FMIA Conference Championships: Brock Purdy delivers again to meet Mahomes in Super Bowl

Super Bowl LVIII (that’s 58 for those not fluent in Roman numerals) is set for Feb. 11: San Francisco (14-5) versus Kansas City (14-6), 6:30 p.m. ET, Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas. The NFL, a decade ago, scoffed/laughed/pooh-poohed the idea of ever holding a Super Bowl in Vegas. How the craps tables have turned.

Game 1, 2023 season: Detroit v Kansas City. At halftime Sunday night, that looked like Game 285, 2023 season.

Nothing magical happened at halftime of Lions-Niners. Nothing. You’ll see: Kyle Shanahan was boring and pragmatic.

Detroit blockers. The athleticism and raw power of the Lions’ offensive line overwhelmed the Niners’ front seven in the first half, and then life changed, drastically, in the second half.

Road worriers. Detroit lost its 12^th straight road playoff game. The Lions haven’t won a postseason tilt away from home since I was 6 months old—in December 1957.

Pick your job, Ben Johnson. I’m guessing Washington.

Patrick Mahomes is the most accomplished 28-year-old quarterback in NFL history. No hyperbole there.

The Raiders have to be vomitous, by the way, at the prospect of the hated Kansas Citians using their practice facility for a week. But that’s the way the system works. When the Super Bowl’s in an AFC city, as it is this year, the AFC Super Bowl rep uses the home facility.

Impressive, Travis Kelce, breaking the record for postseason receptions in 21 games. Jerry Rice caught 151 with 22 touchdowns in 29 games, 5.20 catches per playoff game. Kelce now has 156 catches with 19 touchdowns in those 21 games, 7.43 catches per playoff game.

“Collaborative.” The byword of the NFL’s 2024 head-coaching searches.

Coachcast. Belichick/Saban, the 2024 version of Manning/Manning?

Biggest job for Jim Harbaugh: Make sure the Chargers are a lot better than 31-37 in the next four years. That’s what they were in Justin Herbert’s first four. Six under .500 with Herbert. How does something like that happen?

Bryce Young has been a Panther for nine months. He’s about to have the fifth, sixth and seventh voices in his head, teaching him football. Which makes the following mandatory:

David Tepper, stay out of the way. For once.

Have you noticed no good team punts on fourth-and-2 anymore, unless it’s waaaay backed up?

The wisdom of Brian Callahan is also the wisdom of a famous soccer manager in England, Jurgen Klopp.

Quite a week for Jurgen Klopp. Gets quoted by Callahan in Callahan’s opening press conference, announces his looming retirement the next day. Liverpudlians weep.

Requiem for the Bills. Something very odd, and destructive, happened at the two-minute warning eight days ago in Buffalo, and Josh Allen needs to go to school on why it did.

Wisdom from Kurt Warner for Josh Allen: “Sometimes, you talk yourself into a play and say, ‘I’m gonna make this play, and this is the throw that’ll send us to the championship game,’ instead of saying, ‘I’m gonna let the defense dictate where I throw the ball.’”

Best analysis of the last two minutes of the game that will sting Buffalo fans for months. Or longer.

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John Belushi, Jason Kelce. Belushi in “Animal House,” Kelce in Highmark Stadium. What’s the difference?

Joe Gibbs, Ben Johnson. Gibbs, born in North Carolina, got the Washington coaching job at 40 after two years running the high-scoring Chargers offense. Johnson, raised in North Carolina, is the leader for the Washington coaching job at 37 after two years running the high-scoring Lions offense. One day, Commanders fans hope they can ask, what’s the difference?

Joe Flacco gets it.

Memo to Kadarius Toney, bridge-burner: In 2048, when the Kansas City franchise has its 25^th anniversary of the Super Bowl LVII win over Philadelphia, you’ll wonder to yourself, “Where’s my invitation?”

A fun, quasi-tick-tock on the Chargers coaching search.

Corn Dog relived, 50 weeks later.

The names I got called for picking Myles Garrett for DPOY … included two different private body parts (one male, one female), a nickname for a cat, and two different curse words. Can’t we all just get along?

What does $12.5 million buy these days? Hint: It’s a house on a lake in North Carolina. The seller is sad he has to get rid of it.

Now, the story of two championship games.

At halftime, with the Niners down 24-7, Shanahan said his players were “extremely pissed. It’s not just that we were down 17. It’s the way we were down.” The non-competitive way. The defense was getting steamrolled. “We weren’t going down like that,” Shanahan said.

One of the great sports-writing clichés is the inspiring halftime speech. Last week in Baltimore, Lamar Jackson giving an expletive-laced rant got a lot of credit for the Ravens blowing out Houston in the second half. More important, by far, is how the Ravens changed their offensive approach from a deep-looking passing game to calling more quick passes and runs, with Baltimore opening the second half on a 24-0 run to rout the Texans.

“What happened at halftime,” I asked Purdy, “with your season on the line?”

“So,” Purdy said, “Kyle’s writing up the plays that we’re going to start out with in the first drive of the second half. Everyone’s eating and drinking and refueling. There’s not much said. We’re just listening to the plays that he’s going to call and what he expects the defense to do. There’s so much experience and veteran leadership on this team where guys just know what their job is and what we have to do. There’s not a lot of ‘rah-rah’ or anything. Kyle said a couple things. Fred Warner said a couple things. Simple things. Offense, we need momentum. We need to get points up on the board, get first downs and convert third downs. Defense, get stops. Sure enough, we go out there and do that. That was it. Nothing more than that.”

So I’m an old man in this business, and many of the modern analytics fly over my head. But there is one thing I believe above almost all others: More than any metric or stat, a quarterback should be judged on how he plays in the biggest moments.

Purdy stunk in the first three quarters against Green Bay last week. He mostly stunk in the first half against Detroit Sunday. But in the important moments, here’s how he responded:

Last seven minutes against Green Bay, after trailing 21-17: Purdy completed 6 of 7 passes for 49 yards. Niners went 69 yards in 12 plays to beat the Packers 24-21.

Second half against Detroit, after trailing 24-7: Purdy accounted for 223 yards while leading San Francisco to a 24-0 second-half margin over the first 27 minutes of the half. After the break, he completed 13 of 16 for 174 yards and a touchdown, and ran four times for 49 yards.

Two playoff games. Purdy went 19 of 23 in those game-deciding stretches and totaled 284 passing-rushing yards.

Season on the line twice in eight days.

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Purdy led a field-goal drive to start the second half, then caught a break with a ricochet bomb to Brandon Aiyuk, leading to a TD to make it 24-17. With five minutes left in the third quarter, on second-and-11 at the Detroit 25-, Purdy couldn’t find an open receiver. He ducked, plowed ahead, got out of traffic, and ran ahead. Keep in mind that in his 14 months as Niner QB, his longest run had been 17 yards. Here, his long run could have been a 25-yard TD—except he slammed into Deebo Samuel at the five- and went down four yards from the goal line. No matter. Christian McCaffrey tied the game with a plow-horse TD up the middle to tie it at 24.

