has one year remaining on his contract.

However, La Canfora isn’t buying this and instead mentions that the Titans could wait until after the draft to make Mariota available for trade.

• It’s worth mentioning that Michael Gehlken of the Union-Tribune reported that the Chargers have not discussed a Rivers trade with the Titans “at all.“
• According to Gehlken, there has been on contact between the two sides. Although, Gehlken cautions that this could change over the next week.

Chargers GM Tom Telesco said that they plan on Rivers being their starting quarterback moving forward, he didn’t exactly put an end to the trade speculation that has been going around for several weeks now.

“There really is no update,” Telesco said, via NFL.com. “It’s the same thing I’ve said for the last four months, Philip’s our quarterback and it’s our plan and intent that he’s our quarterback well into the future.

“In all my discussions with him, he’s shown a great amount of respect for his teammates and a great amount of respect for this organization. He’s been here every day working extremely hard working with his teammates being the leader that he is. … I know he’s really excited about this season, as are we, and we move from there.“

According to La Canfora, Rivers and the Chargers will not have a long-term extension in place at any point in the near future, so this situation is likely to extend into next season. La Canfora doesn’t rule out the possibility that Rivers could retire if the team elects to franchise him in 2016.

Rivers, 33, is entering the final year of his seven-year, $98.25 million contract that included $38.15 million guaranteed. He stands to make a base salary of $15.57 million for the 2015 season.

Despite dealing with some injuries last  year, Rivers was able to put together another solid season for the Chargers in which he threw for 4,286 yards while completing 66.5 percent of his passes to go along with 31 touchdowns and 18 interceptions.

Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 7 quarterback out of 39 qualifying players.