NEWYou can now listen to Pakinomist articles!
Philip Rivers is expected to take the field for the first time in nearly five years as an NFL quarterback on Sunday for the Indianapolis Colts, at the age of 44.
Despite being on the brink of Hall of Fame eligibility, Rivers accepted the Colts’ offer to return to the game after the team’s Week-1 starting quarterback Daniel Jones suffered a season-ending injury.
For Rivers, it’s just another unexpected twist in one of the NFL’s more unusual stories.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON Pakinomist
Rivers is the son of a high school football coach and took up that mantle himself after his temporary NFL retirement
Rivers is the son of Steve Rivers, the former football coach at Decatur High School and later at Athens High School in Alabama. His mother was a teacher.
As a child, Philip contributed to his father’s team as a ball boy, but that was not all he did. According to The Los Angeles Times, during games, the young Rivers would sneak into the referees’ booth whenever his father’s offense was close to a first down. There, he observed how close the ball was on a first down, then held his hands apart toward the sideline to signal exactly how far to go to move the chains.
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Philip Rivers (17) drops back to pass Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, during practice at the Colts practice facility in Indianapolis. (Imagn)
“I felt like I could contribute,” Rivers told the outlet. “I felt like they really needed me to tell them if it was one foot or two feet.”
When the time came for him to start his own high school career, Rivers played for his father at Athens High School. However, he started his career at linebacker and didn’t even start playing quarterback until his junior year.
NFL LEGEND WHO PLAYED IN HIS MID-40S ‘ALARMED’ BY PHILIP RIVERS’ RETURN GIVES QB ADVICE
But when Rivers became a quarterback, he and his father succeeded as he earned all-state honors and a reputation as the best prep passer in the state of Alabama. It set him up for a college career at North Carolina State and eventually NFL stardom.
When Rivers first retired from the NFL after the 2020 season, he followed in his father’s footsteps by taking over as head coach at St. Michael Catholic in Fairhope, Alabama in 2021. He has gone 43-15 at St. Michael Catholic in his five years at the helm, most recently leading the school to a record 130215.
Rivers is the father of 10 children, and some of his new teammates are younger than his own children
Rivers and his wife Tiffany Rivers have been together since middle school and married when Philip was a sophomore in college in 2001.
Less than a year later, they had their first child, a daughter named Halle in 2002. The head start on family building gave the couple plenty of time to build a near-football roster of children as they went on to have nine more children together: Caroline, Grace, Gunner, Sarah, Peter, Rebecca, Clare, Anna, and their youngest, Andrew, who was born in 2023.
And just a year after Andrew was born, Rivers became a grandfather when Halle had her own child in 2024.
And it wasn’t even unique to Rivers’ family to have a massive list of children. It was expected.
Both Rivers and his wife are one of nine children born to each of their parents.
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Philip Rivers (17) on the sideline during the game against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium on Dec. 6, 2020. (Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports)
Back in 2019, before the birth of Anna, who gave the couple nine children, Tiffany told Women’s Wear Daily about Philip’s grandfather’s reaction to the news that they would be having their ninth.
“This is the third generation in Phillip’s family, which has seven girls and two boys, so we were pretty excited about that. When we told his 91-year-old grandfather, he said, ‘You didn’t have to go to the doctor to find out. I could have told you – it’s family history’.”
Meanwhile, at 23 years old, Halle is older than a handful of Rivers’ new 2025 Colts teammates, including rookie quarterback Riley Leonard, rookie defensive end JT Tuimoloau and rookie running back DJ Giddens.
Rivers’ body has already endured rare hardship before his unusually late return to football at age 44
Rivers has once famously gone through an injury that usually keeps players out for more than a year.
In the 2007 AFC Championship game against the historically dominant undefeated New England Patriots, Rivers played just six days after suffering a torn ACL and meniscus in his right knee.
Rivers limped his way through the game for the San Diego Chargers as his team dropped just nine points in a 21-12 rout.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE Pakinomist APP
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Philip Rivers (17) before playing against the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Wild Card game at Bills Stadium on January 9, 2021. (Rich Barnes/USA TODAY Sports)
He underwent surgery after the game and returned to the team in time for the start of the 2008 season.
Playing through that injury, Rivers snapped a historic streak of 224 consecutive regular season startsp from 2006 to 2020, making him the fifth-longest starting streak of any NFL player. He became the fourth NFL quarterback to reach 200 consecutive starts, joining Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning.
