Is Philip Rivers headed to the Hall of Fame?

Rivers was very good ... but is a quarterback with no Super Bowl appearances worth of enshrinement?

Welcome to a special Thursday edition of the Post Route, spurred by the sudden(ish) retirement of the only quarterback to ever playing 17 seasons without uttering a single curse word. We’ll be back tomorrow with picks and Super Bowl previews and more.

Philip Rivers retired this week, giving us a rare Wednesday news dump amidst the backdrop of a presidential inauguration (the timing … was Rivers Q all along?). His departure from the gridiron leaves the Colts in a tough spot, but they aren’t the only ones left with questions. Well, one question in particular:

Is Philip Rivers a Hall of Famer?

Sure, of course. His longevity and his production scream “Canton.” Pro Football Reference’s Hall of Fame monitor rates his career as more worthy of enshrinement than quarterbacks like Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Joe Namath, Troy Aikman, and Kurt Warner.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I can think of one thing those six guys have in common that Rivers absolutely does not.

That’s the shadow that will chase Rivers into retirement. In 15 seasons as a starter, the goofball quarterback made it beyond the Divisional Round of the AFC playoffs exactly once. And though his postseason passer rating was roughly 10 points lower than his regular season mark, that’s not especially unusual for a QB facing tougher defenses in January and February; Tom Brady’s postseason rating is seven points lower than his Weeks 1-17 average. Payton Manning’s dropped by nine points.

There’s a very real argument about the failures of those around him in some of those playoff defeats. 

A 13-3 season in 2009 was cut short in a playoff loss to the Jets (the JETS!) in which the Chargers committed 10 penalties and Nate Kaeding missed field goals of 57, 40, and 36 yards in a 17-14 game. A 9-7 2013 led to a Wild Card game where Rivers outplayed Peyton Manning but was undone by an offensive line that allowed him to be sacked four times (four more times than Manning, notably) and limited San Diego’s running backs to 55 yards on 15 carries. 

Somehow, these aren’t even his most painful playoff exits! He played the 2008 AFC Championship Game -- his only trip to the NFL’s final four -- on a partially torn ACL only to come away with a heartbreaking loss. Rivers drove his team inside the Patriots’ 10-yard line three times and came away with nine points as head coach Norv Turner opted for field goal after field goal. That same game, the Chargers punted the ball away trailing 21-12 in the fourth quarter with 9:21 to play and never saw the ball again. 

Then there’s the game that derailed his best regular season, a 14-2 sprint that finished without a single postseason win. That’s when his Chargers saw an eight-point lead evaporate in the final eight minutes thanks to, well, just about the most unlikely fourth-and-five conversion in NFL history:

Even then, Rivers led his timeout-less team 39 yards in three plays (and two clock-stopping spikes) in the final 1:05 to line up a potential game-tying 54-yard field goal with eight seconds to play (yeah, the clock management wasn’t great). And, because Nate Kaeding is tragedy taking human form and putting on shoulder pads, his kick was both wide right and short.

Could Rivers have been better? Sure! But a better supporting cast or head coach -- remember, he toiled under Turner and Marty Schottenheimer in the salad days of his career -- would have been enough to paper over his postseason mistakes. Time after time, Rivers wasn’t the one pointing a loaded gun at his team’s metaphorical foot in New England.

We’re really gonna give that much credit to a guy who was arguably Drew Bledsoe, born 10 years later? I mean, at least Bledsoe took a flawed Patriots team to a Super Bowl.

It’s undeniable Phil was a product of his era. Rivers’ entire starting career came after the league enforced the “Ty Law Rule,” which severely limited how aggressive defensive backs could be in coverage. That set the stage for passing records to be obliterated, and the Chargers quarterback rode that rising tide to gaudy numbers. This makes it difficult to compare his stats to guys who may have called it a career only a few years before Rivers exploded onto the scene. 

For example, Rivers -- the greatest quarterback to never play a Super Bowl -- has a passer rating nearly 10 points higher than the greatest quarterback to never win one, Dan Marino.

Fortunately, there are a ton of elite quarterbacks who are Hall of Fame bound that Rivers *can* be compared to. Let’s see how he stacks up against the other quarterbacks drafted in the 2000s who went on to play 10+ seasons as a starter:

Click to embiggen. This is where I get sad you can’t paste a spreadsheet into Substack.

Anyway, only 13 passers drafted in that 10-year span went on to start for at least a decade. While Rivers can’t stack up to the resumes of Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, or Tom Brady, you can make the case he’s the fourth-best quarterback of the decade. He averaged more wins per season than Eli Manning and had more Pro Bowl invites (meaningless, sure, but they *do* matter to voters) than Ben Roethlisberger. Despite his postseason woes, he has more playoff wins than Matt Ryan or Carson Palmer. He led more fourth-quarter comebacks and game winning drives than Rodgers.

This is all to say Rivers rates out as “pretty good” among a list of extremely rare quarterbacks. There were 130 passers drafted between 2000 and 2009. The former Charger was, at worst, sixth-best among them -- the 96th percentile of all drafted QBs. 

Rivers inherited a pretty good Chargers roster, then had losing seasons in only four of his 15 as a starter. He’ll spend the next decade ranked among the top 10 quarterbacks EVER in passing yards, yards per pass, and passing touchdowns and the top 15 in all-time passer rating. He was great, even if the football gods’ light shined less brightly on the haunted graveyard of San Diego.

He won’t be a first ballot entry -- especially if Brees retires this year -- but Rivers was good enough for long enough that he’ll eventually earn his spot in Canton. Rivers’ longevity is enough to erase the specter of his postseason shortcomings. Plus, who wouldn’t want to see him roll up to his Hall of Fame induction with all 15 kids in tow?

Alright, fine. You’ve convinced me. Throw him in there … just not in 2025.

Thank you, imaginary dissenter. I appreciate the debate.