Next series: Purdy escaped a sure sack and, throwing across his body, found Kyle Juszczyk for a toe-tapping, 10-yard sideline catch, and later scrambled for 10 yards on the way to a Jake Moody field goal. Niners, 27-24.

Next series: Third-and-4 at the Detroit 49- with 4:42 left. Crucial for Detroit to get a stop here, down three, and force San Francisco to punt. Purdy found no one to throw to, then took off, and one, two, three Lions dove at his heels and couldn’t stop him until he landed at the Lions’ 21-.

Fifteen minutes, 52 rushing yards. To keep three scoring drives alive.

“So, I’m trying to hit my receivers,” Purdy said. “That’s the point of playing quarterback. When they do a good job with the coverage or blitzes, then I see some space in that moment. In this game with the stakes what they’re at, being in the NFC Championship game it’s like ‘You gotta find a way, man.’ I know that I’m athletic enough to be able to move the chains and create some juice and momentum for our guys. That’s what I think I did in those moments. It wasn’t predetermined or anything. It was just on the fly. Honestly, I lowered my shoulder a couple times. I think it was good for our team. It was momentum, and we needed that.”

One of the great things about this Super Bowl—and there are many—is the David v Goliath quarterback matchup. The best player in football, Patrick Mahomes, against the lightning-rod, love-him-or-diss-him quarterback, Purdy. Football’s won in many different ways. Dan Marino and Dan Fouts won playing bombs-away football, but they never won a Super Bowl. Peyton Manning won with his relentlessness and his brain. Tom Brady and Mahomes have won with different skills and the kind of determination that will go down in sports history.

What’s Purdy? Other than an incredible story, I mean? He’s a player who isn’t the best at anything—other than taking what his coach asks and being superb at carrying it out. And that’s what great players do. They maximize their talent, they play their best when their best is required, they command trust. So, you can say Purdy is not in the same league with Mahomes, but he’s 21-5 as a starter in this league. And he’s in the Super Bowl now.

For the first time in four or five conversations with Purdy, I heard a bit of awe, a bit pf perspective, from this quarterback about what he’s done since lasting till Saturday night of the 2022 NFL Draft, when the only ones watching were Mel Kiper’s family.

“It’s been a roller coaster, really,” Purdy said, still in his football underclothes with an NFC Champs T-shirt Sunday night. “You finish your senior year in college. You get drafted last. Um, you think maybe there’s no shot to get drafted, then all of a sudden, there is.

“You make the team. You’re a backup. Then you’re getting thrown in. Then obviously you’re one win away from going to the Super Bowl your rookie year. You tear your arm. You go through the rehab process. You make it back.

“You go through some good times in the season. You go through some times that are tough, with the three losses we had in a row, and [four-interception] performance against Baltimore on Christmas Day. It’s a roller coaster, man. I’ve just tried to do my best to take it one day at a time and be where my feet are at, whether it’s going good or not. I’m not defined by my circumstances. More than anything, I just try to have a grateful mindset. That’s allowed me to enjoy this last year and a half.”

The wisdom of the young. Maybe that’s the best kind to have headed into a Super Bowl against the most experienced quarterback in the game. You get the feeling Purdy won’t be shaken by it.

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One of the fun things about the internet world is the ability to massage/edit after a column is posted. So when I woke up in California Monday morning, I realized I’d ignored a big part of this game: Dan Campbell’s game management in the second half, with the game suddenly on the line. So I’m adding a section about that right here.

Two things can be true: You can be a strategically daring coach, and you can know when to fold ‘em too. Campbell’s been the perfect coach for a wonderful team, and it’s heartbreaking for the fans of the Lions that the franchise won’t be going to its first Super Bowl, and to the first league championship game since the fifties.

But I think sometimes he’s a bit inflexible, a little impulsive. That showed in the controversial loss at Dallas in December, when he chose to go for two and a potential one-point win after a touchdown with 23 seconds to go. A fine call, I thought. A five-yard flag put the ball at the Dallas seven-yard line. And Campbell decided to still go for two at that point. He did get three yards closer on a Dallas flag, but the two-point try failed. I thought: When Dan Campbell’s on his boat in early July, he’s going to look back on his season and think: Going for two at the two- is a hell of a lot different than going for two at the seven-. I should have taken the PAT and played for overtime. I mean, maybe he won’t. But that’s how he should think, logically.

Now for the big decisions on a calm, temperate early evening at Levi’s Stadium. On fourth-and two from the San Francisco 28- midway through the third quarter, Detroit up 24-10, Campbell chose to go for it. Jared Goff threw incomplete. Turnover on downs. In the next 12 minutes, the 49ers scored three times to go up 27-24. Now a crucial series for the Lions. They got to the 30- of the Niners, fourth-and-three, and Campbell went for it again. Goff, on the run, fluttered a throw way off for Amon-Ra St. Brown. Incomplete.

So after losing 34-31, Campbell had to fend off questions about going for it twice instead of trying 46- and 48-yard field goals. He was steadfast. He didn’t regret the calls. That’s who the Lions are now, and bring on the scrutiny; I can take it.

You can look at this a few ways. The Lions went for it on 34 percent of their fourth-down snaps this year, the most in the NFL in at least 20 years; why change now? The kicker’s not automatic, so we’re going to go for it when other teams with Justin Tuckers might not. Not so fast on the second one. In the last three years, Detroit’s kicker, Michael Badgley, is 18 of 22 (82 percent) on kicks between the 40- and 49-yard lines. On a lovely evening, he was likely to make one or both.

I think Campbell was justified going for it the first time, up 14 on the Lions’ first series of the second half with the offense still riding the wave of a terrific first half. But on the second one, needing three yards versus having a chance to tie a Super Bowl elimination game with 7:38 left, I think that’s where he erred.

Coaches are paid to make the right decisions in the moment. Making the same decision—going for it on fourth-and-short in field-goal range—is not always the best decision. If Goff completes those two passes and the Lions go on to win, we’re not talking about this today. But history is written by the winners, and scrutiny goes to the losers. I can’t kill Campbell for the calls, because he’s been Riverboat Dan all season. I just would have kicked on the second one.

Points that stood out from Kansas City’s 17-10 AFC Championship Game victory in Baltimore Sunday afternoon:

· Go back 12 weeks to Germany, after Kansas City limped to a toothless 21-14 win over Miami. I talked to Patrick Mahomes for a “Football Night in America”: “We’re gonna get this offense figured out, I promise you, and we’ll be a hard team to beat.” Afterward, in the locker room, I stopped to thank him for his time and, unprompted, he said: “Believe me—we will figure out this offense. No doubt in my mind.” It’s clear that the AFC champs are not at peak efficiency, as they were in the Tyreek days. But the team that led the NFL in dropped passes in the regular season and was a sloppy, sloppy team for four months, is a far more efficient team in this 3-0 postseason run. Two turnovers in three games. Zero giveaways by Mahomes. And just three drops. The explosiveness isn’t there, but Mahomes was right. They’d figure it out, and they’d figure out the trustworthy offensive elements. As Mahomes said after Sunday’s game: “We always had everything we wanted in front of us. Coach Reid preaches that every single day we come into the building. And now we’re going to the Super Bowl.”

