Star quarterback duos take a swing at The Match
The two best old NFL quarterbacks have a date to face off against the league's two best young quarterbacks.
In golf, not football.
On Monday came news that Tom Brady of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers will pair up against Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs in a made-for-TV, 12-hole charity golf showdown in Las Vegas on June 1 called The Match.
These are the same four passers represented in the conference championship games a year ago January, following the 2020 season: Brady's Bucs beat Rodgers' Packers, while Mahomes' Chiefs ousted Allen's Bills.
This past January, in one of the most epic and exciting NFL playoff games ever, Mahomes' Chiefs outlasted Allen's Bills in overtime in an AFC divisional playoff game. Now the two will be teammates, at least for one day, in a different sport.
Neither the Bucs nor Packers reached this past January's NFC championship game. Rodgers was expected to either retire or request a trade, but instead opted to remain in Green Bay for more money.
Brady announced his retirement from football almost immediately after the season, but 40 days later said never mind, he's coming back for at least one more season.
The Match previously featured two top pro golfers — such as Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson — each partnered with a sports superstar celebrity.
The Match has become known almost as much for the playful but incisive razzing both leading up to the event and during the televised match, as all participants are miked up throughout.
The Match will air in the U.S. on TNT, and will probably get picked up by TSN in Canada.
The mutual razzing ought to be ceaseless — and epic — from now until the event concludes.
For instance, Brady on Monday tweeted: “We tried to make this a tag-team match, but the lawyers said our contracts wouldn't allow it ... Let's kick their ass.”
Brady also tweeted a photo of his shirtless self on a golf course, watching a boy about to swing, but with the helmeted head of Buffalo's Allen doctored on top of the boy's body, and Brady captioning it with the words: “An artist's rendering of me watching @JoshAllenQB's approach after laying up on a part 4.”
Countered Allen: “2 old bulls, 2 young calves.”
Rodgers was bragging already, tweeting: “Not a fair fight. Me & @TomBrady v. @PatrickMahomes @JoshAllenQB.”
Mahomes, ever the gentleman in public, merely tweeted: “This should be fun.”
The event comes before the conclusion of NFL spring football practices for all teams. That doesn't come until midJune. But all April, May and June workouts and practices are strictly voluntary outside of a mandatory three-day team mini-camp, usually scheduled somewhere during the first or second full week of June. Rodgers is reportedly the best golfer of the foursome. Allen, too, is an avid golfer. But for this event, millions of North Americans will be watching at least as much to watch — and hear — Brady, Rodgers, Mahomes and Allen talk smack to one another, as to watch them smack golf balls all over the Wynn Golf Club grounds along the Vegas strip.
In the first of last year's two incarnations of The Match, Rodgers and monster-hitting PGA pro Bryson DeChambeau beat Brady and Mickelson in the summer, 3 and 2.
Brady is 44 and Rodgers 38. Mahomes is 26 and Allen turns 26 on May 21.
WARD GETS PAID
Denzel Ward is now the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history.
The Cleveland Browns have agreed to terms with Ward on a US$100.5-million contract extension over five years, including $71 million guaranteed.
That contract will kick in following the coming season, which is the fifth-year option to Ward's contract as a first-round rookie, which the Browns previously exercised. He'll get paid $13 million this year.
The Browns drafted Ward fourth overall in 2018, just three selections after taking QB Baker Mayfield No. 1 overall.
In 52 career games since 2018, Ward has intercepted 10 passes and broken up 50 others, while forcing two fumbles and recovering three. Ward's remuneration from 2023-27 slightly edges that of Los Angeles Rams corner Jalen Ramsey, who over the same five-year period will earn $100 million flat.
DRAFT COUNTDOWN
There have been so many trades this off-season that the draft order in all seven rounds has been jumbled.
Eleven of the 32 selections have changed hands already — two of them twice — with surely more to come by Day 1 of the draft on April 28.
So, with the NFL draft beginning one week from Thursday in Las Vegas, here's the current Round 1 order:
1. Jacksonville
2. Detroit
3. Houston
4. New York Jets
5. New York Giants
6. Carolina
7. New York Giants (from Chicago)
8. Atlanta
9. Seattle (from Denver)
10. New York Jets (from Seattle)
11. Washington
12. Minnesota
13. Houston (from Cleveland)
14. Baltimore
15. Philadelphia (from Miami)
16. New Orleans (from Indianapolis, via Philadelphia)
17. Los Angeles Chargers
18. Philadelphia (from New Orleans)
19. New Orleans (from Philadelphia)
20. Pittsburgh
21. New England
22. Green Bay (from Las Vegas)
23. Arizona
24. Dallas
25. Buffalo
26. Tennessee
27. Tampa Bay
28. Green Bay
29. Kansas City (from San Francisco, via Miami)
30. Kansas City
31. Cincinnati
32. Detroit (from Los Angeles Rams) jokryk@postmedia.com twitter: @JohnKryk