When the news of the Chargers’ relocation from San Diego to Los Angeles came down during the offseason, quarterback Philip Rivers was left with a tough decision: Find a new home in Los Angeles or stay in San Diego and make the 80-mile commute to and from work everyday.
After speaking with his wife, Tiffany, Rivers decided to stay in San Diego this season and brave the 90-minute commute.
“We just thought it was best for me and my family to go this route — that it was at least worth a try this first season, being that it wasn’t too far,” Rivers said to ESPN. “There’s two things I didn’t want to compromise: I didn’t want to compromise my preparation/being a teammate. I love being a teammate, so I didn’t want to compromise that because I’m going back and forth. And I wasn’t going to compromise my time spent away from my family.”
Unlike the Rams’ 1,800-plus-mile move from St. Louis to Los Angeles, the Chargers relocation was close enough for Rivers and his family to remain in San Diego. After making the three-hour drive to LA and back with backup quarterback Kellen Clemens, Rivers looked for a different option. He concluded that if he was going to succeed with the commute and make the best use of his time, he was going to have to find a different mode of transportation.
Enter the Riversmobile, or as Rivers described it to the San Diego Tribune, “best QB room I’ve ever been in.”
Column Philip Rivers' new ride allows him to stay home https://t.co/wFhoIZedIr pic.twitter.com/COTJ0J8r2K
— San Diego Union-Tribune (@sdut) September 4, 2017
The custom SUV is fitted with a 40-inch television screen, Wi-Fi, a satellite, a small refrigerator and enough room for his 6-foot-5 frame and backup quarterback Kellen Clemens to ride in comfortably. The price tag is $200,000, plus the cost of the driver, but what it allows Rivers to do for his team is priceless.
“My two biggest things were my family time and my preparation and what I owe this football team,” Rivers said to the San Diego Tribune. “I was not going to sacrifice either of them in any big proportion. I can look at all the pluses and minuses and say, ‘OK. This does it.’ This allows me to get home in the 6-to-7 hour, which is when I got home the last 11 years, and it allows me to watch all or more of the film I watched before.”
The best part of the investment is it allows Rivers to be back in San Diego in time to pick up his kids from school on Fridays when the team has a home game. It also gives Rivers ample time to continue to pour into his 16-year marriage, which he talked about recently with Miles McPherson at The Rock church in San Diego.
“I think that the center of our marriage and the foundation of our relationship was on Jesus, that is why it’s worked to this point,” Rivers said.
The Los Angeles Chargers begin the 2017 season against the Denver Broncos on September 11 on Monday Night Football.
