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By Joe Kazmar
For the Record 

Kaz's Korner

FACT: Rams-Bengals in Super Bow; Rumor: Brady is Retiring

 

Last updated 2/1/2022 at 8:07pm

If a person got to watch only the first halves of Sunday's two NFL Conference Championship games, he would swear the Kansas City Chiefs would be playing the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVI on Feb.13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

However, both the Chiefs and the 49ers stumbled and lost their respective halftime leads and will now be at home watching the upstart Cincinnati Bengals meet the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl. The Bengals stunned the Chiefs 27-24 in overtime while the Rams nipped the San Francisco 49ers 20-17.

For the second year in a row the game will be played in the home stadium of the NFC champion. Last year the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played Super Bowl LV on their home grounds and won.

If the Las Vegas Boys are correct, it will happen again, with the Rams an early four-point favorite over Cincinnati in a game predicted to be high-scoring with the over/under set at 49 total points to be scored by both teams combined.

Sunday's two Conference Championship games were the first since 2009 that didn't feature either Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. This was the first playoff game that Kansas City Chiefs' quarterback Patrick Mahomes lost to a quarterback that wasn't named Tom Brady.

Perhaps the Cincinnati victory might not have been such a big upset as one might think because the Bengals NEVER have lost an AFC Conference Championship game, advancing from both previous appearances only to lose both Super Bowls to the San Francisco 49ers.

LA Rams head coach Sean McVay used to work for 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan in Washington and had lost seven of ten games-including the last six-until Sunday's victory.

The Bengals' Joe Burrow is the first quarterback drafted No. 1 overall to reach a championship game in his second season and has a chance to become only the third quarterback to win an NCAA national championship (at LSU) and a Super Bowl, joining Joe Namath (Alabama and the New York Jets) and Joe Montana (Notre Dame and San Francisco 49ers). It appears the name must be Joe!!

McVay looks like a genius by trading for quarterback Matthew Stafford from the Detroit Lions for Rams quarterback Jared Goff and first-round draft picks in 2022 and 2023. Stafford's tremendous performance as a Ram this season could very well earn him a ticket into the Hall of Fame when his active career is over.

Both games Sunday were very similar as the starting quarterbacks-Mahomes for Kansas City and Jimmy Garoppolo for the 49ers-had great first halves and then died on the vine when the going got tough late in the game.

But the poor quarterback play was the result of tremendous defensive rushes put on both passers that led to either sacks or interceptions due to hurried throws before getting steamrolled. Mahomes threw two interceptions in the overtime period while Garoppolo slung the ball just before being slammed to the turf by Rams Aaron Donald that was intercepted by defensive back Travin Howard to secure the Rams' win.

Cincinnati's overtime victory came the same way its division title came about-a field goal by rookie kicker Evan McPherson--who has kicked four field goals in each post-season game, an NFL record. His 12 field goals in one post-season are second only to Adam Vinatieri's 14 in 2006 with the Indianapolis Colts.

Sunday's playoff games didn't come without a distraction-usually by Cowboys' Idiot owner Jerry Jones-but this time about Tom Brady.

ESPN ran an exclusive story (rumor) Saturday that Brady was about to announce his retirement from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

This might happen, but it won't occur until after Friday, according to MY sources. When Brady signed his last contract, $25 million was diverted into a signing bonus in which he received $5 million up front.

The stipulation of the deal was that he would get $15 million of the remaining $20 million if he still was a member of the Bucs on Feb. 4, 2022. And even though Brady has more money than he knows what to do with, nobody should pass up an easy $15 million. This bonus deal was done to keep Brady's salary cap at just around $10 million.

It's a sure bet Brady already has his eye on what he will be doing after retirement. He's a genius working with contracts, helping the team to obtain good (higher priced) players than the salary cap allowed when he was at New England.

He diverted much of his salary into bonus money he would receive after his playing days were over.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he becomes the general manager of an NFL franchise or gets a position with the NFL in some capacity in the next couple of years.

KWICKIES...It looks like to me the Houston Texans are about to travel from the toilet to the sewer with their proposed selection of a new head football coach. It's rumored that the favorite candidate might be longtime NFL back-up quarterback Josh McCown, who has never coached above the high school level, to replace fired David Culley after less than one year. It looks like General Manager Nick Caserio hasn't learned his lesson about candidates with no NFL head coaching experience. Perhaps he enjoys picking one of the first five players in the NFL draft.

The best thing that ever happened to the Cincinnati Bengals was their decision to fire Marvin Lewis, who had been their head coach for 16 years, went to the playoffs seven times and had zero wins in the playoffs. Zac Taylor took over and in two seasons the Bengals went from worst to first and is getting his team ready for the Feb. 13 Super Bowl.

The Minnesota Vikings must wait until after the Super Bowl to interview the Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell and defensive coordinator Raheem Morris for a second time.

And while on the subject of searching out new NFL head coaches, the Las Vegas Raiders are expected to hire New England Patriots longtime offensive coordinator as their new head man.

The Houston Astros' Triple AAA franchise at Sugar Land has changed its nickname from the Skeeters to the Space Cowboys.

JUST BETWEEN US...For the past week the area newspapers, radio and television airwaves have been overloaded with comments about how the selection of West Orange-Stark's new football coach went down. One has to feel sorry for the new man-Hiawatha Hickman-and what he and his family had to endure during the selection process at the last West Orange-Cove school board meeting. More than a dozen people were hand-picked for the search committee, but they reportedly met only once. But when the coaching prospects were dwindled to four people-none of which were publicly identified-and the Mustang fans' popular choice-Toby Foreman-was not on the list, many fans at the board meeting went ballistic because of the lack of transparency from those in charge. Many felt like the Gestapo had been reincarnated and are still hot under the collar. Hickman can pacify most of them if he can continue the successes of Steve McCarty, Dan Hooks and Cornel Thompson over the past 45 years.

 

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