Phillip Rivers retired from the NFL in 2021 after 17 highly productive seasons. Rivers was part of the infamous Eli Manning draft day fiasco in 2004, where Manning refused to play for the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers selected the youngest Manning at first overall anyway, and three picks later, the New York Giants took Rivers and promptly swapped him to the Chargers for Manning.
Despite Manning’s disrespect toward the Charger organization, the trade worked out for both sides as Eli won two Super Bowls for the Giants and Rivers provided high-level quarterback play for a franchise desperate for a leader in the Chargers. Rivers never won a Super Bowl or appear in one, but he changed the culture of the Charger organization for good.
Rivers retired after 16 seasons with San Diego/Los Angeles and one year in Indianapolis. He made 8 Pro Bowls and threw for over 63,000 yards, which is 8th all-time. The deadly accurate quarterback made stars out of numerous receivers, but his favorite receiver of all time is his wife, Tiffany.
The Rivers family, all devout Catholics, have nine children ranging in age from 4 to 21. They recently announced the newest addition to the clan during a 7-on-7 practice event in Daphne, Alabama, where Rivers is the head football coach of St. Michael Catholic in Fairhope, Ala.
While the case can be made for Rivers to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he is a first-ballot selection in the baby-making Hall of Fame. During the event, he spoke about the new addition: “We’ve had one pretty much every two years and now this is the longest gap. We are all fired up. Everyone was pulling for a boy. Even our girls wanted a boy.”
With the prospective new draft choice, the family will be one player shy of fielding an entire starting lineup. Rivers has seven girls and two boys, with one of his sons, Gunnar, being the starting quarterback on the St. Michael squad.
The Rivers family has a long history involving a LOT of kids. Both Rivers’ mother and grandfather came from families of nine children each. Always a fierce competitor, Phillip Rivers had to go one extra. He continued: “We thought we would be the third generation of nine, but we decided to go double digits – or I should say we didn’t decide it. God decided.”
Rivers is an extremely religious man. He is famous for his chatter on the field and his ability to talk trash to the opponent, but he never used swear words. He is also remembered as a class act in the locker room and in the community. However, after nine children, his toughest opponent might be figuring out another name. He concluded: “We are still kind of figuring that out. We have plenty of opinions. That is what we’ve got right now. I think what tells the story for us is the reaction of the other children, and how excited they are. They are fired up.”
Phillip Rivers may or may not make the Hall of Fame and he never won a Super Bowl, but as a father and a man of God, Rivers is undefeated. Congratulations to the Rivers family.
Feature image cropped, Behind Enemy Lines: Titans at Colts, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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