KANSAS CITY, Mo. — How is he doing this? High-ankle sprains are six-week injuries, or something like that. And Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes looked fairly fine through 36 minutes Sunday in the AFC Championship Game—not running with abandon, but when he had to, Mahomes could get out of harm’s way and do Mahomes things.Nine [more]
SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Could it be? Is it possible that the best four teams in the 2022 NFL season will play the Super Bowl semifinals in Kansas City and Philadelphia on Sunday (“The Andy Reid Invitational”), for the right to advance to Super Bowl 57?One by one in the NFL’s Elite Eight, the pretenders vanished. The [more]
“It is what it is,” Joe Burrow said as the clock struck midnight, not long after Cincinnati edged (is there a better word for an agonizingly close game than “edged”?) Baltimore to set up a divisional playoff date Sunday that just might get a good television rating: Cincinnati at Buffalo.Emphasis on at Buffalo.Good for Burrow. [more]
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.—You want the truth about the coin flip that set in motion the script so unlikely that Spielberg would have found it far-fetched? If the Bills had won the toss, Sean McDermott instructed his captains to defer.The Bills would have kicked off.“I’m glad they lost this one,” McDermott told me.I should say so. [more]
Peter King dives deep into all the Week 17 action across the NFL as the playoff picture begins to take focus in the AFC and NFC. [more]
“Fifty years. I just can’t believe it. And I’m still around to enjoy it.”–Franco Harris, on Tuesday afternoon, hours before his shocking death, to Steelers defensive star Cam Heyward on Heyward’s “Not Just Football” podcast. The Steelers got nothing done offensively all game. Two field goals against the impenetrable Raiders in the first 59 minutes—that’s [more]
Chandler Jones, from his home Sunday night, knew the end of the Raiders’ 30-24 win over the Patriots was stunning and strange, but he didn’t know it was historic.So he asked me: “You’ve been covering the game for a long time—how do you see it?”I’m not positive, I said. But I think it’s the most [more]
The Eagles are the best team in football with a month left in the regular season. My top five, with four bye-less weeks and 64 regular-season games to play: Philadelphia, 12-1. First team to clinch a playoff berth with the 48-22 rout of the formerly impressive Giants in Jersey Sunday. Philly has a two-game lead [more]
SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Midway through the second quarter, while one of the most intense games of his six-year reign as 49ers coach was playing out on the Levi’s Stadium turf in front of him, coach Kyle Shanahan felt someone at his side, wanting to talk. It was head athletic trainer Dustin Little, waiting for a break [more]
This Josh Jacobs is a fabulous player. We’ve got 15 more pennant-racy things to talk about today than the 4-7 Raiders—the 49ers haven’t allowed a second-half point in five weeks, no one wants to win the NFC South, here comes Deshaun Watson, here come the Dolphins, Jalen Hurts could seriously challenge Patrick Mahomes for MVP, [more]
History repeated itself Sunday night at SoFi Stadium.Unbelievably.If you stayed up for the end of Kansas City’s tense AFC West match at the Chargers, you saw KC tight end Travis Kelce, down by four in the final minute of the game, catch a shallow crossing route from Patrick Mahomes, run right to left across the [more]
MUNICH—Tom Brady, for at least once this autumn, could smile and mean it.“That was spectacular,” he told me of the NFL’s first regular-season game on German soil. “I mean, that stadium was rocking. The crowd singing ‘Country Roads’ and ‘Sweet Caroline,’ it felt like it was a Red Sox game out there. It was amazing, [more]
“I read a quote from Bill Parcells,” Robert Saleh said, driving home from MetLife Stadium around 6 p.m. Sunday, after the biggest win of his head-coaching life. “‘In New York, it’s euphoria or disaster.’”Yup. Parcells said it—about 78 times a year as coach of the Giants, then the Jets. I’d asked Saleh about his comment [more]
Peter King takes a look at the biggest stories from Week 8 and gives a midseason check-in on all 32 teams with November around the corner. [more]
Peter King dives into the biggest stories from Week 7, including the resurgence of Geno Smith and the Christian McCaffrey trade. [more]