Philip Rivers built an impressive NFL career with the Chargers and he hit a couple of significant personal milestones in Sunday’s rout of the Jets.
Rivers threw his 400th career touchdown and passed 60,000 career passing yards before giving way to Jacoby Brissett in the fourth quarter of a 36-7 laugher. Rivers is the sixth person to reach each of those milestones and has a good shot of passing Dan Marino for fifth place in each category before the year is out.
Tight end Mo Alie-Cox caught Rivers’ touchdown, Jonathan Taylor added a rushing touchdown and the Colts secondary provided two other scores. Xavier Rhodes opened the scoring by returning a Sam Darnold interception for a score and T.J. Carrie did the same on the final play of the third quarter. Rhodes added a second interception and the Colts also sacked Darnold for a safety on another long day for the Jets offense.
Left tackle Mekhi Becton was added to the long injury list after hurting his shoulder and the Jets offense never found its footing after the second Rhodes pick. It came in the end zone at the end of a good drive that could have cut the Colts’ lead to 17-14 before halftime.
Darnold was 17-of-29 for 168 yards and a touchdown while also being sacked twice by a Colts defense that’s found its stride after a bad opener against the Jaguars. They’ll try to keep it going against the Bears next weekend, although they’ll have to wait to see who is at quarterback.
The Jets host the Broncos on Thursday night, so they’ll get a quick turnaround before they try to avoid their 11th loss of at least 10 points under head coach Adam Gase.