San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was prepared to make one of the most outlandish decisions in NFL history had his team won the NFC Championship game. With San Francisco watching on as both starting QB Brock Purdy and backup Josh Johnson went down with injuries in the conference title game against Philadelphia, the Niners would have gone into the Super Bowl without a quarterback had they made it.
When asked if Rivers wanted to come back for the Niners, Shanahan said, ‘He was prepared to.’ Brock Purdy, the Niners starting quarterback, tore his UCL against Philadelphia in the NFC Championship game. As a result of that and more injuries, San Francisco lost 31-7.
They may have turned to an unlikely source for help if they reached Super Bowl LVII: retired quarterback Philip Rivers. According to Shanahan, he had held discussions with the former San Diego Chargers and Indianapolis Colts quarterback on a possible return for the Super Bowl – despite having not taken a snap in two seasons.
Shanahan added, ‘It’s stuff we talked about for the whole year. We would have had to see how it was for the Super Bowl, but that was the plan for most of the year.’ You may recall that the San Francisco 49ers were completely snake-bitten when it came to luck with the health of their quarterbacks in the 2022 season.
That left the offense in the hands of Brock Purdy a rookie quarterback out of Iowa State who was selected last in that year’s draft. Purdy seemed sturdy under center before getting injured in the NFC title game. Johnson replaced him, but he too went down with a severe concussion that forced Shanahan to return to Purdy.
Just two games into the campaign, planned starter Trey Lance went down with an injury that kept him out for the rest of the season. The torch was passed to Jimmy Garoppolo – who played in eleven games before going down with an injury.
Playing with a torn UCL, Purdy and the Niners offense struggled to produce as Philadelphia won 31-7. Chalk this up as another one of the sport’s great ‘what if’s’ throughout its history as a 41-year-old Philip Rivers who has never played for the Niners and has never played in Shanahan’s offensive system would have gotten his first snaps of the NFL season at the Super Bowl against Kansas City.
Rivers is quite possibly the greatest quarterback in Chargers history having tossed for 59,271 yards and 397 touchdowns in his career. With the Chargers, he reached the AFC Championship once in 2007 where they lost to the then-undefeated New England Patriots.
He has a total of 63,440 yards, 421 touchdowns and 209 interceptions across the bulk of his NFL career spanning from 2004-2020. In the playoffs, Rivers has a total of 2,965 yards and 16 touchdowns across twelve games.
