The 2025 NFL regular season comes to an end with Week 18 on Sunday, and one of the biggest storylines of the campaign was 44-year-old Philip Rivers coming out of a five-year retirement to start at quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. Rivers delayed a possible Hall of Fame induction another five years by leaving retirement, and while he went 0–3 as a starter and didn’t save Indy’s season, he surely provided inspiration for many out there.
However, everyone in Indy, from the fans to the team to Rivers, knows that this inspirational story has an end date to it. Rivers won’t be returning to the Colts, or any other NFL team, in the 2026 NFL season, as he’s likely to be back home in Alabama performing his prior job coaching high school football.
