The biggest argument for Rivers’s Hall of Fame entry revolves around his total passing yards and touchdowns. So, how did Rivers accumulate so many passing yards if he isn’t a Hall of Fame quarterback? In part, by having ample opportunities due to frequently trailing in games. Teams that trail are more likely to pass in an effort to catch up, giving quarterbacks more opportunities to compile passing yards. Almost half of Rivers’s passing yards, 30,769 out of 63,440 (48.5 percent), came with his team struggling to catch up on the scoreboard. If we look at quarterbacks with at least 40,000 passing yards since 2004, Rivers’s rookie season, only Matthew Stafford (55 percent), Eli Manning (53 percent) and Carson Palmer (49 percent) had a higher share of yards produced while trailing than Rivers. That’s in stark contrast to Brady (31 percent), Peyton Manning (35 percent) and Rodgers (38 percent), three clear Hall of Fame quarterbacks.