As of last week, and without even being on the Colts’ 53-man roster, quarterback Philip Rivers had 15-1 odds to win the NFL’s comeback player of the year award. After his first 2025 game, Rivers has made another move.
He’s currently 5-1, behind only 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, who’s the clear favorite at -210.
The Rivers “comeback” (which literally is a comeback) doesn’t fit within the clarification the Associated Press published to voters last year: “The spirit of the AP Comeback Player of the Year Award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season.”
Rivers missed playing time in 2024 (and 2023, 2022, and 2021 by choice). Still, the AP won’t be rejecting ballots that contain Rivers’s name.
With five names on the list for each of the 50 voters, Rivers will surely get votes. Unless the Colts manage to turn their current 1-5 slide into a playoff berth, Rivers likely won’t get enough votes to secure the trophy.
The other realistic candidates are Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, both of whom have 7-1 odds.
Colts Clips
The Colts have a healthy young quarterback, a quarterback who is coming back from an injury sustained in an unfortunate pregame accident, and a 44-year-old grandfather who just started his first game since the 2020 postseason.
As we know, between Riley Leonard, Anthony Richardson, and Philip Rivers, it’s Rivers who is set to start the Week 16 matchup against the 49ers on Monday Night Football.
Richardson has been cleared for football activities, but in a Monday press conference, head coach Shane Steichen did not definitively say one way or another whether or not Richardson would have his 21-day practice window opened this week. While Leonard could be an option, Steichen was fairly blunt when asked why the team would go with Rivers instead of potentially giving the rookie a shot.
“Obviously, we wanted to see how Philip did on Sunday, and I thought he did some really good things. To bring in a guy of his age and where he’s at in his career — we didn’t bring him in here to sit on the bench. I’ll say that,” Steichen said, via transcript from the team. “So, he’s excited for this challenge. We obviously got to take it one week at a time, and then we go from there.”
Rivers looked limited at times by different factors during Sunday’s loss to the Seahawks, finishing 18-of-27 for 120 yards with a touchdown and an interception. But Rivers’ knowledge of the offensive scheme and how defenses would attack it allowed him to overcome some of those limitations to be an effective signal-caller. The numbers indicate Rivers didn’t do much downfield passing, but he didn’t necessarily have to.
“Yeah, I think obviously, we talked about a little bit earlier, but going into that game plan — that was the game plan,” Steichen said. “We wanted to run the ball, control the clock, take easy completions. I thought we did a pretty good job of that. And our defense was phenomenal. They played awesome. Obviously, they didn’t score a touchdown. And to kick that field goal there at the end to have a chance to win it — I thought it was like a hard-fought game. I thought our guys played their tail off, and just at the end, it wasn’t enough. We’ve got to find a way to do that.
“I thought Philip did a hell of a job of managing that game plan. That was the plan going into it. I thought he did a hell of a job. Obviously, on the road in a hostile environment, first one back in a long time. He did what was necessary to put us in position to win that game.”
As for the aftermath of the game, Steichen said Rivers felt good coming into the building on Monday.
“He’s in the quarterback room right now watching tape,” Steichen said. “He’s like, ‘I’ve got my normal bruises that I had when I played.’ But he said, ‘I feel pretty darn good.’ So, that was good for him to come out of the game clean. And then obviously he’s excited for the challenge coming up this week.”
“Obviously, it is a story, and he knows that. But I mean, it’s about the team, and he’s here to help us win football games. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here, and he’s going to fight like crazy, just like he always has his whole career to help win one week at a time — as to his mindset, and that’s what he’s looking forward to, of the challenge each and every week of preparing to get ready to go out and compete and try to win a football game.”
The second game of the Philip Rivers reunion tour will be broadcast to a national audience.
Colts coach Shane Steichen told reporters on Monday that Rivers will start the Week 16 Monday night game against the 49ers.
The game has massive ramifications for the 8-6 Colts, who started 7-1 and have lost five of six games.
They gave the Seahawks a run for their money on Sunday, losing 18-16 after taking a 16-15 lead with 47 seconds to play.
Rivers, in his first game since the 2000 wild-card playoffs, completed 18 of 27 passes for 120 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. He was sacked once.
