The NFL has seen its fair share of characters over the years. Perhaps the most unique at the quarterback position was San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers legend Philip Rivers. The kid from Decatur, Alabama, couldn’t have sounded more Southern, and he couldn’t have been a more devout Catholic — the latter of which actually added to his eccentricity.
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It meant that the ultra-competitive Rivers, who is probably the best trash-talking QB in NFL history, would use the most hilarious combinations of words to insult his opponents without cursing. Instead of motherf***er and dammit, you got motherfudge and dadgummit.
A running joke across the NFL was also that his devout Roman Catholic beliefs likely meant an anti-contraception attitude in the Rivers household. He never said so explicitly, but the Good Book rules against contraception. And the fact that his wife, Tiffany, gave birth to 10 — count ’em, 10 — children by ol’ Phil is pretty good evidence. Bolo ties yay, condoms nay in the Rivers residence.
His hilarious idiosyncrasies stretched from his home and church right onto the NFL gridiron, where he exhibited perhaps the most peculiar throwing motion in NFL history. Instead of a regular swing of the arm, Rivers compressed the movement, making his arms look like a T-Rex’s as he shot-put the ball where he wanted it to go.
Despite his peculiar throwing motion, Rivers was as accurate as they came in his day. Aaron Rodgers once couldn’t help but bring it up: “Think about the way Phil Rivers played. His fundamentals and throwing. Not the most gifted thrower, but incredible timing and accuracy.”
From 2006 to 2020, during Rivers’ 15 seasons as a starter, he racked up a 64.9 completion percentage, ninth-best during that span. He also led the league in completion percentage in 2013 with a 69.5 mark. His nine seasons with a completion percentage of 65+ are tied for 5th most in NFL history as well. It may have looked weird, “But boy did it work,” as the NFL Films page recently put it on Instagram.
But how did Rivers even come upon such a strange flinging motion? He was drafted in 2004 by the San Diego Chargers and spent his first two seasons working behind Drew Brees. The future Hall of Famer was, therefore, in a unique position to hear the story of how his shot-put style came about straight from the horse’s mouth.
“Philip Rivers played 17 years in this league at an extremely high level. As a kid, his dad was a ball coach, he’d be out there on the field picking up a ball that was way too big for him at the time, and he’d end up just shot-putting it. And so he developed a little bit of this motion that was unorthodox based on that. Obviously extremely effective, extremely accurate,” Brees shared candidly.
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It’s similar to how young hoopers develop low-release jump shots. As kids, they shoot from around their chins rather than above their heads because the ball is too big for them to lift higher.
T-Rex tossing or not, Rivers got it done in his 15 years starting in the NFL. He now ranks sixth all-time in passing yards, eighth in completions, sixth in passing TDs, third in 4,000-yard seasons, sixth in 400-yard passing games, and sixth in 30-TD seasons.
Rivers will be eligible for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame next year. Based on his career accomplishments, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to see him get in, despite his lack of a Super Bowl ring. PFR has his HOF Monitor score sitting at 98.06. The only QBs ahead of him in that metric are already in or are not yet eligible, like Rivers.