· Those trustworthy elements in the playoffs: Isiah Pacheco, 254 rushing yards; Travis Kelce, 262 receiving yards; Rashee Rice, 223 receiving yards. Each one had a game of glory—Rice in the win over Miami, Pacheco in the win at Buffalo, Kelce (11 targets, 11 catches, 116 yards) in the win at Baltimore. “We’re gonna get this offense figured out,” and they did. It’s not as explosive as some, but beware Mahomes in big games.

· Barring injury, barring something unforeseen, we’re probably a third of the way through Patrick Mahomes’ career. Six seasons. Six AFC West titles. Six AFC Championship Game appearances. Four Super Bowl appearances. Only Tom Brady (35) and Joe Montana (16) have more playoff wins than his 14 (tied with Peyton Manning, John Elway, Terry Bradshaw). He’s 28. Good Lord.

· Think playoff experience doesn’t matter? Kansas City had zero panic, zero moments in the game you thought, what are they doing? Baltimore will rue this first AFC title game in the city since 1971, for a long, long time.

· So many Baltimore errors, many of them so, so careless—and many by veterans. Kyle Van Noy, trusted 10-year vet, head-butting Travis Kelce for a penalty. Lamar Jackson, throwing a fourth-quarter pick into triple-coverage. Defensive leader Roquan Smith barreling into the KC line early for an unnecessary-roughness call, handing Kansas City a gift first down on the last series of the game. Jadeveon Clowney, with a big 15-yard roughing hit on Mahomes. And then, of course, the Zay Flowers stuff. A dumb taunting call late in the third quarter. And 10 inches from the goal line on the first play of the fourth quarter, fumbling away Baltimore’s best chance to get back in the game. “He didn’t have to extend the ball,” said one viewer, Sauce Gardner, on social media.

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· About that play … L’Jarius Sneed’s an accomplished NFL corner, and he made the biggest play of his career to dislodge the ball from Flowers. Played like a pro. “I saw him, he had a step on me,” Sneed said. “All that was in my mind was, catch up and make the tackle. And that’s what I did. And when I saw him stretch the ball out, I just punched at the ball, and it came out.”

· Seemed like a stunned Ravens team post-game, from what observers said. “I’ll learn from my mistakes,” Flowers said. Jackson had been pointing to this game since 2019—he was all-in on the Super Bowl and nothing else: “I’m angry about, you know, losing. We were a game away from the Super Bowl. We’ve been waiting all this time, all these moments, for an opportunity like this, and fell short. We scored once. That’s not like us.” It’s not—but that’s what being new at very big games does to a team.

· One amazing pro-Lamar play … The brilliance of Jackson’s second-quarter tipped-pass-to-himself-and-run for 13 yards has to include one other element: the fact that Jackson grabbed the ball inches from the grasp of KC safety Justin Reid. If Jackson doesn’t catch the ball and Reid does, Kansas City takes the ball at the Ravens’ 21-yard line with five minutes left in the half, already leading 14-7. Huge, huge play.

This will hurt for Baltimore for weeks, months. But at some point, they’ll know they’ll be better for the experience. And they’ll know there’s no shame in losing to Mahomes.

With six of the eight coaching openings filled, we can divine a few things from those who were hired and those who were not. I thought Tom Pelissero of NFL Network was on-point when saying the commonality to most of the hires was a collaborative spirit. Jerod Mayo (Pats), Dave Canales (Panthers), Brian Callahan (Titans), Raheem Morris (Falcons) and Antonio Pierce (Raiders) have all-for-one, one-for-all spirits; Jim Harbaugh (Chargers) is more of an imperious type, but his resume of success easily justifies his hiring. Maybe the best example, whether natural or by design, was the Titans promoting a video of Callahan arriving at the Tennessee facility and being greeted by GM Ran Carthon with a bearhug—after, of course, owner Amy Adams Strunk indicated there’d been a lack of collaboration in announcing the firing of Mike Vrabel.

The lukewarm interest in Bill Belichick and Vrabel on the open market is part of the trend. It’s amazing one or both of those men won’t have a team to coach in 2024.

On the remaining two gigs. The coaching/coaching-agent industry is sold that Detroit offensive coordinator Ben Johnson will get the Commanders’ job. Along with drafting a quarterback at No. 2 overall (or somewhere, if new GM Adam Peters trades out of two), Washington owner Josh Harris seems likely to bury the Dan Snyder Era once and for all with a new franchise quarterback, a QB-whisperer of a coach, and a progressive GM trained in the 49er way. Re Seattle: GM John Schneider, running his first coaching search since being hired in 2010, is being intelligently deliberate. Why rush the process? Better to exhaust every avenue for candidates than fall in love with one and always wonder if you were too hasty. Let’s assume it’s Johnson to Washington. Let’s assume there’s no shocker in the offing (I hear the whispers of Andy Reid being in his last days in Kansas City, and never say never, but I don’t think Reid will retire). So, if Seattle’s on the clock with no competition for the field, Schneider can ruminate over Bobby Slowik, Aaron Glenn, Mike Macdonald, Steve Wilks, Patrick Graham, Vrabel, Dan Quinn and the rest. I don’t think, by the way, because Quinn has the Seattle connection that he’s the favorite for the job.

On Bill Belichick. Rich Eisen had a good idea the other day, assuming Belichick doesn’t coach in 2024: a Belichick/Nick Saban “Coachcast,” similar to the “Manningcast.” Find a network to stream it on—maybe on a CBS, Fox or NBC streaming service, or maybe as another stream for the Thursday night Amazon Prime game. Belichick, if he wants to coach in 2025 at age 73—and if someone will have him—could use a little image rehab. America, and NFL owners, know him as dour, sour and imperious, not great traits in modern-day coaching, particularly with a 29-39 record in his last four seasons as coach. He can actually be glib and clever, in his way. Eisen said when he and Cris Collinsworth had Belichick as a co-host during the production of the NFL’s 100 greatest players show in 2020, Joe Greene was a guest for one session. “Can I ask the first question?” Belichick asked Eisen before the segment began. Sure, Eisen said. And Belichick asked Greene: How many takes did it take to do that famous Coke commercial? (Greene, in a hugely famous commercial in the ‘70s, drank a bottle of Coke and threw his jersey to a kid.) So, he’s capable of cool.

One other theory I buy for the market being cool to him, is that most teams over the past decade have built staffs of football analytics people, with pipelines to the coaching staff and urging from management for coaches to use the work of these brainiacs. Belichick’s been lukewarm, at best, to analytics. So, an owner who hires Belichick might have to fire a part of the building in which they believe strongly.

On Nick Sirianni. The instant-coffee type of changeover of coordinators is simply not a good sign for the staying power of Sirianni. Vic Fangio and Kellen Moore, good coaches, are the sixth and seventh coordinators (in title or reality) under Sirianni in the last 12 months. Dating back 50 weeks, these have been the most important coaches on Sirianni’s staff:

• Offensive coordinators: Shane Steichen, Brian Johnson, Moore.
• Defensive coordinators/play-callers: Jonathan Gannon, Sean Desai, Matt Patricia, Fangio.

