Who is Philip Rivers? 44-year-old quarterback staging unprecedented NFL comeback

Philip Rivers is expected to take the field for the first time in nearly five years as an NFL quarterback on Sunday for the Indianapolis Colts, at 44 years of age. 

Despite being on the brink of Hall of Fame eligibility, Rivers accepted the Colts’ offer to get back in the game after the team’s Week-1 starting quarterback Daniel Jones suffered a season-ending injury.

For Rivers, it’s just another unexpected twist in one of the NFL’s more unusual stories.

Rivers is the son of a high school football coach, and took up that mantle himself after his temporary NFL retirement

Rivers is the son of Steve Rivers, the former head football coach at Decatur High School and later at Athens High School in Alabama. His mother was a teacher. 

As a child, Philip contributed to his dad’s team as a ball boy, but that’s not all he did. According to The Los Angeles Times, during games the young Rivers would sneak into the referees’ huddle any time his dad’s offense was close to a first down. There, he would observe how close the ball was to a first down, then hold his hands apart toward the sideline to signal exactly how far they had to go to move the chains. 

“I felt like I could contribute,” Rivers told the outlet. “I felt like they really needed me to tell them if it was a foot or two feet.”

When the time came for him to start his own high school career, Rivers played for his father at Athens High School. However, he started his career as a linebacker, and didn’t even start playing quarterback until his junior year.

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But when Rivers did become a quarterback, it worked out for him and his father, as he earned all-state honors and a reputation as the best prep passer in the state of Alabama. It set him up for a college career at North Carolina State, and eventual NFL stardom. 

When Rivers first retired from the NFL after the 2020 season, he followed in his father’s footsteps by taking over as head coach at St. Michael Catholic in Fairhope, Alabama, in 2021. He’s gone 43-15 at St. Michael Catholic in his five years at the helm, and most recently lead the school to a 13-1 record in 2025. 

Rivers is the father of 10 children, and some of his new teammates are younger than his own kids

Rivers and his wife Tiffany Rivers have been together since middle school and got married when Philip was just a sophomore in college in 2001. 

Less than one year later, they had their first child, a daughter named Halle in 2002. The head start on family building allowed the couple ample time to build a near football rosters’ worth of children, as they went on to have nine more children together: Caroline, Grace, Gunner, Sarah, Peter, Rebecca, Clare, Anna, and their youngest, Andrew, who was born in 2023. 

And just one year after Andrew was born, Rivers became a grandfather when Halle had her own child in 2024. 

And having a massive roster of children wasn’t even unique for Rivers’ family. It was expected.

Both Rivers and his wife are one of nine children born to each of their own parents. 

Back in 2019, before Anna’s birth, which gave the couple nine children, Tiffany told Women’s Wear Daily of Philip’s grandfather’s reaction to news that they would be having their ninth. 

“This is the third generation in Phillip’s family, who has seven girls and two boys so we were pretty excited about that. When we told his 91-year-old grandfather, he said, ‘You didn’t have to go to the doctor to find that out. I could have told you — that’s family history.’”

Meanwhile, Halle, at 23 years of age, is older than a handful of Rivers’ new teammates with the 2025 Colts, including including rookie quarterback Riley Leonard, rookie defensive end JT Tuimoloau, and rookie running back DJ Giddens. 

Rivers’ body has already endured rare adversity before making his unusually late return to football at age 44

Rivers once famously played through an injury that usually keeps players off the field for more than a year.

In the 2007 AFC Championship game, against the historically dominant undefeated New England Patriots, Rivers played just six days after suffering a torn ACL and meniscus in his right knee.

Rivers limped his way through the game for the San Diego Chargers, as his team only lost nine points in a 21-12 battle.

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He underwent surgery after the game and made his return to the team in time for the start of the 2008 season. 

By playing through that injury, Rivers maintained a historic streak of 224 consecutive regular-season starts from 2006 to 2020, making him the fifth-longest starting streak by any NFL player. He became the fourth NFL quarterback to reach 200 consecutive starts, joining Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. 

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