Philip Rivers has inevitably opened the door for retired quarterbacks in media

Philip Rivers went 18-of-27 for 120 yards, one touchdown, and one interception in Sunday’s loss to the Seahawks. He hadn’t played in an NFL game in nearly five years. He’s 44 years old. He’s a grandfather. And he almost beat a legitimate Super Bowl contender on the road.

Before Rivers even took a snap, the idea of his comeback was already getting into the heads of every recently retired quarterback working in broadcasting.

Matt Ryan went on CBS’s The NFL Today+ on Sunday and admitted what a lot of former players were probably thinking: “I’ve had these feelings where I’ve been sitting and watching games and been like, ‘Man…I think I could go out there and do it.'”

Ryan is 40 years old. He retired after the 2022 season. He’s four years younger than Rivers and has been out of football for half as long. If Rivers can suit up and lead a competitive NFL team with less than a week of practice, why couldn’t Ryan?

Well, Ryan himself explained why not. Last offseason, he was on vacation with Matthew Stafford and offered to be his catching partner. They threw the ball around for a while, and Ryan felt pretty good about it. Then he woke up the next day.

“Honestly, I felt pretty good going out there and throwing,” Ryan said. “We went about our day. I woke up the next day, and my arm was like hanging, and my left oblique was so sore from the amount of torque that you put on that.”

“I’ve had these feelings where I’ve been sitting and watching games … man I think I could go out there and do it.” @M_Ryan02 👀 pic.twitter.com/VpYaArHgnM

— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) December 14, 2025

Ryan, of course, made these comments before Rivers actually played. Before we knew that Rivers would complete 18 passes and throw a touchdown. Before we saw that he could still run an NFL offense and nearly pull off an upset that would’ve been one of the best stories of the season.

Now that we’ve seen it? Ryan’s comments feel less like idle speculation and more like the beginning of something. Because if Rivers can do it, yeah, maybe a lot of these guys could, too.

The thing is, Rivers barely did it. He survived, but he didn’t exactly light up the stat sheet. He threw for 120 yards in a game where his team scored 16 points. The Colts lost. Rivers’ final pass was an interception that sealed Seattle’s win. It wasn’t a disaster, but it also wasn’t proof that any former quarterback with a headset and a broadcasting gig could step back onto an NFL field and be effective.

But that’s not really the point, is it? The point is that Rivers did something that seemed impossible a week ago. He played professional football at 44 years old after coaching high school for the last four years, and he didn’t embarrass himself. That’s enough to make other recently retired quarterbacks start wondering.

The unsaid rebuttal to all of this is pretty obvious. Yeah, you could probably do it. You could probably suit up and throw some passes and run the offense without getting benched at halftime. But would you be any good? Would you actually help your team win games, or would you just be a warm body who knows the playbook?

Rivers had an advantage that most of these guys wouldn’t. He worked with Shane Steichen for years in San Diego. He’s been running Steichen’s offense with his high school team all season. He had built-in familiarity with the system that allowed him to step in after three days of practice and at least appear competent.

Matt Ryan doesn’t have that. Neither do most of the other quarterbacks working in broadcasting right now. If Ryan signed with a team tomorrow, he’d be learning a new system from scratch while also trying to get his body back into NFL shape. That’s a very different proposition from what Rivers did.

But Rivers showed that it’s at least theoretically possible. And for guys like Ryan, who are still relatively young and haven’t been away from the game that long, that’s enough to plant the seed. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but at some point, if the right situation came along, could they do it?

The answer is probably yes, they could do it. Whether they should is the actual question.

What Rivers did on Sunday was impressive in the context of who he is and how long he’s been away from football. A 44-year-old grandfather throwing a touchdown pass after a five-year hiatus is a great story. But strip away the narrative, and what you’re left with is a quarterback who threw for 120 yards and lost the game on an interception. That’s not the kind of performance that should have current broadcasters seriously considering comebacks.

And yet, here we are. Rivers has opened a door that probably should’ve stayed closed. Every quarterback from his generation is now looking at what he did and thinking, “I could do that.” And technically, they’re not wrong.

Ben Roethlisberger when asked if he’d consider coming out of retirement like Philip Rivers:

“Let me tell you, my right arm still works, but it’s the rest of my body I’m worried about.”

Roethlisberger and Rivers were both drafted in 2004. pic.twitter.com/MffCaUVEh2

— Underdog NFL (@UnderdogNFL) December 16, 2025

The real question is whether any of them actually will. Ryan doesn’t seem particularly interested in pursuing it beyond the occasional daydream while watching games. He hasn’t gotten any calls about starting opportunities in over two years, and he seems content with his broadcasting career at CBS.

But someone will think about it seriously. Someone will watch Rivers nearly upset the Seahawks and start making calls to their agent. Someone will convince themselves that they’ve still got it, that they could be the next feel-good comeback story.

And when that happens, we’ll all remember that it started here, with Philip Rivers going 18-of-27 for 120 yards and making an entire generation of retired quarterbacks reconsider their life choices.