K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune The Chargers starting offensive line – (from left) Mike Goff, Nick Hardwick, Jeromey Clary, Kris Dielman and Marcus McNeill – practice Thursday.

Philip Rivers was hit 10 times at Oakland on Sunday, sacked four times and knocked down after a half-dozen throws. He was harried and hurried in the muddiest pocket he'd had to operate in all year. “He got beat up pretty good,” center Nick Hardwick said. Head coach Norv Turner noted the peculiarity of Rivers being hit from rushes up the middle as well as outside, and he did not blunt his assessment.

• Cooper ready to go after four-game suspension

ANAHEIM – The Rally Monkey is slipping, and the Boston Red Sox are his banana peel. The patron primate of the Los Angeles Angels, the marketing masterstroke that has heralded so much comeback baseball, is evolving rapidly toward irrelevance.

FORT WORTH, Texas – Senior linebacker Russell Allen says he's never seen it. Coach Chuck Long, who originally said it never would be seen but watched it anyway, said it has since been thrown away.