Colts QB Philip Rivers, 44, admits wife is ‘nervous’ about his return to NFL

Philip Rivers may be prepared for his NFL return, but his wife is still a bit apprehensive about the toll the sport could take on his body.

The former Indianapolis Colts quarterback, who last played in the NFL in 2020, was re-signed to the team’s practice squad Tuesday after the Colts lost their third game in a row Sunday to the Jacksonville Jaguars, as well as their starting quarterback in Daniel Jones, who suffered an Achilles injury and will not be playing for the rest of the season.

Rivers, who only officially retired from football in July, led the Colts to the playoffs with an 11-5 record during his last season in the league. Prior to that, he spent 16 seasons with the Los Angeles Chargers. As the current Colts team sits within the playoff bubble, he could potentially help lead the organization back to the post-season.

At a press conference Wednesday, Rivers, 44, spoke about coming back to the NFL five years after last playing and how his family, including his wife and middle-school sweetheart Tiffany Rivers, feels about it.

“My wife has been my biggest fan the whole time I played, and she's nervous about the physical aspect of it, as you expect any wife to,” he said. Despite his wife’s worries about an injury, the NFL player said it has “never been a concern of mine,” noting, “I mean, for 250 games or whatever it was, that was a risk, as you see every week.”

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“Whether you're 24 in the best shape, or you're 44 and not so sure. Anything can happen,” he added.

“Dudes are big and fast, just like they were, so I'm just taking it one day at a time,” Rivers continued. “You never hope or expect something like that to happen, but shoot, if something like that happens, I'd have a long time to recover.”

Rivers also discussed how his 10 children are looking forward to watching him play, if he does get the opportunity to step in. The current plan for Sunday’s upcoming game against the Seattle Seahawks is to start Riley Leonard, who currently has a knee injury but was listed to practice Wednesday.

He explained that because some of his children are so young, they have no memories of his prior seasons in the league. “My six-year-old asked, ‘Dad, why don't you play anymore?’” Rivers said.

In addition to his 10 children — Halle, 23, Caroline, 20, Grace, 19, Gunner, 17, Sarah, 15, Peter, 14, Rebecca, 12, Clare, 10, Anna, six, and Andrew, two — Rivers also revealed in a May YouTube video shared on NFL coach Jon Gruden’s channel that his oldest child has a son.