Over 1/4 of PhilRiv's passing yards so far this year came on cheapy little disguised long handoff stuff to his backfield, yards that padded his stats, increased his completion percentage and inflated his passer rating. Nobody wants to see that in the Pro Bowl. PhilRiv is an average quarterback with a good supporting offensive cast. The Chargers running backs and fullbacks catch the dumpoffs and run with the ball extremely well. You don't really have to be a great quarterback to do that and doing that doesn't make you a great quarterback.
I hate sticking up for a punk like Rivers

, but SD's top 3 RBs are averaging only
9 catches per reception and 54 yards per game this season.
now that's impressive. Rivers has thrown for 3515 yards
LT has 406 receiving
Sproles - 279
Tolbert - 171
Hester - 72
RBs - 928
928 / 3515 = 26.4%
I personally don't think that's an issue, a good QB utilizes his playmakers and works the offense, whatever it takes.
The Pro Bowl QBs have better WRs. Cutler has Marshall and Royal. Favre has Coles and Cotchery. Peyton has Wayne, Harrison, and Gonzalez. Rivers has Jackson, Floyd, and Chambers.When a QB has average WRs and good receiving RBs, it stands to reason he will throw to the RBs more often than other QBs who have better WRs.
Also, with regard to the notion that he has inflated his QB rating with throws to the RBs, consider Rivers' splits:
Pass Thrown Behind line - 104.3 QB Rating
Pass Thrown 1-10 yds. - 91.6 QB Rating
Pass Thrown 11-20 yds. - 100.9 QB Rating
Pass Thrown 21-30 yds. - 102.8 QB Rating
Pass Thrown 31-40 yds. - 93.8 QB Rating
Pass Thrown 41+ yds. - 127.1 QB Rating
He has been very good no matter where he throws the ball.
This analysis ignores the effect that these long handoffs have on the game. Do you think Phil's numbers would be better or worse if he hadn't had over 900 yards "passing" to his running backs? Do you think the team would have won more games or fewer games if the Chargers had thrown the ball down the field more often?
First of all, I didn't post any analysis, I posted splits and simply pointed out that he has been great this year no matter where on the field he has thrown the ball. That is fact, not opinion.Secondly, IMO players can only be judged on what they have done, not on speculation about what they might do in other situations (e.g., with different playcalling, with other teammates, on other teams, with better health, etc.). Basically, what you are doing is speculating, and there is no way to know or prove if you are right or wrong, though all evidence we do have suggest you are wrong.
Third, I believe your two questions here are basically combining to ask this hypothetical: if Rivers had not thrown as heavily to his RBs, wouldn't his numbers be worse?
Well, let's look at his numbers throwing to RBs and throwing to others. (These are from FBG.)
Targeting RBs: 97/126 (77.8%), 928 yards (7.4 ypa), 6 TDs, 0 interceptions, 112.8 QB rating
Targeting WRs/TEs: 179/294 (60.9%), 2587 yards (8.8 ypa), 22 TDs, 11 interceptions, 98.8 QB rating
7 attempts don't show up for some reason; I don't know why (thrown out of bounds with no reasonable target?)
Now, obviously it wouldn't be reasonable to say he should never have thrown to his RBs. So how much could Rivers have thrown to them and not been subject to this criticism? Well, let's just look at the 3 QBs who made the Pro Bowl ahead of him:
Manning: 101 of 548 attempts (18.4%)
Cutler: 52 of 522 attempts (10%)
Favre: 98 of 451 attempts (21.7%)
IMO it seems fairly obvious that Denver's attempts to the RBs were lowered by their string of injuries and revolving door at RB. IMO it is reasonable to take the median, Manning. So if we lowered Rivers' attempts to the RBs to 18.4%, that is 79. If Rivers attempted 47 more passes to his WRs and TEs, and we project out his current performance by position, we get:
RBs: 61/79, 585 yards, 4 TDs, 0 interceptions
WRs/TEs: 208/341, 3001 yards, 26 TDs, 13 interceptions
That totals to 269/427 (adding back the 7 unknown targets), 3586 yards, 30 TDs, and 13 interceptions. That's a 100.3 QB rating. So Rivers would still lead the league in TDs and QB rating.
Now, I anticipate you'll say if he threw less to the RBs, he would be less successful throwing to the WRs and TEs. Perhaps... but that also means his throws to the RBs could be more productive. All of this is speculation, which goes back to my earlier point. You can't justify that what I projected above is any less likely than a worse projected performance (or a better one, for that matter).
The whole exercise is silly, which is why your line of thinking is off base.