Ryan HockensmithDec 22, 2025, 08:30 AM ETCloseRyan Hockensmith is a Penn State graduate who joined ESPN in 2001. He is a survivor of bacterial meningitis, which caused him to have multiple amputation surgeries on his feet. He is a proud advocate for those with disabilities and addiction issues. He covers everything from the NFL and UFC to pizza-chucking and analysis of Tom Cruise’s running ability.Follow on X
PHILIP RIVERS RISES. He has been teed up by his new/former coach, Shane Steichen, to address his new/former Indianapolis Colts teammates for the first time after what has been the most unprecedented this-can’t-be-real unretirement in NFL history.
This roster has been through it this year. The Colts were 7-1 through eight weeks, and now are suddenly 8-5, with QB Daniel Jones suffering a season-ending Achilles injury three days earlier against Jacksonville. Some players describe the locker room that Sunday after the Jags game as devastated. Others say that description is an understatement. Most use the same word to describe what it felt like as they got on the team plane: There was no “juice.”
“It was funny to watch everybody watch him,” longtime Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin said. “It was a shot of adrenaline into our team when we needed it the most.”
The best cobbled-together recollection from Colts in the room, with reports of the number of “dadgumits” ranging from one to a lot more than one:
“I’ve been out of the game for a few years, but I am so excited to be back,” Rivers said. “I thought my career might have been over, and I was OK with that. But I missed the game and missed all of you. I don’t take this for granted at all. We’re in this thing, dadgumit. We’re 8-5 and in the playoff hunt. We can get there. Why not us?”
That last part sends the room into an all-out roar. Rivers is back. Now, all he has to do is win the job.
THE RETURN OF Philip Rivers is a little bit of a misunderstanding because to many close to him, he never totally left the game.
But Rivers didn’t actually hang up his cleats. In fact, he put his favorite pair in a trophy case at his house, just an arm’s reach away, as he transitioned into a new football life as head coach at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Alabama.
This was what he calls “Nunc Coepi,” a Latin phrase that is pronounced noonk-CHEP-ee and translates as “Now I begin.” Rivers puts his own twist on that sentiment, embracing it in a way that means every day, every hour, every play can be a new beginning. He calls it the Rivers family phrase, and to this day, he often wears hats with the phrase on it. Coaching would be nunc coepi for him going forward.
He even broke out a hilarious new non-swear that has traveled to Indianapolis: “Let’s stinking go.” There’s never been a more creative, kid-friendly fireball in the history of sports than Philip Rivers.
The day of the Colts-Jaguars game, Rivers was watching live when Jones went down and grabbed his Achilles. Rivers still watched every Indy game he could in recent years, and he modeled his high school offense after what Steichen runs. Most of the naming devices are the same as the Indy playbook, and Rivers often has his players watch Colts game tape to demonstrate what he needs them to do.
Rivers liked Jones and what he brought to the Indy offense, so he was heartbroken to see him go down. He also felt a pang in his stomach because he had gotten close with Jones’ backup, Riley Leonard, who lives down the street from him in Fairhope. Rivers worked with Leonard when he was coming out of Notre Dame last year and was a key voice vouching for Leonard during the Colts’ draft process.
They could bring up Brett Rypien from the practice squad. Former first-round pick Anthony Richardson Sr., out because of an orbital bone injury, was getting close to returning to the practice field but really wasn’t an option. They could use another player, and they decided that the team needed more than a steady hand under center. The Colts needed someone with gravitas to blast some life into the team. That really left only one person to call: Rivers.
“I wonder if Shane will call,” Rivers thought. But even Rivers started to think that would be absurd.” Nah, not gonna happen,” he told himself.
But Steichen doesn’t know what to expect when he and Ballard call Rivers late on Dec. 7. Neither does Rivers. He feels his engine turning over inside him but doesn’t know if he could line up on an NFL field and rip off 25-yard ropes to professional receivers. “I need to get up there and throw,” he says repeatedly during the call.
When Ballard officially extends an offer, Rivers says he wants to sit with the decision at his hotel. He spends that Monday night praying and calling friends and family for their input. His coaches and players are all-in from the get-go, and his wife, Tiffany, and family are supportive.
He also must shake off the rust with some of the nuances of being an NFL quarterback. Several young players are surprised when Rivers walks up to them and introduces himself by calling them by their names. They realize this NFL legend must have worked on putting names to faces so that he could go to each of them one-on-one to say hello. “That really meant a lot,” practice squad lineman Josh Sills says. “You could tell he cared enough to put the time in.”
