It took a while for Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers to get used to his abbreviated preseason workload.

Knowing that he would be limited to a few series Thurman Thomas Jersey , Rivers struggled to resist the urge to create a big play where none existed.

"And then you throw an interception, and then it ruins the night. You're standing over there all day going, 'What in the world did I throw that ball for?'" Rivers said Thursday.

Rivers will get to put that mindset to work when Los Angeles hosts Seattle on Saturday night in the Chargers' second preseason game, but LA head coach Anthony Lynn believes exhibition games still play an important role in player development and evaluation.

In nearly a quarter-century as an NFL player and coach, Lynn has seen the change in how teams approach the preseason up close.

He points to the introduction of the salary cap in 1994 as the root cause for the increased caution, citing the inability for teams to stockpile depth as they could before. The Chargers plan to hold out defensive end Joey Bosa, guard Forrest Lamp and wide receiver Tyrell Williams against the Seahawks because of injuries, and Lynn indicated he would be cautious with rookie linebacker Kyzir White, who is dealing with sore knees.

Lynn did not share his opinion when asked if the preseason should be shortened from its current four-game slate, but said, "You have Hall of Famers that never would have been in this league if you shorten the preseason, so the argument goes both ways."

Rivers has appeared in two preseason games in each of the last three years, attempting 12 passes in each of the last two, and there is no reason to expect that will change.

Instead, Rivers expects joint practices with New Orleans next week to be more valuable than the limited runout he will get against the Seahawks.

"Those are like stealing game reps even though you're not live as far as contact. You're getting to experience going against another defense, so it turns into pretty much a game setting Darius Leonard Jersey ," Rivers said.

Still, he finds it hard to turn off his competitive instincts and save elements of the game plan for when it counts against Seattle.

"We play them in the regular season so you see things you want to run and then you go, 'Don't run it. Let's save it,'" Rivers said. "I'm sure it's the same for them on defense. It'll certainly be vanilla I would think from both sides, so it's just about executing and being efficient."

An opportunity to get into the rhythm of the work week is what Rivers takes away from his first preseason action.

"For me, I like to do it not so much as it is preparing to go win the game but more so to get me into that in-season mode of preparing," Rivers said. "Watching the pressures, watching the third downs. Going through studying the game plan sheet we get, just to get back in that mode so you don't just try to turn it on in Week 1."

Rivers is looking forward to working with new center Mike Pouncey in a competitive setting for the first time, as well as throwing passes to the tight ends looking to replace Hunter Henry, who is out for the season because of a knee injury.

While he acknowledged it would be difficult to prepare for the coming year without some snaps in a preseason game, Rivers has no doubt tight end Antonio Gates could step right in after playing together for 14 seasons. However, Rivers did not know where the team's interest in bringing back the free-agent Gates stood.

"If I was into all the social media, I could have screenshot a couple and put them out there, but I got nothing new," Rivers said. "I don't know if they are still talking or not. Again http://www.buffalobillsteamonline.com/patrick-dimarco-jersey , if he's here one of these days in the next three weeks, it would be great. I don't think it needs to be real soon. If there's one guy that would know what to do and would pick it up pretty quickly, it would be him."

Atlantic City is dreaming of vast new riches that might come its way if the U.S. Supreme Court legalizes sports betting here and across the nation, but some analysts say the state might do well to curb its enthusiasm a bit.

While acknowledging that any new money would be a help, these analysts caution cite the level of business that sports betting generates in Nevada, the only state where single-game wagering is currently legal. Even with most of the country to itself in terms of the sports betting market, Nevada gets only a minuscule portion of overall state gambling revenue from such bets.

The Supreme Court will decide by June whether to overturn a federal law banning sports betting in all but four states that met a 1991 deadline to approve it: Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon.

In a recent research report, Moody’s Investors Service noted that ”to date, legal sports winnings have been fairly slim.”

In Nevada, sports betting accounts for just 2 percent of statewide gambling revenue. Over the past 12 months, casinos won $215.3 million on sports bets, for a win percentage of 4.8 percent.

”From this win, the operators must pay taxes and expenses of operating the business, resulting in a very low profit margins and a small percent of overall earnings Josh Sitton Jersey ,” the company wrote.

In New Jersey, Moody’s estimated sports betting could initially bring in $108 million, or about 4 percent of New Jersey’s annual gambling revenue.

In contrast, internet gambling brought in $245.6 million last year in New Jersey, or more than 9 percent of the state’s gambling revenue.

Last week, Atlantic City casino and elected officials lamented the loss of sports betting revenue they would have expected to garner with the local team, the Philadelphia Eagles, in the Super Bowl.

City Councilman Marty Small called it ”a lost opportunity” and predicted the casino hotels would have been sold out for Super Bowl weekend. While not offering specific dollar estimates, some casino executives said the big game would have driven significant new customer visitation to the resort in order to bet on it, stay in hotels, and to eat, drink and gamble in casinos.

Numerous Eagles fans interviewed last week said they would flock to Atlantic City to place legal bets on their heroes, if only they had the opportunity, including some who haven’t been to the seaside gambling resort in years.

Many gambling stakeholders cite market size figures that estimate the volume of betting that will occur if sports betting is legalized, said Brendan Bussmann, director of government affairs with Global Market Advisers Jerry Hughes Jersey , a Las Vegas casino consulting firm. Such estimates substantially overstate the size of the sports betting opportunity for casinos because only 5 to 7 percent of the amount bet is held by operators as revenue, he said.

”This low level of hold, combined with low profit margins, make the industry relatively delicate,” he said. If prohibitively high tax rates are imposed by states, ”a market will not be able to attract operators, as there will be little to no money to be made.”

He cited the 34 percent tax rate (plus an additional 2 percent local cut) set by Pennsylvania on sports betting revenue as an example, saying ”34 percent of zero is still zero if no one enters the market.”

Global Market predicts that, with sports betting legal across the country, New Jersey would rank third by 2023 in terms of sports betting revenue with a minimum of $237.8 million. That would trail California at $295 million, and Nevada at $283.3 million. Those are low-end estimates, with high-end estimates reaching over $1 billion in California, $354 million in Nevada and $297 million in New Jersey.

But Moody’s also expects sports betting to help brick-and-mortar casinos earn money from renting rooms and selling food and drinks to customers – things Atlantic City casino officials are already anticipating doing.

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