According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo, the Indianapolis Colts are planning on working out longtime, since retired quarterback Philip Rivers, who played for the franchise during the 2020 NFL season:
Obviously, it’s desperation time for the Colts, who recently lost starter Daniel Jones (Achilles) for the season, and still have no set timetable for his primary backup, Anthony Richardson, to return from an orbital fracture.
Even third-string rookie quarterback Riley Leonard is now hurt with a knee injury, although head coach Shane Steichen is hopeful that he’ll be available on Sunday on the road against the Seattle Seahawks.
If Leonard is unable to go, the Colts would be down to practice squad quarterback Brett Rypien, who has 4 career starts—although they’ll likely add at least another quarterback to the roster this week for extra depth.
Having not played pro football since 2020, Rivers has since been coaching high school football for St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Alabama.
During the COVID-19 2020 campaign, the then 39-yard-old grizzled veteran completed 369 of 543 pass attempts (68.0%) for 4,169 total passing yards, 24 passing touchdowns, and 11 interceptions during all 16 starts. He helped lead the Colts to a wild card playoff road game that season, providing an accurate, consistent, and stabilizing veteran presence at starting QB, which was the last time Indianapolis has made the postseason.
However, that was close to five years ago, and the NFL is a young man’s game at starting quarterback.
Even for a potential future Hall of Famer like Rivers, who ranks 9th in completions (5,277), 7th in all-time passing yards (63,440), and 6th in passing touchdowns (421) in all-time league history, as an 8x NFL Pro Bowler for the Chargers organization, and who spent his final pro season in Indianapolis.
He has 240 career starts, having played 17 NFL seasons.
This could go a lot more like Kerry Collins than it will like Tom Brady for career-enders though.
Still desperate times call for desperate measures, and the Colts are still clinging to hope that at 8-5 and just outside of a playoff spot (and with no first round pick in 2026), they can make a late season push with potentially Rivers under center. That would’ve seemed shocking only a few weeks ago, but this is now the Colts new reality.
Rivers at least knows Shane Steichen’s offensive playbook, scheme, and his Colts teammates that are still playing for Indianapolis. He at least can run the offense and progress through his receiving reads, get the ball out fast—all while understanding passing protections, but the status of his 44-year-old throwing arm remains to be seen (which even lacked some zip back in 2020).
We’ll have to see how Rivers works out this week with the Colts, and whether he’ll be starting in Horseshoe blue surprisingly again—or whether he’ll elect to keep the football cleats hung up for good to continue coaching high school football and remain safely retired.
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