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During his 17-year NFL career, Philip Rivers never got to play in a Super Bowl, but that actually almost changed last season. 

During an interview on "The TK Show," 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan revealed that if his team had beaten the Eagles in the NFC title game, he was likely going to call Rivers to be the team's starting quarterback in Super Bowl LVII. 

In the lead-up to the NFC Championship, the 49ers were already on their third quarterback. They lost Trey Lance to a season-ending injury in September. Jimmy Garoppolo took over, but then he was lost after suffering a serious foot injury in December. 

After that, the 49ers turned to their third-string quarterback, Brock Purdy. Although Mr. Irrelevant came up big for the 49ers, the team lost him to an injury in the NFC title game (The team's fourth-string QB Josh Johnson then went in, only to go down with an injury). 

After seeing Purdy go down with an elbow injury in the first half, a lot of thoughts started running through Shanahan's mind. 

"I still thought we were going to win the game," Shanahan said. "Whole thing, I'm just thinking is, 'Man, I hope Brock's not as bad as they're saying and what's going to be our Plan B? Are we going to have to get Philip Rivers, someone like that, for the Super Bowl?' Because that's what I'm thinking."

Since he was in the middle of coaching a game, Shanahan didn't have a lot of time to consider his options, but it seems that Rivers was the one name that kept popping in his head.

"I didn't think Jimmy was going to be ready [for the Super Bowl] and all I'm thinking is, 'Man, I hope Brock is not bad as bad as they're saying and I hope someone like Philip Rivers is working out and ready to go here in two weeks because that's still our plan,'" Shanahan said. 

With one minute left to play in the third quarter, the 49ers trailed by two scores, 21-7, in a game they would eventually lose 31-7. If the 49ers had somehow managed to win, there's a good chance that Rivers would have been under center for the 49ers against the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII. It would have been crazy to see that considering Rivers would have gone more than two full years between NFL games. His final game came on Jan. 3, 2021 and the Super Bowl was played on Feb. 12, 2023. 

The closest Rivers ever got to the Super Bowl came in 2007 when his Chargers made it all the way to the AFC Championship game before losing to the undefeated Patriots 21-12.