Is there a chance Philip Rivers becomes a head coach in the NFL?
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz discuss if Philip Rivers could become a head coach in the NFL for the 2026 season. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
Are you buying Philip Rivers as a head coach in the NFL in 2026?
No.
Uh, I am not.
I will say the same thing about this situation, about Philip Rivers eventually being a coach in 2026, that I said about Matt Ryan taking over front office leadership duties in Atlanta.
Just because you played the position does not mean that you can do the job.
It doesn't mean you can't Yep.
Do the job?
Of course not.
But it doesn't necessarily mean that you can coach at a high level, or that you can be a front office member and evaluate at a high level.
Just look at what life has looked like in one year with Tom Brady doing evaluation for the Raiders.
So, I'm not saying that Philip Rivers can't, I'm just saying, going from a leap of being a quarterback in the league, to then turning around and being a head coach in the League the next year feels like a really big jump.
Going from being a high school coach in Alabama to now being a head coach in the NFL Football League, well, life's a little bit different there.
So, I think that Philip Rivers, if I could, I could totally 100% eventually see him being a coach in this league, but that leap can't happen from quarterback to coach in the span of Just a few months.
Well, I mean, how often do we talk about how How different is the job for an offensive or defensive coordinator to head coach?
It's such a wildly different position.
There's a learning curve to all of it.
I could see Philip Rivers, if he wants to be a coach, going through the trajectory of becoming A coach, become some sort of a positional coach or an offensive coordinator.
And then work your way to head coach.
I will remind everybody what the conversations It was when Jeff Saturday, a dear friend, was named the interim head coach of the Colts.
And yes, Jeff Saturday texted me right after he beat my beloved Raiders as the interim head Coach of the Colts.
I get that.
But the conversation when everything went downhill, and he was just an interim coach to come in and fill the gap.
The conversation was, "How could the Colts put somebody so unqualified on the sidelines as Jeff Saturday?"
And that was probably a fair conversation, Because he's never been an NFL head coach, he was just a sort of stopgap solution to This.
How is this any different?
We have no idea.
Just because Philip Rivers has been a Successful quarterback, just like you said, doesn't mean that Tom Brady makes a successful Owner or president or whatever the hell he is with the Raiders simply because he was a legendary quarterback.
Just like Michael Jordan didn't make a great NBA team owner.
Like, we've got example after example of front Office people that were players weren't great front office people.
