Philip Rivers approached the temporary podium, set up behind an end zone on a UC Irvine practice field, and started taking questions from a group of reporters. It was late in the afternoon on Aug. 3, and the Chargers and Rams had just wrapped up their second of two joint training-camp practices.



I had started on the Chargers beat less than two weeks earlier, and this was my first time at one of Rivers’ press availabilities. I noticed immediately that the quarterback had a favorite pet word. While most people say “um” or “like” when trying to gather their thoughts between phrases, Rivers, in his Alabama twang, prefers the word “shoot.”



Here is a sampling from that day’s media session, which lasted just shy of seven minutes.



On how the offense performed against the Rams’ defense: “Shoot, there’s a lot of good versus good out there. I mean, shoot, this team was in the Super Bowl last...