More than four years after his last game, Philip Rivers retires as a Charger

Often overlooked in an age of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson is a quarterback who joined the NFL in 2004 as a first-round pick and performed at a high level for 17 seasons.

More than four years after his last game — a playoff loss in Buffalo with the Colts — Philip Rivers has officially retired, with the Chargers.

While stats like this aren’t regularly kept, it’s got to be one of the longest gaps between a player’s last game and his official retirement with one of his former teams. Still, it was a nice surprise on the Monday afternoon of training-camps-are-open week. Even if my first thought was that the algorithm had dug deeper into the past than it usually does.

Rivers ranks sixth all-time in passing yards, with 63,440. More than Matt Ryan, Dan Marino, Eli Manning, Warren Moon, and (for now) Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford. Rivers is also sixth in passing touchdowns with 421. More than Ryan, Marino, Eli, Moon, Ben Roethlisberger, and (for now) Stafford.

While not on the same level as the team’s schedule-release videos, the segment posted on social media by the Chargers is worth your time. If only to remember his squeaky-voiced taunt to a Jaguars defender about a “NINETY! YARD! TOUCHDOWN!”

It’s a shame he never played in a Super Bowl. And it’s a shame he doesn’t get the attention he should. Philip Rivers was a great player, and a great character, of the past 20 years in the NFL.