The Colts are currently the No. 8 seed in the AFC postseason field. If the Colts fail to qualify, they’ll be the sixth team since the merger to start 7-1 or better and miss the playoffs — and the first to do so since the league expanded the tournament to seven teams per conference.
The Colts coaxed Philip Rivers out of retirement last week and they may be getting another one of their former starting quarterbacks back on the practice field soon.
According to multiple reports, Anthony Richardson has been cleared to resume football activities. Richardson has been out since fracturing an orbital bone while working out ahead of Indianapolis’ Week 6 game against the Cardinals.
The Colts have not formally designated Richardson for return from injured reserve at this point and no word from the team if they plan to do so this week, but that would be a necessary step to get him back into practice. The move would create a 21-day window for Richardson to work out with the team and that would run through the end of the regular season.
As of now, that would also mark the end of the Colts’ campaign as they are currently out of playoff position in the AFC. It’s unclear if there would be any thought of playing Richardson before the curtain officially drops on their season, but Richardson remains under contract through next season so any practice time he does get could be seen as a jump start on his offseason work.
The Seahawks didn’t score a touchdown on Sunday and they allowed a 44-year-old quarterback who hadn’t played since 2020 to put together a go-ahead drive in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, but neither of those things were at the forefront of Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald’s mind after the game.
After Rashid Shaheed returned a kickoff to Seattle’s 37-yard line, he caught two passes from Sam Darnold for 25 yards to set up Jason Myers’ game-winning field goal with 18 seconds left to play. While the 18-16 win wasn’t the prettiest outing of the year for the Seahawks, it provided reason for Macdonald to praise the resilience he believes any team needs to have to reach its goals.
“Great football teams find a way to win games of all shapes and sizes in the NFL,” Macdonald said, via the team’s website. “You guys are a great football team. Freakin’ all three phases, the roster, 1-70, all the coaches, coaches did a great job of adjusting throughout the game. All three phases, awesome job. The resiliency, the relentlessness, all the way to the last second, that’s some high-powered stuff. That’s what great teams do.”
The Seahawks won’t be able to dwell on Sunday’s performance for long. They have a Thursday night home game against the Rams that will determine which team is in the driver’s seat for the NFC West and the NFC overall heading into the final two weeks of the season. A win in that game would do a lot to support Macdonald’s belief that his team is a great one.
There was a storybook ending to Philip Rivers’ return to the NFL on Sunday, but he and the Colts were on the wrong side of it.
Rivers completed a key third down pass to Alec Pierce to set up Blake Grupe’s 60-yard field goal with 47 seconds left to play in Seattle and the kick put the Colts ahead on the road in a game they desperately needed to boost their chances of making the playoffs. The lead would not hold, however. Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold completed a pair of passes that set up a 56-yard field goal that Jason Myers hit to make the Colts 18-16 losers in Rivers’ first game since 2020.
After the game, Rivers said it was “a blast” to be back on the field but a disappointment because the Colts are “scrapping like crazy to try to stay alive and get in the postseason.” They didn’t help that cause on Sunday and Rivers knows that time is running short for the team to rescue itself.
“If I can stay healthy, I feel good, and it is going to get better as we go,” Rivers said. “But the catch is that we’ve got to win. It doesn’t really matter if it’s getting better as we go if we don’t win because it’s going to be over in three weeks. So that’s the catch there. But it’s going to continue to get better. I mean, this is obviously the first one. We’re talking about three days of practice.”
Rivers gets an extra day to prepare for Week 16 because the Colts will be at home against the 49ers next Monday night and the Colts will need to be at their best if they want to have a chance at being on the right side of a fairy tale in Week 18.
49ers receiver Ricky Pearsall dealt with a couple of injuries during Sunday’s victory over the Titans, but it sounds like he should be OK moving forward.
Pearsall suffered an ankle injury during San Francisco’s first offensive possession and was able to return. He then aggravated a previous PCL injury later in the contest that sidelined him for the rest of the matchup.
“We’ll know for sure tomorrow, but he hurt the ankle on the first play, and returned, and played with that the whole game,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said postgame, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “And then, the knee thing, I think, was just him most likely irritating his PCL from the past. Those linger, so I would expect it to be alright, but he was battling through a lot today.”
Pearsall noted that he got twisted with his ankle getting caught up in that early in the contest.
