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This weekend, the NFL welcomes back 44-year-old Philip Rivers, who will quarterback the Indianapolis Colts after retiring nearly five years ago. The Colts, having lost starting quarterback Daniel Jones for the season and on the verge of playoff elimination, borrowed Rivers from St. Michael Catholic High School, where he was coaching, to be both the “something old” and “something new” to their “something blue. ” Advertisement Rivers is older than 13 NFL head coaches, making this a confounding choice by both parties, but on today’s episode of “The Athletic Show, ” we dive into the constant mental battle that aging NFL players face. Often, aging athletes retire not because of physical ailments, but because their animal instincts lead them to avoid situations that put their bodies in harm’s way. They still see the game the same way, but because of a combination of slowed reaction time and self-preservation overriding their decision-making, they can’t execute as they used to. The exhilaration of playing professional sports is a beguiling call to danger, and we explore why Rivers may have succumbed to its siren song. Much of the discussion around Rivers’ return is centered on the physical danger he faces, so it’s no wonder a less violent version of football has been steadily gaining traction this decade. Flag football, once relegated to intramural fields and rec leagues, has grown into a professional-grade product set to make its debut in the 2028 Summer Olympics. One might expect the NFL to view flag football as competition to be crushed, but The Athletic’s Tim Graham joins the show to explain why the league is taking the opposite view. The NFL recently voted to allow active players to try out for the Olympics, and Graham says league powers view flag football as a salve for the PR fallout caused by so many high-profile injuries and the ongoing CTE crisis among players. Flag football is co-ed, far safer than tackle, and provides an alternative for parents who are worried about their children’s participation in such a physically brutal sport. But the pros in flag aren’t exactly eager to have NFL personnel flooding into their ranks. Team USA is currently undefeated, and we explore why the NFL doesn’t prepare its players for the demands of a lighter, faster variant of football. And speaking of football “variants, ” why is America the only place in the world that refers to the biggest sport on earth as “soccer”? With the World Cup months away and the U. S. acting as the primary host nation, is it time to consider joining the rest of the globe and calling it “football”? President Donald Trump recently said he thinks so, but given the amount of space that pigskin football occupies in the American consciousness, such a change seems too tectonic to be possible. We explore how the U. S. ended up as the last “soccer” holdout, and whether there’s any chance at altering the terminology this late in the game. Watch now on Fire TV or listen anywhere on your Alexa device. You can watch “The Athletic Show” on Fire TV and wherever you get your podcasts.