Many people across the NFL world laughed at the idea of 44-year-old Philip Rivers returning to play quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts.
Ahead of their Week 16 matchup, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan believes Rivers’ return is no joke.
“I actually got to talk to him a little bit last week and I admire the hell out of it,” Shanahan told reporters Monday during a conference call. “I think he’s capable of it. What he did last night, and he gave that team a chance to win so we all know he is, obviously everyone’s seen that he’s capable of it.”
Rivers made his first appearance in an NFL game on Sunday since Jan. 2021. He and the Colts were 47 seconds away from a win over the Seattle Seahawks before Jason Myers regained the lead for Seattle with a 56-yard field goal with 18 seconds left.
It wasn’t a statistically beautiful game from Rivers in his return, but he had Indianapolis in a position to win against a playoff team. That is not lost on Shanahan.
“The way he plays and the style he plays with, I respect him as much as any quarterback I’ve ever studied,” Shanahan said.
Rivers completed 18 of 27 pass attempts for 120 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
He also took one sack and was hit four total times. Evading an NFL pass rush is something a 44-year-old father of 10 and grandfather of one is not expected to deal with.
“Just growing up over [these] last 20 years or whatever, what I admire the most is someone at that age to be able to come in there and want to play the right way, which is hanging in that pocket and taking some of those hits,” Shanahan explained. “That is something that gets very old fast to a lot of people.”
Shanahan’s high praise of Rivers is nothing new. In 2022, he briefly considered bringing in the retired quarterback when quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo’s season ended due to injury.
“For him to still have that toughness and that competitiveness… he’s not going to get into anything unless he’s all about it and 100-percent in. That’s why he made the decision and that’s why I think he’s giving them a good chance to win and helping their team.”
Rivers has a relationship with 49ers assistant head coach of defense, Gus Bradley, which is how the conversation came to happen in the first place, Shanahan said.
Shanahan likely hopes that Rivers doesn’t give the Colts too good of a chance for them to win in Week 16, when the 49ers travel to Indianapolis to face the Colts on “Monday Night Football.”
“I was telling him how cool it would be, and then at about 10 seconds into it I realized that we were playing against him in 10 days,” Shanahan said of his phone conversation with Rivers. “So, I tried to kind of sway away from that and tell him how dumb it would be, but it didn’t work.”
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