Steichen and Gannon got head-coaching jobs, so they’re certainly not evidence of poor choices. But the Eagles crashed by any metric on defense this year, and Desai and Patricia were powerless to stop a landslide of 30.6 points allowed per game after Dec. 1. Johnson and Sirianni oversaw the late-season cratering of Jalen Hurts’ game to finishing 18^th in passing yards per game and 22^nd in passer rating, a stunning decline for a quarterback who was every bit Patrick Mahomes’ peer in the Super Bowl last season. The most important task for Sirianni and Moore will be getting Hurts back to all-in. His laconic play, his aloof attitude and his tepid support of Sirianni in his post-playoff-loss press conference must be addressed by the coach. Hurts just didn’t look like the same player in the 1-6 finish. On the bench, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. It’s all concerning, particularly after the Eagles trusted him enough to make him the highest-paid player, by a lot, in franchise history.

So, there’s a lot to do. Sirianni’s a good coach—I have no doubt about that. But the Eagles’ brass has allowed him now to bring on new coordinators in two consecutive years. I doubt Sirianni will have a third chance to wipe the slate clean.

On the other hires. Jim Harbaugh was in the right place at the right time. Chargers owner Dean Spanos was desperate, after hiring three rookie head coaches in the previous 11 years (Mike McCoy, Anthony Lynn, Brandon Staley), to get an experienced winner. He became emphatic that the team had to do everything in its power to secure Harbaugh. “We’re going to re-imagine how we do everything,” Spanos said. That includes hiring a coach who will have ultimate power over football for a team moving into a new facility in El Segundo, Calif., and fighting to earn a share of a winners-only L.A. market. It helps to have a quarterback, of course, even though the Chargers are a shocking 31-37 since drafting Justin Herbert … Dave Canales was an upset special in Carolina. The Panthers certainly knew they were the low job on the market, with a bad team and bad owner and battered quarterback. Canales is a fountain of positivity, and the six-year contract David Tepper handed him is a sign, hopefully, that at least for a while he’ll get out of the way and let Canales work. Bryce Young, in the span of 10 months, will now have fifth, sixth and seventh offensive voices in his head once a coordinator and QB coach get hired, after Frank Reich, Thomas Brown and Josh McCown all got wiped out by Tepper (and Jim Caldwell kept) in November … Smart of Mark Davis to pair the inexperienced spirit of Antonio Pierce as coach with Tom Telesco as GM. Telesco made of string of errors late in his Chargers tenure, but is a bright, young guy who knows how to build teams … Raheem Morris might have been the most popular assistant coach with his players and organization in the NFL. Don’t discount that as a factor for getting the Falcons job. He will figure a way to make every player in that organization enjoy coming to work—or they’ll be going to work somewhere else.

One final note on the coaches: Last year, I suggested the NFL should replace NFL EVP Troy Vincent as the point person to spur more minority coaches getting hired. This year, kudos are in order for Vincent. Of the six head coaches hired in this cycle so far, three (Pierce, Mayo and Morris) are Black; a fourth (Canales) has Hispanic roots—his paternal grandparents came to the U.S. from Mexico about a century ago. Vincent’s long been an emotional and tireless advocate on the subject, and he deserves credit for pushing for changes in the hiring process that puts more minority candidates in front of more teams—particularly at the coordinator level.

… New Tennessee coach Brian Callahan:

FMIA: A couple of interesting things about your introductory press conference. You brought up Jurgen Klopp, the Liverpool soccer coach, and his quote, “When you agree on a common idea and work toward it together, you can create something very special.” Why?

Callahan: “There’s a book about him, ‘Believe Us,’ that talks about when he first got to Liverpool. He was a revered manager and Liverpool was sort of the perennial below-expectation team that had a ton of pressure to win. The message was simple and digestible, and he’s talking to all the players and all the fans. I thought, that’s what I want to say if I ever get that opportunity. I hope the players that watched the press conference feel that way. I hope the staff does, too.”

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FMIA: Another thing: You got emotional when you talked about [Bengals owner] Mike Brown. Not a lot of people really know Mike Brown, and not a lot of people would get emotional talking about him. Why did you?

Callahan: “Mike took a chance on all of us. Zac [head coach Zac Taylor], myself. I was 34 years old as a coordinator. He saw something in us that I was very happy that we could deliver on. Things didn’t go great in our first two years. We weren’t very good. For him to have the foresight, the patience to see that all of those good things that were happening, the undercurrents that were positive … The belief in a bunch of young coaches, just really resonated with me. He’s an awesome human being. I wouldn’t be here without him.”

FMIA: The last time I was around you for a while was in your time in Denver, when you were in the quarterback room [as an offensive assistant] with Peyton Manning. What’d you take from him?

Callahan: “He kind of coached me. Like, here’s what I need from you. I was the one who presented the blitz problems we were facing that week, part of the protection puzzle we’d put together every week. It’s kind of still my favorite part of football to this day, and it was all off his direction.

“Peyton lives in a world where you can’t say ‘always’ and ‘never.’ Those two words don’t exist for him. Because inevitably you say this team never does something and then it happens in a game. I came in there one time and I said about this team we were facing, ‘They never’—let’s say it was a Double A-gap blitz—'bring this combination together. It’s never happened.’ And I remember sitting there and Peyton, he kind of flips through his notebook for a minute and he says, ‘Hey, go to the Baltimore game from three years ago. Play 26.’ He pulls it up. And it’s exactly the thing I said never happened. I learned that I better make sure I watch every blitz on tape, going way back, before I tell him something never happened.”

FMIA: Your first quarterback coach job came in 2016, when you and [Detroit offensive coordinator] Jim Bob Cooter worked with Matthew Stafford. I remember that because for those two years, he had his fewest picks, 20, over a two-year period. That had to be something that helped you rise in the business.

Callahan: “Jim Bob started it, as the quarterbacks coach for two years and then when he got the coordinator and I joined the staff, we took a really hard look at how could we eliminate the mistakes? Because [Stafford’s] such a great player. He’s incredible. But there were pockets of time that would just undo however well he was playing in a game. Ten people on the planet can put a ball where he can. He knows it. He’s willing to try those throws. We just said, if you throw one less interception per every game, and you throw four more completions, and you take four more check downs as opposed to trying to fit a whole shot in 40 yards down the field in between the safety and the corner, look how much better we could be on offense.

“I’ll say this as a side note: I loved every minute of coaching Matthew. I was so disappointed when we got fired there and we couldn’t continue the trajectory we were on, because I really thought we were going to be really good in the near future. That was a hard professional moment for me.”

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FMIA: I really liked the job your staff did with Jake Browning this year in Cincinnati. You know, you’re not always going to have Joe Burrow as your quarterback. Maybe one day he gets hurt, maybe one day he’s not there anymore. And you’ve got to have another guy ready to go. That’s the NFL. Coaching matters. How’d you do that?

