Philip Rivers is ready to go home.
The last four weeks he spent with the Colts were great -- no doubt about it. He was able to come back to the NFL as a 44-year-old grandfather and prove a lot of people wrong, showing that he could indeed still play in the NFL and lead a football team. He was able to set an example for his children and the high school football players he coaches at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Ala., showing it's okay take risks and believe in yourself, even when everyone is saying something else.
Now, though, he's ready to get back home to his family and his community, and settle back into the life he was living a month ago. His sons will soon get into spring football and he has his own goals as a high school coach that he intends to pursue. So while Rivers' focus will still be football, now it will shift back to being of the high school variety.
"I'm looking forward to going back home and getting back with those guys, getting back with my family," Rivers said Monday. "Gunner's senior season coming up, and we've been back-to-back semifinals, and hopefully we can get over the hump this year."
That answer came in response to a question about the reports that had begun circulating that Rivers would consider being an NFL head coach. With his proven football savvy and magnetic personality, Rivers does seem to have the makings of a possible NFL coach. And while he didn't strictly rule out the possibility on Monday, it's certainly not something that he said is even close to being on his radar.
"There's nothing of concrete with that," Rivers said. "I think if anything this past month has taught me is you're open, obviously, to anything, I guess. ...So, I don't have any of those things on my radar, certainly it's nothing that I would shut down before it even became a possibility."
"I do think, as humbly as I can say it, that I could coach at this level," he went on to add. "I know enough about the game and about the guys, and from a leadership standpoint, camaraderie, all that comes with it. But again, that's not something that I'm sitting here pursuing. Like I said, if anything I learned the last four weeks, is take it one day at a time. Because there was a Sunday afternoon – I had no thought of being in Indianapolis the next day. Then 24 hours later I was here, and I've been here a month exactly, or four weeks exactly to the day. You just kind of just go, take it one day at a time, be where you are, and go from there."
Rivers said on Monday he had not yet been approached by any teams about the topic.
