INDIANAPOLIS — Philip Rivers didn't wait long to make a little history with his new team.
The Indianapolis Colts quarterback today, in the team's 2020 Week 3 matchup against the New York Jets at Lucas Oil Stadium, became the sixth player in NFL history to reach the 400 career passing touchdown plateau when he connected with Mo Alie-Cox for his first passing score of the day, a 1-yard connection to put the Colts up 14-7 early in the second quarter.
Rivers joins Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Dan Marino in the 400 passing touchdowns club.
But that's not all. With a 45-yard connection to Alie-Cox later in the quarter, Rivers passed Marino to enter fifth place on the NFL's all-time passing completions list (4,967), and then later in the second quarter became the sixth player in NFL to reach 60,000 career passing yards, joining Brees, Brady, Manning, Favre and Marino on that list, too.
Rivers signed with the Colts back in March after 16 seasons with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers. An eight-time Pro Bowl selection, Rivers entered his Colts debut today sixth in NFL history in both career passing touchdowns (597) and passing yards (59,271).
In all, Rivers completed 4,908-of-7,591 passes (64.7 percent) for 59,271 yards and 397 touchdowns in his 16 seasons with the Chargers — all franchise records.
A Walter Payton Man of the Year finalist in 2011, Rivers concluded his Chargers tenure with more than 30 total franchise records to his name, including completion percentage (64.7), passing touchdown percentage (5.2), interception percentage (2.6), yards per passing attempt (7.8) and quarterback rating (95.1).
In NFL history, Rivers entered this season ranked in the top 10 in several categories, including attempts (seventh), completions (sixth), completion percentage (ninth), passing yards (sixth), passing touchdowns (sixth), passer rating (10th), first down completions (fifth – 2,913), completions of 25 yards or more (fifth – 455) and 300-yard passing games (fourth – 70). Additionally, his 123 career regular season victories as a starter rank ninth in league history.
