The NFL combine brought with it a multitude of eye-opening rumors. Among them, NFL Network's Rich Eisen claimed he'd heard inklings that former Colts and Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers had been angling to make a comeback.
Rivers, who retired in 2020 and is now a high school coach in Alabama, denied those rumors on Tuesday, via AL.com.
While Rivers admitted he had "heard from a couple teams," he indicated that an NFL comeback was never truly on the cards. Additionally, the 41-year-old also poured cold water on any links to the Dolphins, one of the organizations Eisen claimed that Rivers reached out to late last year.
"I heard from a couple of teams just kind of checking in," Rivers said on Tuesday, via AL.com. "I didn’t contact anyone, and I’m not going anywhere. I think maybe some teams, with some guys going down, may have been just looking for a contingency plan, but nothing came of it."
Rivers played 17 seasons in the NFL. 16 of those were spent with the Chargers before he made the move to Indianapolis for what was his final year in the league.
Now, coaching at St. Michael High School, Rivers doesn't foresee a return to the NFL in his future. He's more than two years removed from playing in an NFL game, and didn't deny that there simply may not be enough left in the tank. It's not the first time he's batted down rumors of an NFL comeback.
"I think in my mind in the last couple of years if a team had needed me, I might have had six or eight games left in me, but I’m not going into this fall thinking the same," Rivers added.
Despite the rumors from Eisen connecting Rivers to both the 49ers and Dolphins, the retired quarterback maintained his stance that a comeback seems far-fetched at this point.
