I’m amused when when sports followers tell me they’re interested in talk shows that deal with predictions of game outcomes and the various forecasts dealing with who should win and why.
I guess it fills the time prior to the actual event, and for the fan it’s food for thought.
But why?
I never watch or hear those shows and when someone asks me who will win a game, as they did leading up to the NFL Conference Championship battles, I tell them I have no idea.
I don’t.
No one does.
So why hear about an opinion that may be based on all things being equal.
They’re not. They never are.
The games deciding this season’s Super Bowl foes represents exhibit A.
The Eagles-49ers game should have been stopped like a boxing match used to be halted by technical knockout.
No knock on the Niners who had to play with one arm tied behind their back.
No pun intended, but when fairy tale rookie quarterback Brock Purdy went out with an injured elbow in the first quarter, it was over.
It’s one thing for a play-calling genius like Kyle Shanahan to think of something in week 4 against a sub-par opponent, but smoke and mirrors just won’t work against a team like the Eagles with a Super Bowl ticket on the line.
Look, the 49ers went into the game with the top-rated defense in the league, but the Eagles were not far behind, if at all.
Having to go with their fourth QB of the year, who couldn’t make the playbook come alive, was too much to ask.
When Josh Johnson had to leave the game for concussion protocol, Purdy had to re-enter. On an 11-play drive the 49ers ran the ball 10 times. Not the recipe when you trailing by a two and three touchdowns in the second half.
Purdy, simply couldn’t throw the ball, and San Francisco’s clever offense was snuffed out by the hungry Birds.
If there was a glimmer of a chance for the crew from the west coast to grab hold of something early, it evaporated when they failed to challenge a fourth down completion for the Eagles which set up their first touchdown.
The pass ultimately was shown to be incomplete, and a challenge would have indicated that.
Shanahan said he didn’t want to risk losing the challenge and as a result, a time out.
What?
A first half time out is virtually irrelevant, and if it gives you the ball back and nullifies a first-and-goal by your opponent, well, it’s a no-brainer.
From then on, the 49ers fell victims to injuries, untimely penalties and plain bad luck and did them in.
We’re not diminishing the Eagles efforts.
Their job was to win and move on, and they did.
They are formidable, but were able to survive without having to use their A game.
While the NFC title go was the appetizer you’d return to the kitchen, the main course was succulent and memorable.
The Chiefs and Bengals met in the AFC Championship game for the second straight year.
The Bengals had beaten the Chiefs in Kansas City last January, and won by 3.
The played before that, and Cincinnati won by 3.
They met again during the regular season in 2022, and won by 3.
See a pattern?
If you’ve read this column before, you may know how I disdain past performance when teams meet up.
Every game is different, situations and scenarios change, and what it all really means is that every game contains its own elements.
This one certainly did, although there were a couple of facts that looked like the other meetings.
The Chiefs-Bengals once again performed at an exciting, dramatic and well-played level.
Only this time, Kansas City won out and will advance to the Super Bowl which has been a common excursion for them.
And, they won by 3.
They won on a field goal with :03 remaining in the fourth quarter after a blunder by one of the Bengals, Joseph Osssi who needlessly knocked KC quarterback Patrick Mahomes to the ground after Mahomes ran out of bounds for a first down with seconds to play.
Had Ossai not cost Cincy 15 more yards on the personal foul, it is likely the game would have gone to overtime.
Instead, the Chiefs successfully kicked a 45-yard field goal to win it.
Mahomes continues to amaze. Playing on a gimpy right ankle, aggravated throughout the contest, The 27-year old wizard, and that’s what he is, guided the Chiefs to their monumental victory.
There was no way this cheerful quarterback could have used one of his weapons, his legs, but he found a way with his arm and his head to boost the Chiefs before a raucous Arrowhead Stadium throng.
There have been rumblings lately that the NFL is seriously considering conducting the two Conference Finals to me moved to neutral sites.
Maybe indoors, where the feeling of football is not the same as playing in the elements.
I hope the league reconsiders, especially after the spectacle in Kansas City, with the sea of red in the stands, the freeze of the night, and the sound of that it all brought.
Same story in Philadelphia.
A word here on the humanity of it all.
It may be hard to fathom how a player can be so unaware than to cost his team in such an important game with an unthinkable play.
Does Ossai know better?
You know he does.
But in life, we all realize that we do things that in retrospect make little sense.
Just as there are the stories of injured players who find a way to overcome, there are the stories of those who have made truly bad decisions.
We saw that in the waning moments of that great AFC title game.
The same actually goes for the officials who are supposed to always make the right call.
As we know, they don’t.
They are humans, too.
I’ve followed sports for over 70 years, and I’ve seen mistakes made by umpires, and officials, and players as well.
We can add coaches, managers and general managers to the list.
You can always point to that ONE mistake that decided a game.
If you talk to the people who play the game, they’ll tell you it’s never that ONE moment that determines who wins and who loses.
You can always go back to a situation earlier in the game, or during that last drive, or the instant that leads up to that ONE decisive time.
I believe that that sports, all sports, is a blank canvas that gets filled in as we go. There are twists and turns, and without doubt, unpredictability.
It’s live human drama unfolding.
And it’s why we watch.
“The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat”, as Wide World of Sports host Jim McKay pronounced every week.
And we all feel it.
So, now the Super Bowl on February 12 in Glendale, AZ becomes the Andy Reid Invitational.
Reid was the head coach of the Eagles for 14 years before his firing, and soon-after hiring in by the Chiefs.
It’s been 10 years since Reid left Philadelphia.
He was a winner there, but no Super Bowls, and has been a winner in KC, with one ring.
He has nothing but respect, admiration and yes, a good deal of love for his former franchise.
The Eagles have flourished since his departure, but his fingerprints remain. Why not? Andy Reid is one of the great head coaches of our time.
He has achieved remarkable success where he is now.
And it is now, that the train shall meet.
The Eagles and the Chiefs.
It’s almost poetic.
A final word on the passing of Billy Packer.
Many folks may not remember Packer, who served over 30 years as the top college basketball analyst on both NBC and CBS.
He was the best ever at what he did.
In my role at CBS, I had the good fortune of working with Billy in many years of the early rounds of the NCAA tournament.
He was crusty, opinionated, moody, and a delightful and authentic guy to be around.
If you didn’t appreciate him, you were the problem.
We had enough laughs to last forever.
As his long-time partner Jim Nantz remarked, “ there’s John Madden, and there’s Billy Packer. You start right there”.
Next week, some words on the Super Bowl.
Without X’s and O’s, and predictions, which I decry, what can I say?
I’ll think of something.