Stars offer touch of normalcy
Brady, Rodgers, Mahomes make unusual season feel normal
Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes made the NFL’s first 17-game regular season feel a little more normal despite playing through a pandemic again.
Brady broke more records and had one of his best seasons at age 44 while helping the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers win their first division title in 14 years.
Rodgers played like an MVP and led the Green Bay Packers to the No. 1 seed in the NFC for the second straight season.
Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs bounced back from a rough start to win their sixth straight AFC West title.
The league’s biggest season had plenty of twists thanks to COVID-19 and evolving protocols but each of the 272 games should be played by the time the Los Angeles Chargers and Las Vegas Raiders wrap up the regular season Sunday night in a matchup that will likely determine the 14th playoff berth.
And, the NFL did it with fans filling stadiums this year.
There were some bumps along the way and more doubts emerged when a surge in coronavirus cases because of the omicron variant caused three games to be rescheduled in Week 15. However, the league in cooperation with the NFL Players Association managed to pull it off, although several