“And towards the end of the game, obviously, I came up limping, but that’s just some old stuff,” Pearsall said. “I don’t really know what’s going on with it, to be honest. … I’ve got to get some imaging done to it and see what exactly it is. But it’s probably the same thing that I was dealing with before, and that sucks.
“But at least I know how to manage it now, and go about it. And so, that’s all I can focus on right now, is getting it ready for the next week.”
Despite the injuries, Pearsall finished with six catches on seven targets for 96 yards. It was his most productive game since Sept. 21 when he caught eight passes for 117 yards in a victory over Arizona.
“Having to play through the injuries and stuff in that game, and he probably, physically, was struggling more in that game, I think it says a lot about him to still be able to fight through it, get out there, and still have a very productive game,” Shanahan said.
The 49ers will have an extra day to prepare and for Pearsall to recover, as they’ll play the Colts on the road next Monday night.
For a few moments, it looked like Philip Rivers would cap a whirlwind week by celebrating his first win as a Colt since 2020 but the Seahawks and kicker Jason Myers had something to say about it.
Rivers made a key completion to wide receiver Alec Pierce on a third down after the two minute warning to keep a Colts drive alive and the Seahawks used all three of their timeouts before Colts kicker Blake Grupe nailed a 60-yard kick to put his team up 16-15 with 47 seconds to play. Seahawks kick returner Rashid Shaheed returned the ensuing kickoff to the 37-yard line and then caught a pass from Sam Darnold to move the ball across midfield.
The two players picked up eight more yards a couple of plays later and Jason Myers was called on for the sixth time on the afternoon. Myers hit all six and the 56-yarder put the Seahawks up 18-16 with 18 seconds to play.
Rivers got a chance to air one out in a last-ditch attempt to pull off the upset, but safety Coby Bryant snatched it out of the air to preserve Seattle’s 11th win of the season. The victory means that next week’s home game against the Rams will be for first place in the NFC West.
The Colts are now 8-6 and their fourth straight loss leaves them with very slim playoff chances. Rivers did his best to keep that from happening and threw a touchdown pass that helped the team to a 13-6 halftime lead, but the Colts couldn’t move the ball in the second half. Their defense was able to keep Seattle out of the end zone, but the Seahawks got points on four of their first five possessions in the second half and that proved to be too much for the Colts to overcome.
Rivers was 18-of-27 for 120 yards while Darnold was 22-of-36 for 271 yards. Wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba kept his stellar season going with seven catches for 113 yards, but the Seahawks could never get their run game going on Sunday. That will likely need to change to beat the Rams in what will be a marquee matchup in Week 16.
Colts quarterback Philip Rivers’ return to the NFL got off to a shaky start on Sunday afternoon, but he finished the first half in Seattle on a hot streak.
Rivers completed his final seven passes of the half, including a seven-yard touchdown to wide receiver Josh Downs with 1:33 left to play in the half. It’s the 422nd career touchdown pass for Rivers and his first since the 2020 season.
The Seahawks were able to drive for a Jason Myers field goal as time expired in the first half, so it is 13-6 Colts at halftime.
Rivers is 10-of-16 for 81 yards and the Colts have picked up 73 more yards on the ground. He has only been sacked once and that came after he slipped in the pocket.
Colts left tackle Bernhard Raimann left the game with an elbow injury late in the second quarter and he is called questionable to return. That’s the same status as Seahawks right tackle Abraham Lucas, who hurt his shoulder on Sunday.
The Seahawks will get the ball coming out of the half and they’ll be hoping to find a better formula after going three-and-out on three of their five first half possessions.
The Seahawks activated tight end Eric Saubert from injured reserve on Saturday and they also secured his return for the 2026 season.
Saubert has signed a one-year extension with the team. No other terms of the deal were announced. Saubert missed the last six games with a calf injury and had one catch for 12 yards in seven games before his injury.
The Seahawks also activated offensive lineman Jalen Sundell and defensive lineman Rylie Mills. Sundell was the team’s center before injuring his knee in Week 10 and can also play guard. Mills was a fifth-round pick this year and has not played in any games this season.
Tight end Elijah Arroyo was placed on injured reserve while running back Velus Jones has been elevated from the practice squad for the third straight game.