Callahan: “Thank you. You know what? Truthfully, those are the moments where even though we didn’t end up making the playoffs, that to me was really rewarding coaching. A ton of credit goes to Jake, who’d been in that quarterback room for two years, for being very transparent and communicating really well that this is something that I don’t like, or this is what I like. That takes a lot of balls from young quarterbacks in the NFL to say. He said, ‘I need to have more pure progression where I can just go 1-2-3, and get the ball out of my hand.’ Going into that Jacksonville Monday night game, we gave him everything he asked for, and now he could just go out and play fast. That’s what happened. He played lights out. Great example of a quarterback believing the coaches are doing everything we can do to help him win. That’s important.”

FMIA: The game’s changed so much in recent years, but do you have a firm offensive philosophy?

Callahan: “It really depends who you have playing quarterback. That’s the first thing. The drop-back passing game, especially on first and second down, as the statistics and information would bear out, you’re always going to be more productive doing that efficiently. It used to be if you run the ball 30 times and throw 20 completions, you’ll win every game. Those old things have been turned on their head. To me, the philosophy of the offense is, you still want to marry run and pass games. Do a great job mixing your screens, your play-action screen game, with your run game. But when it’s time to throw the football, you better have a great protection scheme and you better have a great distribution in your pass game. That’s what I always felt my strength is as a coach—being able to manufacture the passing game to take advantage of what defenses are giving us.

“The game is becoming, throw to get the lead, run to finish it. That’s probably what most of the good teams look like. Kansas City and Buffalo throw it so well, and there’s still a huge component of the run game.”

FMIA: What’d your dad (Bill Callahan, former Raiders head coach and long-time NFL assistant) say when you called and told him you had this job?

Callahan: “Oh man, he was so excited, so happy and proud. That was one of the cooler phone calls I’ve made in my life. I got to tell my dad, ‘Your son’s an NFL head coach.’”

Immediately after a titanic game is not the time to form permanent opinions on what you’ve just seen. I was at the Kansas City-Buffalo game last weekend and covered it from the winner’s angle. During the week, I had time to re-watch the game and consider it from Buffalo’s perspective, and I was left with one overriding question:

Why did the Bills—in the middle of their final, inexorable drive of the game—drastically change their offensive approach at the most critical moment of the season?

To refresh: Buffalo, down 27-24, got the ball back at their 20-, with 8:23 left in the game. The Bills, after a huge miss on a Josh Allen-to-Stefon Diggs bomb (Diggs missed a very catchable ball) on first down, settled into a patient, clock-eating drive, seemingly trying to either tie it or win it and leave KC with very little time left. On seven of the 15 plays on the drive with the clock moving, Allen snapped the ball with an average of 5.1 seconds remaining on the play clock. Efficient, methodical.

So, Buffalo advanced to the Kansas City 26-, at the two-minute warning. Second-and-9. Two timeouts left per team. And here’s where the line of demarcation came. The Bills had to know they were either:

• One first down away from moving closer for a Tyler Bass field-goal try inside the 35-yard line that could have tied the game and sent it to overtime;
• Or one first down away from scoring a touchdown with very little time left, and leaving KC needing a touchdown, likely on a long field, to win. It was vital, with how great Patrick Mahomes is down the stretch and in the clutch, to give him next-to-no time to do that.

The Bills had to know on any play that ended with the clock running, Kansas City would burn its second timeout, and then its third. So, the strategy for Buffalo was: under all circumstances, get a first down and keep the clock running. Allen—second-and-9, KC 26-, 2:00 left—surveyed the defense as he prepared to take the snap.

Second down: With a wide-open receiver running a crossing route at the KC 22- and an open receiver running an out-route at the 16-, Allen chose to try to hit Khalil Shakir in the back of the trafficky end zone. Overthrown.

Third down: Allen got chased out of the pocket to the right, and probably missed seeing two intermediate receivers shy of the first down to the left. He threw the ball away, deep.

Fourth down: Bass pushed a 44-yard field-goal attempt wide right. The Chiefs, never having to use one of their timeouts in the fourth quarter, won 27-24.

Getty Images

Allen, on this drive, had flipped and thrown and side-armed completions of 7, 4, 8, 10, 6 and 7 yards. And needing a first down here, he went gunslinger. I just don’t know why. Kurt Warner, one who would know, tried to explain it a few days after the game.

“Sometimes,” Warner said, “you talk yourself into a play and say, ‘I’m gonna make this play, and this is the throw that’ll send us to the championship game,’ instead of saying, ‘I’m gonna let the defense dictate where I throw the ball.’ As a quarterback, you have to have the ability to balance those things.”

I thought Warner put it best on Allen in this game, and Allen as a player. He said, “It’s impossible to play perfect games, and Josh played an incredible game—until the end. In the end, he took some chances that wouldn’t have been what I would have done. But he chose to make those throws, and if you choose those throws, you’ve got to make ‘em. That’s part of being great. Brady, Montana, Mahomes—they have careers of making the plays in the absolute crucial times of the game. Now they’re on the Mount Rushmore of NFL quarterbacks.”

Allen is just six years into his career. He’s got much of his NFL life in front of him. He’s a smart guy. He’s one of the most talented quarterbacks ever to play in the NFL. He’s going to have plenty of chances to go deep into the playoffs, and to win a Super Bowl. But this is a crucial lesson he must learn, or he may never hold the Lombardi Trophy.

A recurring element in the column this year: a video memory of one of my favorite memories of 40 years covering pro football.

No ancient history here. It’s actually my most recent 40-for-40 from 2023, sitting in the coach’s office of the winning Super Bowl team last February. The story that Andy Reid told me about the winning play in Kansas City’s super win was enlightening and made me look like a doofus. But it was very cool. Remember the scene? Eagles up 27-21 starting the fourth quarter. In the span of three minutes early in the fourth quarter, Reid twice called the same play, a play he hadn’t used since Week 1 of the regular season. It’s a weird motion play, with the wide receiver going in jet motion before the snap toward the formation—then stopping on a dime, sprinting back and being available for a short throw from Patrick Mahomes. The Eagles were asleep on the first one, a TD to Kadarius Toney. Amazingly, they were asleep on the second one too, a TD pass to Skyy Moore, and Kansas City had 14 gift points.

Here’s my memory from the post-game KC locker room:

Offensive players of the week

Brock Purdy, quarterback, San Francisco. After a desultory first half, Purdy lit it up, leading the Niners to a decisive 24-0 streak in the first 28 minutes of the second half. He threw for 174 yards and rushed for 48 in the biggest half of his life. It’s what quarterbacks do in the biggest moments that tell their story, and Purdy was huge in the second half of the title game.

Travis Kelce, tight end, Kansas City. What a game. What a player. Eleven catches, 116 yards, making himself the most productive pass-catcher in NFL post-season history. Kelce has caught more playoff passes in 21 games than Jerry Rice caught in 29 in his prime.

Defensive players of the week

L’Jarius Sneed, cornerback, Kansas City. This very good corner, who went almost all season without allowing a touchdown in man coverage, made the play of his career at the start of the fourth quarter. With Zay Flowers reaching for a touchdown that would have made it a three-point game, Sneed dove in from Flowers’ right and punched the ball out just inches before Flowers would have score a touchdown to make this game a game.

