Championship Sunday Reflections

Random thoughts on this past Sunday's NFL Championship Games.....

• Without question, the single most dazzling play of the the weekend, if not of the entire season, was the 27 yard touchdown run by Patrick Mahomes that (a) put the Chiefs ahead 21-17, and (b) effectively ended the game.  We are seeing a passing of the torch in quarterbacking in the NFL (a subject of a future Grandstander post whenever I get around to organizing my thoughts on the topic) with a new wave of young and exciting QB's getting ready to take over, but there can be no doubt as to who the best of the New Wave is, and that is the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes.

• What the Tennessee Titans did to close their season, make it into the Playoffs as the final wild card team, and then defeat both the Patriots and the Ravens on the road, was remarkable.  Mike Vrabel should be the Coach of the Year because of it.  It was great story.
• The Titans fell because the Chiefs were able to take Derrick Henry out of the ballgame, and they did so not only with the explosiveness of Mahomes and his receivers, but by controlling the ball themselves and eating up a lot of the clock on drives.  San Francisco, take note.
• If the 49'ers-Packers NFC title game had been a prizefight, the refs might have stopped in midday through the second quarter.  Vince Lombardi must have been rolling in his grave watching the Packers defense get shredded by the 49'ers.
• Aaron Rodgers (much like Lamar Jackson the week before against the Titans) rolled up lots of gaudy passing numbers in the second half, when the game was already lost, but he came up small in the first half with an interception and two lost fumbles that led to a 27-0 halftime lead for San Francisco.  His facial expressions and body language throughout that game were those of a beaten man.  Very un-Rodgers-like.
• Raheem Mostert.  I must confess that up until Sunday, I had never heard of this guy, and with good reason.  In the last two years, he has been cut by six different NFL teams, and the 49'ers are his seventh team.  This past Sunday, however, we saw him rush for over 200 yards and score four touchdowns.  There is a very strong likelihood that he will never even come close to another day like that again in his career, but for one day, and maybe one day only, he was a reincarnation of Jim Brown and OJ Simpson rolled into one.
• Mostert went to Purdue University where he also ran track and was a teammate of my friend Stephanie Bonk, so I can claim two degrees of separation from him.

So this leads us to a very interesting Super Bowl match-up in two weeks.

After watching the playoffs for the last three weeks, I don't think that there is any doubt that the two best teams survived and are advancing to Miami.  This leads to the final Grandstander Confidence Rankings (GCR) of the season:

1. Chiefs
2. 49'ers

San Francisco is a very good team, and if any defense might be able to contain Mahomes, it might be this one.  The Niners can also run and control the ball, to the point where QB Jimmy Garoppolo only had to throw eight passes in the game on Sunday.  That could serve to keep KC and Mahomes off of the field, but the same was said about Derrick Henry and the Titans going into the AFC title game, so the Chiefs know how to play defense, too.

It is an intriguing match-up, to be sure, and I won't give an official prediction until closer to Super Bowl Sunday, but I will restate my long held belief:  When in doubt, go with the team with better quarterback, and we know who that is.