It’s currently unclear whether or not 44-year-old Philip Rivers will start at quarterback for the Colts when they play the Seahawks on Sunday.
But as Seattle’s head coach, Mike Macdonald has to prepare for whatever comes.
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Macdonald told reporters on Wednesday that he’s expecting Rivers to play, but the club will be prepared for Riley Leonard and Brett Rypien as well.
“It’s the NFL, man. Every week is different. Finally we had something kind of crazy happen this year that wasn’t expected,” Macdonald said, via Gregg Bell of The News Tribune. “If anybody can pull it off, it’s him. The guy’s probably one of the best competitors in the history of the NFL. I’m sure he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t feel like he was ready. So, we’re getting ready for him like he’s been playing the whole time.”
There’s an obvious challenge in trying to prepare for a quarterback who hasn’t played in five years. Macdonald termed the process “tricky.”
“Do you overthink it? Do you go back and watch some of the stuff before he retired?” Macdonald said. “You’re obviously going to go off a lot of what they’ve done this year.
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“So, at the end of the day, we’ve got to go play football. We’ve got to make sure we’re on our stuff and we’re ahead of plays and we’re playing our style of ball.”
We’ll see how the week unfolds and if the Seahawks do, in fact, end up playing Rivers on Sunday.