Fred Warner, linebacker, San Francisco. The man who leads the San Francisco defense was part of it faltering through two quarters. But he was huge in the second half, running sideline to sideline and finishing with 13 tackles, one for a loss, and a deflected pass. Kyle Shanahan couldn’t say enough about Warner afterward, as a player and leader who spoke up at halftime and said, basically, We’re not going down like this.

Coach of the week

Steve Spagnuolo, defensive coordinator, Kansas City. Likely league MVP Lamar Jackson had decent numbers – throwing for 272 yards, running for 54 – but the only number that mattered was this one: 10. That’s how many points Spagnuolo’s defense allowed the Ravens on Sunday, tying the AFC top seed’s low for the season. That’s one of the reasons why a bunch of the defensive players feted Spagnuolo by wearing IN SPAGS WE TRUST T-shirts after the game. KC’s offense didn’t score in the second half but Spagnuolo’s D – with three turnovers in the game – made sure it didn’t matter.

Goat of the week

Zay Flowers, wide receiver, Baltimore. Tough to call a receiver the goat when he has a 115-yard day with his team’s only touchdown. But Flowers made a big error, followed by a gigantic one midway through the second half that cost Baltimore dearly. Kansas City 17, Baltimore 7, late third quarter. After Lamar Jackson hit him for a 54-yard gain to the KC 10-yard line, Flowers taunted corner L’Jarius Sneed as he stood over him—a clear violation of the taunting rule. Four plays later, from the Kansas City 9-yard line, Jackson threw complete to Flowers, and it looked like he was going in for the touchdown to cut the lead to three. But he got the ball knocked out 10 inches short of the goal line, and KC’s Trent McDuffie recovered in the end zone. That killed their best shot to get back in the game. Tough end to a very good rookie season.

I.

--San Francisco tight end George Kittle, after Purdy led the Niners to a 34-31 win over Detroit.

II.

--Patrick Mahomes on Travis Kelce, who led all pass-catchers on championship weekend with 11 receptions.

III.

--Jim Harbaugh, on CBS Sunday, on his move from college to pro football.

IV.

--Jason Kelce to brother Travis, on the field after Kansas City’s AFC Championship win.

V.

--Joe Flacco, on being a finalist for Comeback Player of the Year, to Zach Gelb of CBS Sports Radio.

VI.

--Baltimore offensive coordinator Todd Monken.

VII.

--Jason Kelce, on the “New Heights” podcast, on his bare-chested Belushiesque antics at the Kansas City-Buffalo divisional game.

The Chargers interviewed 15 coaches in a 12-day period—between Jan. 9 and 20—and brought only one in for a second interview. That was the winner, Jim Harbaugh. He was smack-dab in the middle of the process, as the lineup shows (in-person interviews marked with an asterisk):

First seven interviews, in order: Giff Smith*, Kellen Moore*, Patrick Graham, Todd Monken, Steve Wilks, Mike Macdonald, Leslie Frazier*.

Eighth interview: Jim Harbaugh*.

Last seven interviews, in order: Brian Callahan, David Shaw*, Mike Vrabel*, Dan Quinn, Aaron Glenn, Ben Johnson, Raheem Morris.

Then, Harbaugh spent the day Tuesday at the Chargers’ facility, Tuesday night at a restaurant in Crystal Cove nearby, and Wednesday at the Chargers before shaking hands on the deal with owner Dean Spanos late that evening.

I.

SAN JOSE—Sabres-Sharks, Saturday afternoon, my debut at the SAP Center. Watched with daughter Laura and fam. Sadly for the home fans, the Sharks are bringing up the rear in the NHL standings, and the Sabres routed the home team 5-2.

Quite a scene in the crowded concourse after the game. Lots of Sabres fans on hand, and they were sing-chanting the “Let’s Go Buffalo” song leaving the arena. After every chorus, the non-Buffalo fans shouted: “WIDE RIGHT!”

II.

Factoid of the Week re Silicon Valley: In most cities around the country, the bathrooms in Starbucks shops are locked, with codes or keys required for entry. In lots of locations south of San Francisco, they’re wide open.

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com.

Lots of email this week on the downfall of Sports Illustrated, and on my Defensive Player of the Year ballot. I’ll let the comments on the magazine stand on their own, and respond to the DPOY emails.

On SI. From Michael MacCambridge, author of a book (“The Franchise”) on the history of Sports Illustrated: “Reading SI made fans more intelligent, and, boy, could we use some of that these days, when entire segments of sports shows are devoted to things like, ‘Should you bet over or under on 4.5 Amon-Ra St. Brown catches?’”

From Ed Ricketts: “I used to say the magazine could have 10 stories about ball bearings and I would read every single one because the writing was so consistently excellent. My wife didn’t like Thursdays because I would get home from work and disappear into its pages for a few hours, couldn’t even hear her if she spoke to me because I was in thrall to the writing.”

From Chris Jensen: “My mom bought me a subscription when I was 10 years old and has been doing it every year since, for the last 48 years. I wasn’t a big reader back when I was a kid and I think Mom knew that reading about something I loved would be the kick I needed.”

From John Arnett, of Frankfurt, Ky.: “Whither the next Frank Deford? With the apparent failure of Sports Illustrated, where can readers look now for top quality sports writing?”

From Don DeBolt, of Seekonk, Mass.: “Got my subscription as an 11-year-old in 1975 during a school magazine drive. Had it for 40 years. When I heard the news last week, it felt like the unexpected death of a classmate.”

Sports Illustrated

From Richard Egan: “My favorite SI cover, Redskins versus Raiders in the [1984] Super Bowl … Jack Squirek holding the ball over his head after intercepting Joe Theismann. Mr. Squirek recently passed. Years ago, I was in Cleveland for work, took a chance and drove to his business. He happened to be sitting at his desk. We talked about the game, the play, his career. He signed the SI cover for me and it is hanging on my office wall along with the $60 Super Bowl ticket stub. I love SI and hope someone revives it.”

From Dean Frey, of Victoria, British Columbia: I wish you had included photographer credits for these fabulous images. The credits: Drew Brees by David Bergman. 1967 Cardinals and Dick Butkus by Neil Leifer. Jack Lambert by Tony Tomsic. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird by Lane Stewart. Csonka, Kiick, Warfield by Heinz Kluetmeier. Carmelo Anthony by John Biever. Boomer and Gunnar Esiason by Michael O’Neill. Drew Rosenhaus by Brian Smith. The Super Catch and Chuck Foreman by Walter Iooss Jr.

Marshall Auerback, Toronto: “Sports Illustrated had beautiful writers who turned profiles into an art form. I think of the late great Dan Jenkins, Frank Deford, Dr. Z, Rick Reilly and, of course, your good self. It’s symptomatic of everything that has gone wrong with journalism in the last 15 years that rapacious private equity guys are destroying it. No wonder the average American is losing faith in the fourth estate. They are being starved of resources, which makes high quality journalism almost impossible to do.”

On my choice of Myles Garrett for DPOY. From Dennis Black: “Myles Garrett was completely invisible in both games against Pittsburgh this year. T.J. Watt for DPOY.”

