Historic Brady-Mahomes matchup dazzled ... AFC title game rematch would be thrilling ... Eli-to-Jacksonville makes sense for the Jags
Sunday night’s Kansas City at New England showdown enthralled us all as we had hoped.
The action was riveting. Back and forth. With top playmakers for both teams producing their best plays down the stretch, as we always want. Especially quarterbacks Tom Brady of the Patriots and Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs. The primary takeaway? It’d sure be one fun AFC championship game should these teams advance that far come the third weekend of January. If you missed New England’s 43-40 victory, treat yourself and look up the highlights. The Pats dominated the first two quarters, the Chiefs the third — before a wild final frame full of topflight plays. From a purely statistical standpoint, the 23-year-old Mahomes overcame first-half jitters (two interceptions and two missed-TD over-throws) and had the better overall night passing: 23-of-36 for 352 yards, four touchdowns, no sacks and the two interceptions, for a 110.0 rating.
The 41-year-old Brady was 24-of-35 for 340 yards, one touchdown, two sacks and no interceptions for a 109.2 rating.
Last week I tried to find a similar, cross-generational, career-overlapping matchup pitting a sure-fire Hall of Fame quarterback late in his NFL career, against a young, sure-fire phenom in his first full season of starting.
Didn’t have much luck. The iconic overlaps I’d hoped to find were always a year or two askew, or injuries prevented the on-field matchup, or the young phenom wasn’t playing close to playing phenomenally yet.
For instance, in his last season of playing with the Dallas Cowboys, 37-year-old
Roger Staubach faced the San Francisco 49ers but their rookie QB, Joe Montana, watched from the bench.
Similarly, in 1983 Denver rookie John Elway played the Steelers, but Pittsburgh’s four-time champion QB
Terry Bradshaw was sidelined for nearly that whole season (his last) with elbow issues. And Elway got yanked for Steve DeBerg after going 1-for-8 for 13 yards and taking four sacks.
The only examples I could find over the past 40 years: Miami rookie Dan Marino vs. 37-year-old New Orleans long-tooth Kenny Stabler in 1983, and Indianapolis rookie
Peyton Manning vs. 37-yearold San Francisco legend
Steve Young in 1998. But Stabler by 1983 wasn’t close to elite anymore, and Manning in 1998 was a pre-elite interception machine.
Oh, and both old guys won those matchups, too.
Who knows, maybe 20 years from now we’ll all look back at Brady-Mahomes I and marvel — not just at the breathtaking play both exhibited prior to, and during, their first head-to-head meeting, but that the matchup occurred at all.
It was in the fourth quarter Sunday night when both craftsmen produced masterworks, especially Brady.
Consider that Mahomes’ final throw was a step-up rope to the NFL’s most excit-