Rivers goes out of his way to connect with new center Tanor Bortolini to develop what Bortolini calls “hand presence” between them. This is the essential art of getting comfortable with the center-quarterback exchange, the intimate Nunc Coepi of every play. “You absolutely need to get a feel for a guy’s hands and where he is going to put them,” Bortolini says. “It’s been pretty natural for us.”
Before and after most practices, Bortolini and Rivers do some shotgun snaps. Then, Bortolini crouches down and Rivers nestles in. “He has a good presence,” Bortolini says. “He’s a little lighter in there. Other quarterbacks really get up in.”
By the end of the week, Rivers has emerged as the Colts’ best option. Leonard is still nursing a mild knee injury but can be the backup against Seattle. On Friday, the Colts officially bump Rivers up to the active roster and name him the starter for the game at Seattle. Vegas reacts by bulking the point spread from 10.5 points to 13.5 in favor of the Seahawks, the biggest underdog role in Rivers’ career.
Before the game, Rivers is ready to play. He’s a rare meld of being high-strung and also incredibly reassuring, and multiple Colts say his energy in the huddle seeps into their pores during the Seattle game. “In moments of doubt, he was the belief we needed,” rookie tackle Jalen Travis says. “I don’t know how anybody couldn’t love the guy.”
But the Colts don’t score again for two hours, and the Seahawks use a last-minute field goal to squeak out a win. In the grand scheme of things, though, the biggest winner of the week is Rivers. He holds up well against one of the league’s nastier defenses, and his locker room is electrified, a mood that carries into the next week.
As Rivers wraps up in front of his locker, 2021 first-round pick Kwity Paye watches from across the room. He got to Indy right after Rivers retired, so this is his first extended time being around him, and he’s loving it.
The Niners, Paye says, are a big challenge for the Colts, who have lost four straight games. But Paye seems to have taken on some of the Rivers identity. He uses the word “juice” to describe what the locker room is feeling right now. And his last words are an unforgettable memory of this moment in Colts history.
Rivers provides 100 percent organic, detoxified juice. The day after the loss, buzz had leaked out that the Colts were entertaining the implausible possibility of signing the high school football coach and grandfather from Alabama. Player group chats immediately began buzzing all night into Tuesday as everybody waited for confirmation. Rivers said even as late as lunchtime that Tuesday, he still was sitting in a hotel room, wrestling with whether he wanted to play again. But the rest of the organization had become reinvigorated at even the chance that Rivers might return. When the verdict came in that Rivers wanted to give it one last go, resetting his Hall of Fame candidacy by five years, those group chats lit up with what the Colts felt like they had lost. “He is the definition of juice,” running back Jonathan Taylor said.
He had gone 11-5 in one year with Indy in 2020, dropping a first-round playoff game to the Bills. By all accounts, the Colts were interested in having him back in 2021. He had eclipsed 4,000 passing yards for the eighth straight year, and the team looked good. Rivers still loved the game and wrestled hard with returning for another year. But he had earned almost $250 million in his career, escaped a 17-year career with almost no significant injuries and had nine kids (Rivers and his wife welcomed their 10th child in 2023) whom he wanted to spend time. In January 2021, after a hike, Rivers decided to hang up his cleats. “It’s just time,” he said then. “It’s just right.”
Over the past four years, he built St. Michael Catholic into a state power in Alabama, led by his son, QB prospect Gunner Rivers. The program went 25-3 during the past two seasons, with two straight tough losses in the state semifinals. “He’s done an unbelievable job as our head football coach,” said friend Simon Cortopassi, who is the school’s co-athletic director and defensive coordinator for Rivers. “The belief factor that ‘we can do this’ when Philip is around goes through the roof. You can’t put a value on that. He’s one of those people who truly gets the best out of everybody around him. He brings you up.”
Rivers never lost his competitiveness, turning into the same fiery G-rated leader as a coach that he was as a player. Like Colts veterans watching first-timers around Rivers, his high school players and assistant coaches would always get a good laugh watching opposing teams, and sometimes even refs, who had never been around Rivers. He already had an aura on the sidelines as a legendary former NFL star, but his occasional outbursts of “Shoot, let’s get the dadgum ball back!” or “What the living heck was that call?” would draw looks of bemusement from first-timers.