Felipe Rios he’s retired…again.
(And it looks like this one will stick.)
“I am,” Rivers said when asked if he was done playing the Wednesday, Dec. 31, episode of “Up and Adams” podcast, confirming that the 44-year-old quarterback will not return to the NFL to play for the Indianapolis Colts, or any team, for that matter, in the upcoming 2026-2027 season.
“I have a son who will be a senior and the St. Michaels football team is ready to go,” he added. “My second son will be a 9th grader, so they’ll be on the same team together.”
NFL quarterback Philip Rivers and his wife, Tiffany, have 10 children and one grandchild, the perfect number to field their own starting football lineup. While the Chargers legend and Indianapolis Colts veteran will be the first to tell you that raising 10 kids as a professional athlete isn’t easy (as if it should be (…))
Rivers has been coaching the football team at St. Michael Catholic High School in Alabama since the 2020 season, when he first retired. his son, gunnerwill play his final season as the team’s quarterback next year, and Rivers hopes his coaching advice will carry more weight after his recent move to the NFL.
“It’s going to be fun. It’s going to get our offseason program going, to say the least,” Rivers said Wednesday. “Maybe some things I tell them, they’ll take a little more seriously now that I was just playing.”
Rivers played the last three games for the Colts behind the starting quarterback Daniel Jones injured his Achilles during the team’s Week 14 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
With backup quarterback Riley Leonard was also dealing with an injury at the time, coach of the Colts Shane Steichen he called his old friend.
Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Philip Rivers of the Indianapolis Colts interact after the Jacksonville Jaguars won the game at Lucas Oil Stadium on December 28, 2025 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Michael Hickey/Getty ImagesSteichen and Rivers worked together for eight years with the Los Angeles Chargers (formerly the San Diego Chargers) during Rivers’ first time playing in the NFL.
“Everything went well,” Rivers told the podcast host Kay Adams about the situation with the Colts, acknowledging his previous relationship with Steichen.
He called it “the perfect storm” and said if any other team had called, the answer would have been no.
Even with a legend like Rivers under center for the last three games, the Colts have lost six straight and are out of the playoff race. Steichen said Leonard will return to quarterback the team in the season finale against the Houston Texans on Sunday, January 4.
“There’s a lot of emotion there,” Steichen said. “Being 44 years old and coming out of this thing healthy is a blessing for (Rivers), too. So he’s thankful for that. And like he said, he wouldn’t change a thing. To come back here with the guys and fight, it’s been an honor and a privilege (to see).
Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones is mulling Travis Kelce’s possible retirement after a disappointing 2025-26 NFL season. “I hope not, man,” Jones said of Kelce’s potential exit in a postgame interview following the Chiefs’ 20-13 loss to the Denver Broncos on Thursday, Dec. 25. “We just went through a lot of things (…).
Rivers originally entered the league in the 2004 draft, spending most of his career with the San Diego Chargers (he stayed with the team after they moved to Los Angeles in 2017), before finishing his career with the Colts in 2021.
He leads the Chargers in passing touchdowns (397) and passing yards (59,271) during his time with the franchise, and ranks sixth and eighth in NFL history in those categories, respectively.
By the end of the podcast interview, and despite a plea from Adams to keep playing, Rivers seemed content to finish the last stretch of his career, for real this time.
“I’m back on the sidelines,” Rivers said. “This was a fun three-week blur that nobody saw coming, including me. And that’s going to be it.”