Philip Rivers never imagined he would return to the NFL after retiring in 2020. He never felt a pull back to the field, he never second-guessed his decision to leave the game when he did. Rivers left the NFL with a sense of peace and satisfaction, knowing it was time to walk away.
But a phone call from Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard changed all of that, and in December 2025 Rivers made the comeback nobody ever imagined would happen – not even him.
"It was just one of those 'you can't make this up' kind of deals," Rivers said on a special edition of The Jack Doyle Podcast. "And I did feel like I had a little ball left in me when I decided to step away after the 2020 season, but it was the right time. And I look back and I still believe that to be true.
"...I was at peace. It was done. And this comes out of nowhere, and Shane and Chris are like 'Hey, think you can do it?' And I'm like, 'What a minute, are we serious right now?'"
The process to get Rivers to the Colts facility from his home in Alabama was a 48-hour whirlwind, from the Sunday night on which he received the phone call to the Tuesday on which he signed the papers to officially join the team's practice squad. It wasn't an easy decision for Rivers and his family to make, either. There were questions about how his 44-year-old body would hold up in practice, much less in a game. There were questions about whether he even had the ability to make a comeback after five years off, whether he should give it a shot knowing he could get hurt or be embarrassed on the very first play.
"It was a crazy 36, 48 hours, really, just wrestling with it back and forth," Rivers said. "The reasons to do it, I love to play, I still have the passion and fire to compete. And of course, my wife reminded me, 'You're gonna have that when you're 60, and you can't go back and do it.' And I was like, I know, and I'm not in the same shape I was in, but I'd actually been doing quite a bit the last couple months so I actually felt strong. And then it's like wow, it's the Colts. The place I was at last, there's 14 former teammates that are still here, a coach that I love and respect, an offense that I've ran. So those things all lined up."
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But, like any human, Rivers still had doubts.
"This doubt kept creeping in of, 'Can I do it? Can I actually do it?'" he said. "And that, for me, was actually swaying me away for a period of time. And then I got to where I was justifying it, like wait a minute. That doubt's okay, that's normal. 1,800 days you haven't played football and you're worried you can't do it, that's probably okay to feel that way. And I think that's what I had to get myself to say, that is okay to feel that. That's not a lack of belief. It's real, and that's okay."
And after a phone call with Frank Reich, Rivers called up Ballard and Steichen and told them he was in. He was in, no matter what happened – if he helped lead the Colts to a playoff berth, if he threw three interceptions in the first game or if he got hurt on the first drive.
"Shoot, the only way to find out is if you go for it," Rivers said. "Cause I knew I'd regret it. If I was just sitting at home the next week, having had the opportunity, I would have watched that Colts-Seahawks game going 'I should be there.'
"My only regret is that we couldn't find a way to get it done. But other than that, it's just nothing but gratitude and thankful for this opportunity."