“Completely invisible.” Hmm. If you are going to make an argument for your guy, please make it make sense. Garrett/Watt in those two games per Next Gen Stats: Garrett two sacks, one tackle for loss, six pressures on 48 pass-rushes … Watt two sacks, four tackles for loss, five pressures on 80 pass-rushes. Seems comparable.

From Tom Delio: “I don’t see how you can possibly pick Garrett. The man faded down the stretch. He had one sack over the last five weeks of the season! Watt never went two games in a row all season without a sack. In fact, over the last five weeks of the season, Watt had 5.5 sacks. As you pointed out in your article, the pass rush rates or whatever these stats are, are judged, based off how someone watching the film decided to score a particular play.”

Correct—they are judged. That’s part of the analytical approach to football. It’s the same way in baseball that outfielders used to be judged by official scorers, and solely by the number of errors they made; now they’re judged on how many balls in the gap they get to and the velocity of their throws to home plate and their paths to difficult-to-catch fly balls. I prefer to judge football players on all things—measurable things like sacks and tackles, and things like pressures and quarterback hits that sometimes take judgment calls to make. As far as fading down the stretch, that’s fair. But a game in Week 5 counts the same as a game in Week 15. It’s a full-season award.

From John F. Blair: “No Roquan Smith? The best player on the best defense in the league whose leadership and presence make the other 10 guys on his team so much better.”

FYI, I had two emailers wonder why I didn’t put Kyle Hamilton on my list. I like Smith a lot; I don’t think of him as the best defender in football in 2023.

Finally, one question to the 10 or so of maybe 50 commenters who didn’t like my choice of Garrett: Is there a good reason to curse at me, name-call and wish very bad things to happen to me because I chose a candidate you didn’t agree with? Curious.

1. I think not only does Detroit deserve nothing but immense credit this morning for a season like none other, but when the pain goes away, the city and the franchise and the players will realize what a great run these Lions had—and, especially, how this team so often imposed its will on excellent teams. I am thinking of the first half in the title game, especially. That offensive line, with the massive Penei Sewell in motion across the formation, for goodness sake, mashed the Niners with 148 rushing yards at 7 yards a clip. So, so much to build on for this young, energetic and innovative team.

2. I think I have a quibble with the NFL’s policy on rewarding teams for developing minority coaches and GMs. As it stands now, teams that lose a minority coach or GM get two third-round Compensatory Picks in return. I mistakenly wrote earlier that the Bucs are rewarded with picks at the end of Round 3 in the 2024 and 2025 drafts for losing offensive coordinator Dave Canales to Carolina; he is of Hispanic heritage, and the NFL rewards teams losing a minority coach with two third-round picks. But that coach has to have been with the team for two years for the picks to be awarded; Canales was a Buc for only one. My error. The larger point holds. I like the concept, but what I don’t like is this: A coach who works in one place for years, then goes to a new place for two years before becoming a head coach should not just picks for his most recent team. Canales worked in Seattle for 13 seasons under Pete Carroll, and if he’d been in Tampa for two years before getting a head-coaching job, it would have been inequitable to award two third-round picks for the development of Canales to the place he last worked. The league needs to fix that somehow, to make it fair.

3. I think Buffalo GM Brandon Beane has some big decisions to make, maybe none bigger than what to do with Stefon Diggs. Diggs is 30. He’s due for a cap number of $27.9 million next year, which, for a player who didn’t have a 100-yard receiving day in the Bills’ last 13 games, is quite excessive. In fact, in the last 10 weeks of the season, Khalil Shakir had more receiving yards and touchdowns than Diggs—and it was Shakir who Josh Allen targeted on the biggest play of the season, Allen’s overthrow of him in the end zone near the end of the Kansas City playoff game. I expect the Bills to want to do major surgery on Diggs’ deal, and I expect Diggs to not be happy about it.

4. I think the one interesting thing about the coordinator searches you’re seeing happen now is that sometimes the best candidates have roadblocks put in their way. Some of these coaches could take interviews, but they don’t, because they fear the damage to their relationship with their existing head coach. Some are told by coaches they know that the head man’s not going to let them leave. Actually, the head man can’t stand in the way of a position coach interviewing for a coordinator job. But unless the assistant coach is fairly sure he’ll get the coordinator gig elsewhere, sometimes he’ll turn down the chance to interview. You might ask, why? It’s because the assistant who eschews the chance to move wants to show loyalty and hopes it could result in a promotion or raise, or both.

5. I think condolences are due for Boston Herald Patriots beat writer Doug Kyed and his wife, Jen, on the death of their 2-year-old daughter, Hallie. Hallie died of Leukemia last week, with her parents holding her hand as she passed. It’s unimaginable what the family must be going through. Please join me in sending love to the Kyeds. The family requests donations to the Boston-based cancer charity, the Jimmy Fund.

6. I think it’s such a punch in the gut, reading those stories about Hallie. Hard to know what to say, other than I’m so, so sorry.

7. I think, for those (and I’ve seen some re-writers of recent Patriots draft history claiming Bill Belichick’s recent drafts weren’t so bad), I’ll remind you of his first-round picks in the last 10 drafts, keeping in mind the Pats didn’t have a first-rounder in 2016, 2017 and 2020:

• 2014: DT Dominique Easley. Three starts, three sacks before being cut loose after two seasons.
• 2015: DT Malcom Brown. Marginal starter for four years. Never ranked among top 25 defensive tackles by PFF.
• 2018: OL Isaiah Wynn. Forty starts in five years. Average starter at best.
• 2019: WR N’Keal Harry. Three years, 57 catches for New England before being traded to Chicago for a seventh-round pick.
• 2021: QB Mac Jones. Nice rookie year, shaky second year, disastrous third year. Pats likely looking to replace him in 2024 draft.
• 2022: G Cole Strange. Ranked 35^th and 50^th among guards by PFF in his two seasons (minimum 300 snaps). Teams were stunned the Pats picked him in first round.
• 2023: CB Christian Gonzalez. Off to strong start as rookie before suffering torn labrum in fourth game and missing remainder of season.
  

8. I think I’m dying to hear a real answer—not that it’s wrong—from Arthur Blank on why he chose Raheem Morris over the field, including Bill Belichick, after interviewing Belichick twice. There’s a story here.

