This is the Athletic Football Show.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show.

Great show for you guys today.

Nate Tice is going to be joining us a little bit later. We to do some X's and O's breakdowns at the conference championship games. Really looking forward to that. Before we do that, though, I am thrilled to welcome the Athletics Zone, Lindsay Jones, the program. Lindsay, how are you doing? I am great, Robert. How are you doing? I'm okay. You're okay.

It was a mixed day.

You know, you wake up and, you know, there are certain people getting on helicopters and you're really happy about it.

But then I actually found out the hardest way.

I had people tweeting at me that saw the news first.

Philip Rivers retired today.

Yeah.

And it is really funny that so many people, multiple people today have said,

you're the first person I thought of when that news happened.

I am not a Chargers fan nor a Colts fan.

And I guess for whatever reason, the reasons are obvious, people just connect me to Philip Rivers. And I'll be honest, I'm not surprised. You know, this seemed like it was always possible. He's almost 40 years old. He's played a really long time. He's got a bunch of kids, obviously. He's got a job lined up as his son's high school football coach or at his son's school. Yeah, this was always coming. But it still is kind of a bummer. Like the fact that Philip Rivers will not be in the NFL anymore and I don't get to watch Philip Rivers play quarterback. That's sad to me. I'm a little upset about it. Yeah, it is a sad day in the NFL. And look, there's going to be more retirements coming. I mean, we expect at some point in the probably not too distant future, we'll hear something from Drew Breeze.

But, you know, but Philip Rivers, there was just so much joy in the way that he played, the way that he conducted everything about his NFL career.

It was fun to watch him unless you were a fan of the team that he was playing against that specific day. It was fun to watch him, unless you were a fan of the team that he was

playing against that specific day. It was fun to cover him, you know, from a reporter's perspective,

just because he was so refreshing in terms of his honesty and his availability and his accessibility.

And, you know, and part of that was because I think of the market that he spent

most of his career in, that he was really able to, you know, develop relationships with the

reporters in San Diego. But I think part of it, too, is just who Philip Rivers is. And, you know,

you have to be careful in this business, in our business, of, you know, making too many assumptions

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