Not many current undergraduate students were alive during Philip Rivers’ final year as NC State football’s quarterback, but he has left his mark on our hearts all the same.
It’s been 22 years since Rivers donned the red-and-white, and he remains in the professional ranks after appearing in three games for the Indianapolis Colts during the 2025 campaign — a fun wrinkle to an entertaining NFL season.
Rivers was destined for stardom after graduating in December of 2003 in preparation for the 2004 NFL Draft, which ended up being one of the most chaotic yet successful quarterback drafts of all time.
That fateful night was nothing short of a soap opera. Eli Manning, the most highly touted prospect that year and brother of proven NFL quarterback Peyton Manning, held an unusual amount of bargaining power. With the first overall pick, the San Diego Chargers selected Eli, but he and his family refused to be a part of the Chargers organization. Manning threatened to take his name out of the hat and sit out a year.
The Chargers, with no choice, traded Manning to the Giants in exchange for the next quarterback taken in the draft. Luckily for them, the next guy on the board was Rivers.
Quarterbacking in San Diego for almost two decades, he amassed impressive statistical numbers on some great teams, but never broke through in the playoffs, never getting past the divisional round. Still, his resume suggests he deserves a golden jacket. In the coming years, we will find out if the voters agree.
In the twilight of his career, Rivers signed with the Indianapolis Colts for the 2020 season after departing from the Chargers in 2019.
That was his final season as an NFL quarterback at age 40 — or so everyone thought.
After spending four years on the couch, Rivers returned to Indianapolis. Starting quarterback Daniel Jones went down with an achilles injury amid a playoff race, and the Colts needed a leader to right the ship.
“I wasn’t really hanging on to any hope of playing again,” Rivers said at a press conference on Dec. 10. “I kind of thought that ship had sailed. But something mighty exciting and it was kind of one of those deals, a door opens and you can either walk through it and find out if you can do it, or run from it.”
Rivers didn’t need the Colts. With 10 kids at home and the St. Michael Catholic football team under his direction, he already had a lot on his plate. But the old man still had something to prove.
“I was scared, nervous, unsure and I knew the safe bet was to go back to the house,” Rivers said to the NFL on Fox crew before the Colts’ Week 17 matchup versus the Jaguars. “The only way to find out if you could do it is to stinking come back out here a little bit out of shape.”
To the dismay of Colts fans, Indianapolis continued its losing streak with Rivers at the helm and closed the season with seven-straight losses. However, Rivers led a team that had lost its rudder. Even at 44 with an arm that had lost much of its juice, Indianapolis was competitive after it had been counted out.
In a matchup versus arguably the best team in the NFL, the Colts fell just short versus the Seattle Seahawks 18-16, losing on a 56-yard field goal with 18 seconds left to play. Rivers’ statsheet doesn’t jump off the page, throwing for 120 yards and a touchdown, but he managed the game well enough to win it after having not played a snap in nearly five years.
“This doubt kept creeping in, of, ‘Can I do it? Can I actually do it?’,” Rivers said on The Jack Doyle Podcast. “And that, for me, was actually swaying me away for a period of time.”
Luckily for NFL fans, Rivers didn’t let his doubts get to him.
“And then I got to where I was justifying it, like, ‘Wait a minute. That doubt’s okay, that’s normal,’” Rivers said. “1,800 days you haven’t played football, and you’re worried you can’t do it, that’s probably okay to feel that way. And I think that’s what I had to get myself to say, that it’s okay to feel that. That’s not a lack of belief. It’s real, and that’s okay.”
