FREE FALLIN?

By: Jason Snider

The winds of change have blown again this week in the NFL. Kevin Kolb has landed in Buffalo, Matt Flynn is now a Raider which led to Carson Palmer landing in the desert. This leaves the top quarterback in this years draft in a situation Brady Quinn, Aaron Rodgers and Jimmy Clausen can all relate to. The question is on April 25th, when ESPN is playing Tom Petty's hit "Free Fallin'", how far will Geno actually tumble? My scenario has him landing in a place not many may think of. This team has drafted a quarterback in the top 5 before even though they already had a solid starter at the time but could not pass up the chance of having two quality signal callers on their roster. In the 2004 NFL draft the San Diego Chargers selected Philip Rivers fourth overall even though they already had Drew Brees. Could they do it again? It's not as crazy as you may think. Rivers sat behind Drew Brees for two full seasons before Brees suffered a shoulder injury and the Chargers decided to let him walk. You can certainly argue if that was the right move or not, but that's not the topic of this discussion. Rivers is 31 years old and has seven full seasons as the starter for the Chargers. During his career he has averaged 3,963 yards, 27 touchdowns and 13 picks while completing nearly 64 of his passes. While those numbers are very good, the last two seasons Rivers interceptions have increased and his arm strength has taken a very noticeable decline. Enter new head coach Mike McCoy into the equation and it gets a little more interesting. McCoy coached two completely different style quarterbacks in back to back seasons with Tim Tebow in '11 and Peyton Manning in '12. He has shown that he can and will adapt his system to his quarterbacks strengths. Combine the organizations past history of drafting a QB when they already had one on board with McCoy's willingness to adapt his system to any style of signal caller, and it is not by any means out of the realm of possibility to hear Roger Goodell call Geno Smith's name when the Chargers are on the clock because as we all know, history has a funny way of repeating itself.