Philip Rivers: I wish we played better when we were the favorites

[Bolt]

Getty Images

Philip Rivers saw the Chargers open the 2017 season with four straight losses before closing the year with nine wins in their final 12 games and the quarterback’s been on other teams that had to rally after slow starts in order to advance to the postseason.

Rivers and the Chargers are hoping that’s how thinks play out this season. A 2-5 start left them with a lot of work to do, but they got started with two straight wins that leave them with a chance to go into their Week 12 bye with a winning record.

That would be ideal for Rivers, but he spent some time after Sunday’s win over the Packers lamenting the fact that the team took so long to get going.

“For whatever reason we just play a little better when it’s, ‘Oh, it’s Chargers. They’re not going to do anything,'” Rivers said, via Albert Breer of SI.com. “I wish we didn’t do that. I wish we played better when ‘the Chargers are the favorite.’ Like, golly, you look back and if we just got Tennessee or we just got Detroit or Houston, just one of them, then you go, ‘Man, we’re sitting in good position.’ We still have a ways to go and a lot is gonna happen in these next two. . . . We’ll see where we are with only five to play after these next two.”

The Chargers are in Oakland on Thursday and the early line has the Raiders installed as favorites. A date with the Chiefs in Mexico City waits in Week 11 and the Chargers will likely be the underdogs for that game if Patrick Mahomes is back in the lineup for Kansas City.

That may not mean the Chargers are going to win, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about underperforming as favorites.