Watching Philip Rivers Play Football Makes Me Feel Old

Surely the most astonishing detail in this utterly astonishing story is that Rivers was waiting for Steichen’s call. He’d been watching the Colts’ game when he saw Jones go down, and later said that the thought of replacing Jones had immediately crossed his mind. Rivers and Steichen are close; they worked together during Rivers’s final season with the Los Angeles Chargers, in 2src19, where Steichen had been the quarterbacks coach. Still, why Rivers might think that anyone would turn to a middle-aged man who had been retired for roughly five years to try to take a team to the N.F.L. playoffs is one of the great mysteries of our age. Rivers, after all, is a grandfather. An actual grandfather. And yet Steichen did call, and he was not calling to inquire how the grandson was.

So Rivers celebrated his forty-fourth birthday on a Monday, and on Wednesday was signed to the Colts’ practice squad. He arrived in Indianapolis with the gut of a dad who “works out,” which, of course, is what he is. But Steichen appeared set on starting him. The two men waved away concerns about his fitness. Athleticism had never been Rivers’s biggest strength; even in his prime, no defense needed to scheme for the possibility that he might run. And it was true that Rivers knew the Colts’ playbook as well as anyone—he used a watered-down version of it for his high-school team, and had frequently discussed it with Steichen. Most of all, he knew what it was like to lead a team under pressure. Even when Leonard was cleared to return to practice, Steichen hinted that he planned to put Rivers at the helm. Leonard was a rookie. He’d never damned the odds.

Against the Seahawks, Rivers nearly did it. He even threw the game’s only honest-to-God touchdown. He led the Colts on a drive that ended with a sixty-yard field goal with forty-seven seconds remaining to take a one-point lead, only to watch the Indy defense let it slip away as the Seahawks answered with a field goal of their own. (A late blown lead—in that regard, it was a classic Rivers game.) He can still read coverages and throw a mean checkdown. And yet watching him throw was—how do I put this?—confusing. Unnatural, even. It was like watching a squid eat a hummingbird. Or like seeing the right tackle under center. Rivers played almost the entire game out of the shotgun. His primary strategies, as best I could tell: get rid of the ball as quickly as possible, and get out of the way of Jonathan Taylor, the Colts’ terrific running back. Some of Rivers’s throws did not cross the line of scrimmage, and those that did were hurled ducks. Rivers has always had a quick, shot-put-style release, but he once had a cannon for an arm. Not anymore. Last Sunday, he seemed to struggle to even throw the ball away. There was an odd juxtaposition between how quickly Rivers got rid of the ball and how slowly it wobbled out of his hand. There was no question of any run-pass option or quarterback draw; Rivers couldn’t move his feet. At one point, he slipped on the logo, got up, and lumbered for a few yards, as bodies flew all around him. It was like seeing a film that has somehow been slowed down and sped up simultaneously.

Given that Rivers nearly led the Colts to a win anyway, I found myself wondering whether the quarterback—universally accepted as the most important position on the field—actually matters all that much. Sure, Tom Brady, blah blah blah. But Eli Manning has as many Super Bowl rings as his brother Peyton. And Dan Marino, widely considered one of the greatest quarterbacks ever, has none. These days, the question seems especially pertinent. Is the San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy, who was the very last pick in the 2src22 N.F.L. draft before leading the 49ers to the Super Bowl two years later, a mediocre Q.B. or an M.V.P.-calibre player? Is Jalen Hurts, who’s been to two Super Bowls with the Philadelphia Eagles in the past three years, any good as a quarterback? Should Sean McVay, the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive guru, get fitted for a helmet? Could a coach just suit up? Maybe what a team needs is a top defense, a good kicker, decent schemes, an excellent running back, and some guy taking snaps who can stay calm in a frenetic situation and won’t screw things up. Maybe the quarterback doesn’t have to be king. Maybe socialism works!

Or maybe Rivers should head home to Alabama and enjoy the company of his ten children while he—and the Colts’ tight ends, who were getting smashed trying to catch Rivers’s floating passes—is still in one piece. There are plenty of stories of athletes who excel in their forties. Lindsey Vonn just won a World Cup downhill, at forty-one, five years after retiring, following a partial knee replacement. LeBron James was one of the ten best players in the N.B.A. last year, despite turning forty. We’re not dead yet. I can do more pullups now than I could at eighteen. But the career of a football player is nasty, brutish, and short for a reason.

Riley Leonard is active. Anthony Richardson is returning to practice. Frankly, Andrew Luck is only thirty-six years old—doesn’t anyone in Indianapolis still have his phone number? Meanwhile, Steichen reportedly has plans to start Rivers again on Monday, against the 49ers, who are fighting for the No. 1 seed in the N.F.C. My knee hurts just thinking about it. ♦