When Philip Rivers left the field at Qualcomm Stadium following a win against the Miami Dolphins last December, he felt pretty sure it would be for the final time.
His San Diego Chargers were facing what seemed at the time to be a likely relocation to Los Angeles. But then came a vote by NFL owners in January to move only the Rams to Los Angeles and a recent flurry of activity toward a new stadium in downtown San Diego that has Chargers players like Rivers feeling a little more secure about the team’s future.
On Friday, the Committee for Sports, Entertainment Tourism delivered 110,786 signatures to the San Diego County clerk necessary to get the stadium initiative on the November ballot. Those signatures were collected over the last six weeks. Rivers said he knows just having the initiative put up to a vote doesn’t guarantee anything for the team, but it is a significant development from where the team was in 2015.
“You still know there is going to be a November vote and it could be hanging over us wondering which way the vote is going to go, which is something we can't control. The best thing we can control is to go out there and win games” Rivers told USA TODAY Sports on Friday. “But yeah, for us and our family, we obviously don't want to go up the road. Not for any disdain for LA, but just because of our love for the community in San Diego and what we've called home for 12 years.”
Rivers, who spoke as part of a promotion for Gillette’s Go Ask Dad campaign, said it will be exciting to reunite with those fans at Qualcomm Stadium later this year.
“You saw it at the end of that Miami game, I was really emotional as well, and all the fans that stayed because you really thought it was the end of something, and to actually get it back, and to be going back to Qualcomm this year, I think maybe we'll appreciate it even more,” Rivers said. “Hopefully the fans we'll be re-energized that we're still in town and that can kind of kick start us this, because we all know we had a rough year last year (4-12), but hopefully the excitement from the Miami game, and then finding out we're staying, that can carry over into the preseason and we can get off to a good start.”
Follow Lindsay H. Jones on Twitter @bylindsayhjones