9. I think I loved this story by Richard Deitsch of The Athletic on how stat crews for NFL telecasts do their jobs. There’s good play-by-play of how the sausage gets made, resulting in the graphics you see on your TV screen during the game—in this case from the CBS crew at the Kansas City-Buffalo game. Such as this, from the meetings leading up to the game: “One graphic that had everyone excited showed the most playoff wins by a quarterback-coach duo, which included Tom Brady and Bill Belichick (30), Terry Bradshaw and Chuck Noll (14) and Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes (now 13). It never made air on Sunday … Maybe 15 percent of all the graphics created in a given week will make the broadcast. [CBS broadcast associate Brooke] Weiss said the best stuff often gets made on the fly during games.” Learned a lot from this.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. I thought I did the dumbest thing in the entertainment sphere this season by projecting the Bucs to be the 31^st team in the NFL. Then the Oscar nominations came out.

b. No Best Actress nod among the five picks for Margot Robbie. No Best Director nom for Greta Gerwig. A Best Supporting Actor nom for Ryan Gosling. I mean, who watched that movie and thought Gosling was more deserving than Robbie?

c. Want to own Christian McCaffrey’s estate on Lake Norman outside of Charlotte? It’s yours, for the tidy sum of $12.5 million. Cool story on McCaffrey selling the place in the Wall Street Journal.

d. McCaffrey had this 12,000-square-foot pad, plus a Charlotte condo he’s already sold. Sounds like he’ll miss them, from what he told Libertina Brandt of the Journal: “It pains me letting them go, but that’s life, I guess,” he said.

e. When we talk about the great announcer pairings in TV sports, we should talk about Terry Gannon, Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, who combine to do figure skating for NBC. My wife and I watched the women’s short program Thursday night, and Lipinski and Weir are quick with criticism, praise and cogent analysis. About one of the skaters looking powerful and athletic, Weir said: “Starr Andrews out there looking like every superhero I ever wanted to be.” Really fun to listen to.

f. Kudos to Baseball Hall of Fame Class of Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer. (Well played, Mauer.) I have a factoid I’d like to share. On Sept. 10, 1994, the Tennessee football team played Georgia on a lovely 82-degree evening in Athens. The dueling quarterbacks that night: Todd Helton for Tennessee, Eric Zeier for Georgia. The notable backup for the Vols: true freshman Peyton Manning. Helton passed and ran for 147 yards in a 41-23 Tennessee victory, including a 9-yard TD pass to future second-round NFL pick Joey Kent. For Georgia, Hines Ward and Terrell Davis combined for 58 scrimmage yards. Two weeks later, Helton got hurt, and Manning Wally Pipp’d him, remaining the starter for the last three-and-a-half years of his college career.

g. In the words of Paul Harvey … and now you know the rest of the story.

h. Do you even have a conscience, Vince McMahon?

i. I didn’t think so.

j. Cool Story of the Week: Steve Christie, the former Bills and Bucs kicker, made the Wall Street Journal the other day.

k. A.J. Baime of the newspaper found Christie and wife Kelly and dog Madigan living the fun life, traveling the country in their 2015 Jeep Wrangler with a lime green VW trailer, with a hand-held outdoor shower and appliances that make the road life comfy.

l. Per Baime, Kelly Christie did the leg work to find the van.

KELLY CHRISTIE: I Googled “VW Westfalia” and “camper van.” I found Dub Box USA, a company building trailers modeled on VW vans, outside Portland, Ore. You could customize the color and some other things. We bought our trailer and they shipped it to us, delivering it at a friend’s warehouse in St. Petersburg, Fla. We “dubbed” the Dub Box the “Green Machine,” because it’s one of those bright green, vintage colors, and it looks like The Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo.

We have been taking the Green Machine to music festivals all over Florida for 10 years. We also towed it from Florida all the way to Canada, to Prince Edward Island. We saw Dead & Company in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. We stayed in Acadia National Park in Maine, went to Bar Harbor and hiked Cadillac Mountain. We went to the Glenora Distillery on Cape Breton Island in Canada.

m. Fun to see the Christies, with the means to take control of their own lives, live it exactly the way they want.

n. Enlightening But Sad Story of the Week: Jon Kamp of the Wall Street Journal with a tale that emphasizes the need to address mental-health issues: “She talked like a millionaire, slept in a parking garage and fooled nearly everybody:”

o. Amazing and frightening, the power of lie after lie after lie by a person who just couldn’t stop doing it, who could not confront the reality of life.

p. Wrote Kamp:

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla.—University of Florida officials went back and forth with documentary filmmaker Jo Franklin over details for a planned gala in Franklin’s honor at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Franklin had pledged $2 million to her alma mater, and requested her guest list for the party include the entire staff of the PBS NewsHour. A day before the gala, school officials learned her seven-figure check had bounced. They boarded their flight to Washington, hoping to straighten everything out. The next day, they found out Franklin hadn’t arrived at the Four Seasons, and the credit card number she gave the hotel wasn’t working. A person who identified as Franklin’s assistant emailed to say Franklin had broken her foot and couldn’t make it to Washington. University workers began phoning guests to say the gala was canceled.

The school’s esteemed graduate, once a journalist and documentary filmmaker specializing in the Middle East, emerged as a troubled and gifted fabulist. The $2 million gift was an illusion, one in a yearslong string of fantasies concocted by Franklin, who tumbled from a life of apparent success to homelessness. For years, she persuaded many around her that she was living the high life. Her family knew better.

“She is very ill and we need to have her put into a medical treatment facility of some type before she harms other people and herself,” her younger brother, George Franklin, wrote to family members days after they learned of the 2014 gala fiasco.

In the years that followed, Franklin sometimes spent nights in a South Florida hotel parking garage. She was arrested a few times, once for allegedly stealing $11.98 worth of wine.

q. So, I’ve had a cough since late November. Nothing else but a cough. Tested negative for COVID three times. No fever. Just these annoying coughing jags, particularly at night, which has hijacked my sleep, obviously. Had a chest X-ray, which showed no spots or any sign of pneumonia. I simply have a cough. When you travel a lot—which I’ve done for football and for the holidays, in and out of airports and packed planes—you’re exposed to viruses and bugs. And there are some that lead to long periods of coughing. I’m on an inhaler and am using a spirometer, a sort of exerciser for lung function.

r. My wife, who is the best wife in the world, has been Googling things for me, trying to get to the bottom of this. And she found this story by Teddy Amenabar of the Washington Post:

s. Wrote Amenabar:

Michael Stephen, a pulmonary physician at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, said his practice “has basically been taken over” by patients who have persistent coughs.

“It’s basically hijacked my whole practice,” said Stephen, who’s also the author of “Breath Taking: The Power, Fragility and Future of Our Extraordinary Lungs.” Stephen said his patients have been coughing for one or two months at a time, which can strain chest muscles.

“It’s beating them up,” he said. “These people are coming in with baggy eyes, not sleeping and pulled muscles. By the time they get to me, they’re not doing well.”

t. Amenabar talked to several doctors who don’t seem to think this is particularly serious, and, as one said, it’s mostly because we’re paying more attention to any persistent cough because of a fear of COVID or RSV. I’m dubious. Never have I had a cough for nine weeks. Anyway, we soldier on.

u. Want to feel old? Andre Reed turns 60 today.

v. Want to feel older? Bill Parcells’ third-down back, Tony Galbreath, turns 70 today.

w. Want to feel oldest? Wednesday is Nolan Ryan’s 77^th birthday.

x. RIP, Melanie. “Brand New Key” got stuck in America’s head for weeks in the winter of 1971-72, my ninth-grade year at John F. Kennedy Junior High in Enfield, Conn. Now it will get stuck in yours:

y. Melanie said she wrote it after coming off a fast and then binging at McDonald’s. How very ‘70s.

Can Purdy slay Pat?
Tua, no. Josh Allen, no.
Lamar, no. Brock? Hmmmmm.