You know who got obliterated yesterday? Well, not Philip Rivers. Eat that with a pointed stick, you morbid ghouls.
We expect that the number and conditions of the many casualties from this most recent knives-and-cleavers mosh pit of a football Sunday shall be covered in the other squalid little corners of America's Preeminent Web Site, and so we won't be hypothetically dancing on any metaphorical graves or literal ACLs. All we know is that the one guy everyone knew was MLTGHAK (Most Likely To Get His Ass Killed) out there barely spiked his blood pressure in his first game in 1,800 days. Indeed, Rivers, at the age of half-dead (44), was the one quarterback out there on the Lumen Field turf in Seattle to lead his team to an actual American touchdown. His Indianapolis Colts did not win, but the literal grandfather they'd summoned off his riding mower earlier that week was not harmed in the effort, and looked more or less like himself, for whatever that may have been worth. Rivers was very politely sacked only once and finished his day with a better passer rating than the following people:
- Jordan Love
- Patrick Mahomes
- Drake Maye
- Joe Burrow
- Brady Cook
- Kenny Pickett
- Shedeur Sanders
There's a bit of a drop-off around the middle of that list, admittedly, and while we're doing caveats, Rivers could have been 64 and put up a better passer rating than Sanders. But Sanders was playing in brutal weather, against a decent Bears defense, and as a member of the Cleveland Browns, all of which conspired to make his job impossible.
As for their own situation, the Colts had just lost two games and two quarterbacks, but because their judgment is always suspect they had been savaged all week long for even considering Rivers as an option to replace the grievously injured Daniel Jones and somewhat less injured Riley Leonard, let alone actually sending him out there as a starter. Rivers is a candidate member at AARP, for Baal's sake—he's not yet eligible for the car trunk carryall yet, but it's on his Christmas list. His eldest child is older than Leonard, and he has about 30 child backups. He's Robert Reed as Mike Brady, in other words, and as such seemed to have no business playing outside of his family's holiday touch football game, never mind against one of the NFL's best defenses. Being a quarterback is buckling in for Death Race 5000 under the best of circumstances, and putting a middle-aged retiree on the job with a five-day run-up was not only not "the best of circumstances" but something closer to the collaborative act of sadists.
Shows what we know. Rivers, who was criticized for, among other things, not being Cam Newton, by Cam Newton, not only failed to die out there but may end up starting again this coming Monday at home against San Francisco. Rivers was hopeless morgue-bait until he was finding Josh Downs with an eight-yard pass that was the only touchdown in Indy's 18-16 loss to the surprisingly unworthy Seahawks. He threw for only 120 yards, which is seven more than Seattle's Jaxon Smith-Njigba produced as a receiver, and his longest pass of the day was the last play of the game and was intercepted, but also THE COLTS NEARLY WON A PLAYOFF-LEVEL GAME WITH A QUARTERBACK WHO WAS TRIMMING HIS ROSE BUSHES FIVE DAYS AGO!
We all knew this would end badly, and we don't mean "with a game-winning 56-yard field goal from Jason Myers." The Colts, who had already dismissed the concept of "relevant experience" with Jeff Saturday three years ago, doubled down in this case by hiring a player based only on his having been the quarterback in their last playoff game and not currently being bedridden. And they got away with it, too, because Rivers didn't cause the Colts to lose. Sure, that's a low bar, but you thought he'd be on slab this morning, wiseass. That alone gets him into the Hall of Fame, even if it's 50 years from now due to frequent future un-retirements, and posthumously.
And that's the lesson for today: You know nothing. Well, we all know nothing. Most of the people who work in the sport also know nothing. Leave aside all the hand-wringing about too many field goals and high injury rates, and we are all left to re-embrace the most powerful factor in success and failure—dumbass, hilarious luck. Rivers got another five years of free medical insurance by returning, and is doubtless now negotiating a one-day contract that rolls over in 2030, 2035, 2040, and so on to keep the benefits clock rolling forever. Another crafty veteran move, that.
So, no: Philip Rivers isn't dead. He's a genius, playing five-dimensional chess while we're getting confused by Battleship. Philip Rivers is laughing at us all because he can still laugh, and garden, and hang around the Elks hall, and price wood screws in the aisles at Home Depot, and not dance at weddings when he doesn't want to, and babysit or not babysit based on nothing more than his mood at the moment. Lombardi Trophy? Chump change. He's 44 and doing what he wants. That, kids, is how you get a rolling invitation to the Hall of Fame.
