A headline no NFL fans expected to see this week—or at any point this season—was “44-year-old Philip Rivers Unretires to join the Colts.” But that’s where we are as the current Hall of Fame semifinalist joined the practice squad in Indianapolis after Daniel Jones was lost on Sunday to a season-ending Achilles injury.
Someone who knows a thing or two about playing quarterback in the NFL as a middle-aged man, however, is Tom Brady. He was actually older than Rivers in his last NFL season in 2022 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as Brady marked his 45th birthday during training camp. The seven-time Super Bowl champion had a highly productive season as he had enough left in his right arm to lead the league in both pass attempts and pass completions en route to throwing for 4,694 yards and 25 touchdowns.
Brady, though, also played when he was 44… and before that at 43… and 42… and so on. He didn’t head off into retirement for five years like Rivers did. The longtime Chargers quarterback turned 39 years old in his last NFL season in 2020 with the Colts, making his comeback attempt one of the least likely in sports history.
So, while we know Brady could still play at age 45, he’s now three years removed from the game and turned 48 in August. Does the three-time MVP think he could still be effective? That question was posed to him on “The Herd,” when Colin Cowherd asked, whether, knowing the playbook—as Rivers does with the Colts—Brady could go out on this Sunday and be an effective quarterback.
“I think the answer for me would be yes. I’m not allowed to anymore because I’m a minority owner of the Raiders, so I can’t unretire.”
Brady would have to give up his minority stock ownership of the Raiders in order to take the field again, and seeing how hard it was to acquire that stock, his potential return would be even more improbable than that of Rivers. But he’s confident he could pull off what the latter is trying to do, and Brady complimented the internal drive that Rivers still has.
“But I’m very excited to watch Philip play,” Brady said. “If he’s out there, it’s just very cool. It speaks to how much he loves the game and really what he’s able to do still.
“This game is about, for the quarterback, from the neck up. We used to have a saying at Michigan, ‘The mental is to the physical as four is to one at the quarterback position.’ That doesn’t really go away. Do you still have the physical ability to do it—take the hits, make the throws, the drops, buy a little time in the pocket?
“If Philip has been practicing those things, then we’re all gonna see it on full display.”
Rivers has certainly been highly involved in football practices over the last five years—but as a coach, not a player. He’s been coaching at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Alabama, since hanging up the cleats in 2021. One of his sons is a quarterback on the team, and St. Michael is running the same offense that Rivers ran for much of his time with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers.
Not only that, but the Colts head coach Shane Steichen was an assistant on those Chargers teams, and he implemented that same offense with Indianapolis. That’s the connection between Rivers and the current Colts team, as he knows the playbook—both as a former player and as a high school coach.
The Indianapolis Colts have lost three straight games and currently are the No. 8 seed in the AFC, meaning they are just outside the playoff picture if the postseason began today. They have as difficult a schedule as there could be over the rest of the season, which begins with a trip to the 10-3 Seattle Seahawks on Sunday. That’s followed by back-to-back home games versus the San Francisco 49ers and Jacksonville Jaguars, both of whom are 9-4. The season then concludes with a road game at the 8-5 Houston Texans.
There’s no guarantee that Rivers will see the field or even be activated for Sunday and beyond. If he is promoted from the practice squad to the active roster, though, it would officially restart his Hall of Fame waiting period, which is five years. Thus, he wouldn’t be eligible for induction until 2031 at the earliest, and that’s assuming he doesn’t continue playing beyond this season.
