{"id":102246,"date":"2021-01-20T08:41:06","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T13:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=102246"},"modified":"2021-01-20T08:41:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T13:41:06","slug":"philip-rivers-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2021\/01\/20\/philip-rivers-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Philip Rivers Announces Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quarterback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/R\/RivePh00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Philip Rivers<\/a>\u00a0officially announced his retirement and is calling it a career. A long-time starter for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/chargers\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Chargers<\/a>, Rivers spent the 2020 season with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/colts\/\" target=\"_self\">Indianapolis Colts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Colts\u2019 QB Philip Rivers is retiring from football, he told <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sdutKevinAcee?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@sdutKevinAcee<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamSchefter\/status\/1351887262167011328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 20, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Philip Rivers Retires From NFL<\/h2>\n<p>Rivers was coming off a downer season in 2019 with the Chargers that led to speculation that Father Time had arrived and that he might retire. However, he had a bounce-back season in 2020 with the Colts, passing for 4,169 yards, 24 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions. His touchdown-interception ratio was noticeably improved, and he helped the Colts get to 11-5 and into the playoffs, where they lost in the Wildcard Round to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/bills\/\" target=\"_self\">Buffalo Bills<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Philip Rivers was drafted in 2004 as part of a draft-day swap that sent him from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/giants\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Giants<\/a> \u2013 who \u201cdrafted\u201d him at fourth overall \u2013 to the Chargers, who sent back their first overall selection <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MannEl00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eli Manning<\/a> after he said he wouldn\u2019t play for the team. Rivers ended up riding the bench with the Chargers for two years until incumbent starter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/BreeDr00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drew Brees<\/a> suffered a career-threatening shoulder injury that led the Chargers to move on.<\/p>\n<p>Rivers then became the Chargers starter from 2006 to 2019, never missing a game in the process \u2013 not even in the 2007 playoffs when he played with a torn ACL in the AFC Championship game. He made the Pro Bowl eight times with the Chargers (2006, 2009-2011, 2013, 2016-2018). Rivers also led the league in touchdown passes in 2008 (34) and in passing yardage in 2010 (4,710). He was also the NFL completion percentage leader in 2013 at 69.5%. The Chargers had four division titles and six total playoff appearances during his tenure, though they failed to make a Super Bowl during that time.<\/p>\n<p>Rivers ranks fifth all-time on the touchdown pass list at 421, having passed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MariDa00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dan Marino<\/a> towards the end of the 2020 season. He also has a career total of 64,440 passing yards (also fifth all-time).<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"3sd0opjgRC9NmEN3mm5F6g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1295508518\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'3sd0opjgRC9NmEN3mm5F6g',sig:'rXhLBbPQdYygHC3JPq2BLxtTWsn68YzIbi4IXpjZsO0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1295508518',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philip Rivers had a bounce-back season in 2020 with the Colts, passing for 24 touchdowns and 11 interceptions and returning to the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2355,"featured_media":102249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[56,7421,246,362],"class_list":["post-102246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-indianapolis-colts-roster","tag-nfl-news","tag-philip-rivers"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2355"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}