Rivers threw three touchdown passes, and San Diego's defense stuffed quarterback Matt Cassel on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line to highlight a 30-10 win over New England on Sunday night.

Rivers and the rest of the Chargers (3-3) know that beating the Patriots doesn't make up for the loss that kept them out of the Super Bowl or that mind-numbing home playoff defeat two seasons ago.

What it did, though, was put to rest the questions about the Chargers' maddening inconsistency, especially since they head out on a long and winding trip that takes them to Buffalo and then London for a game against the New Orleans Saints.

''This was obviously a big game for us,'' Rivers said. ''We didn't intentionally downplay it. It wasn't necessarily a payback game at all. But it was big because of the situation we are in, because it gets us back to .500 before we go on this world tour here the next couple of weeks.''

Rivers drew raves for his toughness by playing the AFC championship game with a shredded ligament in his right knee, but he couldn't get the Chargers into the end zone that day and they lost 21-12 to the Patriots at Foxborough.

He had no trouble Sunday night, when he threw touchdown passes of 49 yards to Malcom Floyd, 4 yards to Vincent Jackson and 1 yard to Antonio Gates. It was the fourth time this season that Rivers threw three TD passes. He completed 18-for-27 for 306 yards.

Of course, the Chargers didn't have to face Tom Brady, out for the season with a knee injury. Cassel, making his fifth career start, was sacked four times and intercepted once. He was 22-for-38 for 203 yards.

''We knew that there was going to be a lot of energy in the stadium tonight. We knew that they were gonna come out and try to shut us out early,'' Cassel said. ''They did a good job. They got ahead, and we weren't able to really catch up and score points.''