Thank you, Philip Rivers, for saving my husband’s fantasy football career. After nine years of mid-rank finishes, my husband (General Manager of the Mudflaps) was ready to walk away from the thrill of occasional victory and the agony of end-season defeat. Year after year of ponying up the entry fee, carefully analyzing the off-season stats and confidently drafting a team composed of men who would become the center of Sunday evening dinner conversation only to be eliminated from the playoffs every December had taken its toll.

His preseason excitement had slowly turned to bitter hopelessness with each fourth-place finish. And last summer, he made up his mind. This would be the final season for the Mudflaps.

No more begging Andre Johnson to power through a pair of 400-pound carnivores for more yardage from the basement sofa. No more lamentations of mediocrity as the game clocks wind down every three hours. No more cursing like Butkus at another average season. My husband was ready to unchain his soul from the shackles of fantasy football, leaving him free to experience things like the beauty of Sunday afternoons in October, the joy of herding children to bed on Sunday nights and the pageantry of Monday night’s “Dancing with the Stars” next fall.

And so the final season began, giddiness replaced by impending defeat. Though an early winner this September, his jaded heart refused to celebrate. While the leaves fell week after week, the Mudflaps continued to rise, but not a peep was heard throughout our home, as the GM anticipated a late-season nosedive.

He started a band. He played a lot of “Angry Birds.” And he held steadfast to his plan to swear off fantasy football forever.

Until Philip Rivers faced San Francisco during playoff week.

This week was to be his finale. His gut-wrenching exit from a run of chronic disappointment. Like Dan Marino, he would proudly raise his ringless hand and wave goodbye to a crowd of on(line)-lookers, gracefully retiring, perhaps following in No. 13’s steps and providing pregame analysis for those who have nothing else going on in their lives, trying hard to remember the moments of brilliance in a career so often overshadowed by loss.

But there was no choking for the Mudflaps this time around, as Philip Rivers passed for 273 yards and, likely unbeknownst to him but definitely beknownst to me, propelled the Mudflaps to the Fantasy Football Finals.

It doesn’t matter that Dunlap’s Mudflaps lost by a landslide to Clarke’s Clowns the next weekend in the championship game. It doesn’t matter that the second-place winnings still don’t equal all the entry fees to date. What matters is that Philip Rivers, in an act of complete selflessness, gave my husband an irreversible boost with three life-changing touchdown passes and sucked him in for another year.

So thank you, Philip Rivers, for renewing his passion. It’s OK. I didn’t want to see “Dancing with the Stars” anyway. I hear there’s a Kardashian on deck.