Philip Rivers’ brief comeback is over \u2014 and apparently so is his career. Again.<\/p>\n
The 44-year-old quarterback who came out of retirement to try and lead the Indianapolis Colts back to the playoffs three weeks ago will not start Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans and\u00a0has likely taken the final snaps\u00a0of his 18-year NFL career.<\/p>\n
Coach Shane Steichen announced Wednesday, as expected,\u00a0Rivers would be replaced in the starting lineup\u00a0by rookie Riley Leonard in the Colts’ season finale Sunday at Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it just made the most sense for all involved to get Riley in there and let him get some work,\u201d Rivers said. “I know he\u2019s been preparing and working all year. Now he\u2019s going to get a shot to go out there and we\u2019re all pulling for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivers will likely be the emergency quarterback while Seth Henigan serves as the backup.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s going to finish this thing out and be a mentor to Riley and obviously, being from the same hometown as Riley in Fairhope, he\u2019s excited for that, and scout team and battle like crazy with the guys, but grateful for the three weeks that he came back,\u201d Steichen said. “Means a lot to a lot of guys in this locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indy (8-8) lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, one day after the Texans beat Rivers’ former team, the Los Angeles Chargers, to eliminate the Colts from the playoff race. Later Sunday, Rivers acknowledged he understood the circumstances and would support whatever direction the Colts went.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of emotions there,\u201d Steichen said. “Being 44 years old and coming out of this thing healthy is a blessing for him too, as well. So, he\u2019s grateful for that. And like he said, he wouldn\u2019t change anything. Coming back out here with the guys and battling, it\u2019s been an honor and a privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Rivers went 0-3 in what he described as \u201cthree bonus games\u201d following a five-year layoff, he certainly gave the reeling Colts a chance to win all three.<\/p>\n
Rivers helped the Colts take a late lead in Week 15 at Seattle only to watch Indy’s defense give up a late field goal in the final minute. His interception in the waning seconds sealed Indy’s 18-16 loss.<\/p>\n
In Week 16, against San Francisco, Rivers helped the Colts score 27 points \u2014 but the defense never forced a punt in a 48-27 loss.<\/p>\n
And last Sunday, Rivers’ touchdown pass to Mo Alie-Cox gave Indy a 17-14 lead over Jacksonville in the third quarter. The Jaguars, however, scored the final nine points of the game to hand the Colts their sixth straight loss, paving the way for Leonard to make his starting debut in the NFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this was the last one \u2014 shoot again, I told you guys I wouldn\u2019t have any regrets about coming back, and I don\u2019t,\u201d Rivers said Sunday. \u201cOther than us not winning, right \u2014 us not winning. It\u2019s been an absolute blast for three weeks. If I\u2019d go back and say, \u2018All right, now you know everything that is going to happen. What are you going to do?\u2019 I\u2019d do it all again. It\u2019s been absolutely awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivers was the most recent quarterback to lead the Colts to the playoffs in 2020. Rivers, also the coach at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Alabama, will turn the starting job over to Leonard, who played at a different high school in Fairhope.<\/p>\n
Indy is about to embark on yet another offseason full of significant questions, starting with either Steichen, general manager Chris Ballard or both could be out after becoming the first team in 30 years to start 8-2 and miss the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The quarterback carousel also could be spinning again.<\/p>\n
Rivers came out of retirement two days after Daniel Jones suffered a season-ending torn right Achilles tendon that could keep him out at least until the start of training camp, perhaps longer, and one day after Leonard arrived at the team complex with an injured right knee. Jones is set to become a free agent again in March.<\/p>\n
Though Anthony Richardson, the No. 4 overall draft pick in 2023, has been practicing each of the past two weeks, he’s still on the injured reserve list because of a fractured orbital bone near his eye \u2014 the result of a bizarre pregame injury suffered in the locker room when a stretching band snapped.<\/p>\n
Richardson is not expected to be activated Sunday and may not be back with the team after losing his starting job to Jones in training camp and throwing just two passes all season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s still got the eye limitations, and we just want to be really smart with that to be completely honest,\u201d Steichen said Monday.<\/p>\n
If he doesn’t take any more snaps, Rivers sounds content to finish his career sixth all time in career TD passes with 425, eighth in yards passing with 63,984 and ninth in career wins with 134.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah, yeah. I\u2019ll be right back on the sideline,\u201d Rivers said when asked if another comeback was out of the question, “which I\u2019m sure many watching probably said that\u2019s probably where you belong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philip Rivers’ brief comeback is over \u2014 and apparently so is his career. Again. The 44-year-old quarterback who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-380349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}