File this away under odd NFL storylines you thought you'd never know.
For the first time in San Francisco 49ers, they'll be squaring off against a grandpa when they visit un-retired quarterback Philip Rivers and the Indianapolis Colts in Week 16 on Monday Night Football.
Rivers, 44 years old, came out of retirement after not having played since 2020 to help a desperate Indy squad that had just lost its starter, Daniel Jones, to a season-ending injury. And by performing admirably enough in Indianapolis' tough loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Week 15, Rivers is a quarterbacking threat the Niners have to take seriously.
Now, for the weirder parts.
Fans don't need much of an education to understand how football is a young person's game. Considering the average career of an NFL player is slightly over just three years, combined with the fact players on the wrong side of 30 years old are considered ancient, the thought of having grandfathers on the field is more closely associated with an old-timers game instead of a regular-season showdown.
But Rivers actually isn't the first grandpa to play in an NFL game. And San Francisco almost faced a grandpa not too terribly long ago.
49ers came close to facing another grandpa back in 2009
The first documented grandfather to suit up for an NFL team isn't Rivers. No, it was Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, who became a grand-pappy back in 2010 when he was with the Minnesota Vikings and a year shy of his retirement.
A year earlier, the 49ers visited Farve and the Vikings for a September bout that most Niners fans who can recall would probably rather forget (Minnesota won that game, in case you were wondering).
While Favre wasn't quite a grandpa yet, he was getting awfully close to that point, and his daughter would soon give birth to a son the following year.
So, as fate would have it, San Francisco missed out on being one of the league's first teams to square off against a grandfather by a lone season.
That'll change this Monday, though, when the 49ers visit "Grandpa Rivers."