By deciding to return to the NFL at age 44 and play Sunday in his first NFL game in almost five years, Philip Rivers has already created numerous positive outcomes.
Start with Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald.
Rivers’ comeback handed him a gift-wrapped message, sure to fire up his team.
“Fellas,” Macdonald can tell his players, “this guy thinks so little of you that he believes he can come out of retirement and beat your butts at age 44. We can’t allow that to happen.”
This improbable comeback is sure to be a boon to prayer life among fans of Rivers, the former San Diego Chargers star. Seattle’s scary defense will take aim at the grandpa QB in one of the sport’s loudest environments. Dear Lord, indeed.
“Fun story,” an NFL executive told The Athletic this week, “but I think it’s going to be a disaster.”
Say this for Rivers: his arrival perked up Colts blockers and their teammates.
Just last week, Colts quarterback Daniel Jones suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in a defeat. Jones was trying to overcome a fractured fibula that had slowed him and deepened the team’s recent tailspin following its 7-1 start.
With Jones out, the Colts turned to Riley Leonard. He’s a rookie trying to overcome a sore knee. Colts coach and playcaller Steichen said that his buddy Rivers, by accepting the offer to join the team, provided much-needed “juice” to the whole squad.
“It’s just a humbling experience to know that a guy like that still has a burning passion for the game of football and is willing to come back and help us in whatever way we need,” said Colts right tackle Jalen Travis, a rookie who’ll be pressed into the starting lineup Sunday.
Longtime Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers came into the NFL in 2004 and left on Wednesday without changing a bit. He just played and laughed and talked and won, with eight Pro Bowls and 252 consecutive starts, second only to Brett Favre. (Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images)
For NFL media partners tasked with voicing strong opinions, the Rivers comeback was a Week 15 pastry platter.
Availing himself, ESPN’s Ryan Clark — a former NFL safety — ripped the Colts’ braintrust.
“I believe this is incompetent. And I also believe it is irresponsible,” he said.
“This is not Michael Jordan coming back to play basketball after three years off for the Washington Wizards. This is a man in Phillip Rivers who was always a stationary target taking five years off to coach high school football and then coming back to play against the Seattle Seahawks, who would get after your keester if you were freaking Michael Vick.”
Back in his whippersnapper days, Rivers couldn’t outrun 350-pound tackles, much less linebackers and ends.
But almost everything else about him was above average, enabling him to start 240 consecutive NFL games.
What has changed with Rivers since his most recent NFL game — a strong January 2021 playoff performance for the Colts?
The Seahawks will reveal those truths.
It’s doubtful he’s appreciably slower afoot. The hardwired quick-throwing release and accuracy could still be there.
Remember, Rivers threw for the Colts on Monday, then led the team’s practice across the next three days.
You can be sure he watched dozens of NFL games the past five years, and that in his frequent chats with Steichen, they discussed Madonald’s clever designs that earned much NFL praise in 2023, when the Macdonald was coordinating an NFL-best Baltimore Ravens D.
It seems a reach that five years would’ve eroded Rivers’ durable physiology, a gift of nature more than Tom Brady-level obsessive nurture.
So, again, it’s not surprising that this rusty father of 10 believes he can still handle the basics: get the play called on time, make the adjustments before the snap and let it rip.
Unfortunately, he’s never had to gin up NFL clarity and precision in circumstances at all comparable to these. It’s an audacious thing to attempt.
Steichen held the door open. Rivers, in his words, said he had to choose whether to “walk through it and find out if you can do it, or run from it.”
It’s inspiring stuff, and that includes for the Seahawks, too.