Philip Rivers celebrates birthday by shredding Jacksonville

Philip Rivers and the Los Angeles Chargers bounced back in a big way on Sunday, beating the Jacksonville Jaguars on the road by a score of 45-10.

The Chargers struck early and often against the Jags but it was Rivers, who turned 38 years old on Sunday, who had the most fun.

Rivers was talking trash on the field as only he can but he was also backing it up, passing for 314 yards and three touchdowns on the day. Just before the half, he hit Hunter Henry on a 30-yard strike. In the second half, he threw a pass out into the flat to Austin Ekeler and the running back turned that into an 84-yard touchdown. Rivers was jawing with Yannick Ngakoue following the play.

Later, Rivers threw a perfect strike to Mike Williams for a 44-yard touchdown. Williams showed off his amazing catch radius on the play and he hauled the pass in, his first touchdown catch of the season. Rivers was trash-talking all the way back to the sideline and the team chose to give him the rest of the day off.

The Chargers posted 525 yards of total offense, 195 of that came on the ground. The Chargers went 6-for-8 on third-down conversions and had 27 total first downs in the game.

Austin Ekeler stood out again with another top-notch performance as he went over the 100-yard mark in both rushing and receiving. He became just the second player to ever do that for the Chargers. The last time it happened? September 1985.

The Chargers have had a down year and came into this game on a three-game losing skid. But this win feels good, even if for no other reason than to see Rivers, the team’s starting quarterback since 2006, have one more great performance.

Happy birthday, Philip.