Who in the world wants to watch Grandpa Philip Rivers? Answer: Everyone Jay BusbeeDecember 22, 2025 at 10:22 PM 2 Just think, for a moment, how you'd look in a pair of formfitting football pants and a tightaroundthebelly jersey. Would you look like a honed specimen of humanity, lean and taut and ready to explode? Or would you look like 10 pounds of sausage in a fivepound casing, busting the seams? If you're being honest, you, me, and pretty much everyone both of us knows would look a whole lot more like a sausage than a specimen. A whole lot like Philip Rivers does, honestly.
- - Who in the world wants to watch Grandpa Philip Rivers? Answer: Everyone
Jay BusbeeDecember 22, 2025 at 10:22 PM
2
Just think, for a moment, how you'd look in a pair of form-fitting football pants and a tight-around-the-belly jersey. Would you look like a honed specimen of humanity, lean and taut and ready to explode? Or would you look like 10 pounds of sausage in a five-pound casing, busting the seams?
If you're being honest, you, me, and pretty much everyone both of us knows would look a whole lot more like a sausage than a specimen. A whole lot like Philip Rivers does, honestly.
But the difference between Philip Rivers and us, of course, is that we aren't starting at quarterback on Monday Night Football.
Rivers and the briefly-mighty, now-floundering Indianapolis Colts take on the San Francisco 49ers in a matchup that, from a sheer talent standpoint, looked a whole lot more attractive back in September than it does now. Ball-knowers will scoff at Rivers and wonder who in the world would want to watch a 44-year-old grandfather run around for three hours.
To which I would say: Everyone. Everyone would love to see that. Because what Rivers is doing is both awesome and ridiculous.
Philip Rivers nearly led the Colts to a victory over the Seahawks in his first start in five years. (Photo by Jane Gershovich/Getty Images) (Jane Gershovich via Getty Images)
In any other career, Rivers would be hitting his prime at age 44, old enough to have learned the ropes but young enough to have the energy and desire to do more. In sports, though, he's impossibly ancient, a relic who could burst into a pile of dust with one good sack. Hopefully he won't, but that's the line on most aged pro athletes.
Players like Tom Brady and LeBron James have redefined the possible parameters of a late-career athlete, but then again, Tom Brady and LeBron James are arguably the GOATs of their respective sports. They played for such a high level for so long that their age-related decline merely brought them down to star level.
Rivers wasn't ever in that stratosphere, though he had a few years in the mid-2000s — you know, about two decades ago — when he garnered some Pro Bowl nods and MVP votes. He ran with all the speed of the changing seasons, yes, but he also possessed two valuable attributes — an orbital-launch arm and a surpassing knowledge of potential defensive schemes.
That's how he was able to come back and mesh with the Colts so quickly last week against Seattle. He played within himself, tossing a nifty 18-of-27 completions for 160 yards, with a long of just 17 yards. He had an adjusted yards gained per pass attempt of 3.52 — quite the falloff from the 8- to 9-yard average of his best days. Against San Francisco, he could fare even better; the 49ers trail Seattle in every major defensive category.
But stats are for nerds. What Grandpa Rivers did last week was ball, plain and simple. And now he's getting a chance to take Indy on a last-ditch playoff run? Come on, how can you not love this?
At 8-6, Indianapolis sits in the dreaded first-team-out spot, well behind 10-5 division rival Houston for the final spot in the AFC playoffs. After this week, the Colts have games against the Texans and Jaguars, both teams they're staring up at in the playoff bracket. The Athletic gives Indianapolis just a 3 percent chance of making the playoffs, which is a rough prognosis given the Colts' 7-1 start to 2025.
That's tough news for the franchise and the city, but on a micro level, a great story is unfolding. Rivers is the embodiment of every former football player — whether high school, college or just two-hand touch Turkey Bowl — who would love to get one more turn in the arena, one more play with the ball in their hands, one more chance to rear back and throw it deep. He's living the dream that if you keep in shape, if you keep your edge — if not your waistline — then maybe, just maybe, they'll call your number one more time. Father Time is undefeated, yes, but you can always move the ball against him if you want it badly enough.
Rivers' return is a hell of a story, however it ends. But it'd be nice if he went out with at least one more victory. Why not a prime-time one?
Source: "AOL Sports"
Source: Sports
Published: December 22, 2025 at 07:28PM on Source: ANDY MAG
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