In the wake of the Chargers' loss to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, the public images of Philip Rivers and LaDainian Tomlinson have gone in opposite directions. The brash, trash-talking Rivers, who now admits to playing the game with one ACL, has been fast-tracked for canonization, while the humble Tomlinson, who played briefly before shutting it down, has been vilified as a soft, selfish teammate who pouted on the bench because he couldn't contribute.

On the San Diego Union-Tribune Web site, here's a typical comment about superhero Philip Rivers, from a Charger fan named Blue& Gold:

"Wow!!!! That's giving it up for the team!! This kid has some heart!!
Do you think either one of the Manning punks would've had the stones to do what he just did for his team mates? No way in hell, not in a million years.
Now, maybe Rivers will get the respect he deserves, not only as one of the best QBs ever at this stage of his career, but as one of the toughest."

Sorry, pal, but playing a game without an ACL doesn't make you tough; it makes you dumb. Discretion, as they say, is the better part of valor, and Rivers showed no discretion -- and contributed mediocre stats from the quarterback position -- while Tomlinson had the good sense to admit, "Ya know what, I can't go. Let Michael Turner and Darren Sproles play."

And so what happened? What production did the Chargers get from these respective positions? Rivers goes 19-37, with no TDs and 2 INTs, leading the Chargers to four measly field goals, even though the team won the turnover battle against the highest-scoring team in NFL history. Meanwhile, Tomlinson's backups rushed for 99 yards on 21 carries, averaging 4.7 yards per carry, which is EXACTLY what Tomlinson averaged during the regular season. So, Rivers grits it out, hobbles around like a wounded wildebeest for four quarters and earns the everlasting praise of talking heads like "Mad Dog" Chris Russo, who spent Monday drooling about how much he respected Rivers's play, and how he could "quarterback my team any day." On the other side, Tomlinson get vilified (and rightly so) for not standing up and rooting on his teammates. At the end of the day, however, who really helped his team more?

A dispassionate observer would have to say Tomlinson.

LT may have come up small in the teammate department, but at least he was wise enough to let other people - namely, his BACKUPS - do their jobs. Rivers, on the other hand, tries to pull some Curt Schilling bloody sock routine. The problem, of course, is that Schilling actually pitched great in Game 6 of the 2004 American League Championship Series. Rivers threw like...oh, I don't know, a guy playing without an anterior cruciate ligament?

Yesterday Rivers revealed that he had arthroscopic surgery last week to clean out loose cartilage, which enabled him to play.

"If I don't do that Monday, I had no chance of playing," Rivers said.

Um, good?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the chief reasons why football teams have backup quarterbacks is for instances when the starter has misplaced his ACL. I know football is a manly-man sport, and guys are supposed to play with bones sticking through their eyeballs, but this macho charade cost the Chargers a very good chance to beat the New England Patriots and advance to the Super Bowl. Billy Volek, who relieved St. Rivers after he martyred himself in last week's game versus the Colts, went 3 of 4 and led the team to a go-ahead touchdown on the road in that fourth quarter. Would it have been so bad to let him have a shot at the Patriots? After all Volek, who's started 10 games in his career and passed for 2,486 yards in 2004, brought both ACLs to the game on Sunday.

If Volek played in place of Rivers (particularly in the second half, when it was clear Rivers was struggling to move), would the Chargers have won? We'll never know, because Norv Turner agreed to roll out a hurt quarterback with a severe case of megalomania. Who convinced Turner that Philip Rivers, the 18th-highest rated quarterback in the NFL this season, was so irreplaceable that he had to play him, even with one leg?

We're going back a ways, but one of the all-time great Man-Up stories is about Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Youngblood, who played for the Rams with a broken leg in both the 1980 NFC Championship Game AND in the Super Bowl. That's hardcore, yet people don't talk about it that much; not nearly as much as Schilling and his bloody sock. Ya know why? Part of the reason, of course, is that Schilling is a self-aggrandizing loudmouth, while Youngblood isn't. But the biggest reason is that Schilling's team won the title that year, but Youngblood's didn't. This is but one example of how it's commendable to do whatever it takes to win -- just as long as you actually DO win.

You can say Philip Rivers was heroic for playing the AFC title game with no ACL, and you can say LaDainian Tomlinson hurt his team by not cheering from the bench. But really, who hurt his team more? The wanna-be hero who didn't get it done, or the affirmed superstar who let his backups take a shot?