Once again, Jim Nantz has a seat at the front of the story.
The legendary Play-By Play announcer will call Sunday’s AFC Championship Game between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.
The game marks the ninth meeting between Chiefs quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Bills Josh Allen, and Nantz and Tony Romo called all but two of those. This is the fourth time these superstar players have met in the postseason, all on CBS, with Mahomes holding a 3-0 advantage.
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The matchup is brimming with nostalgia, especially for Nantz, seeing as he was a constant in those riveting matchups between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning for so many years. The league distributes games a little differently now, but for years, CBS was the network for AFC games.
“I never thought I’d see another one like this,” Nantz said. “I thought I would have just hit the magic that it was in our conference. If this had happened on the NFC side of the world, I’d get a swing or two at the plate if I’m lucky. And I wouldn’t see the individual match between the two, which belongs to Fox.
“So I knocked twice. It was blind luck. I went into Brady-Manning and Mahomes-Allen back to back. One folded into the next, and there wasn’t an empty space at all for a year. It grew immediately.
But the Hall of Fame broadcaster is quick to point out that there is a caveat. While Mahomes has cemented his place in league history as a three-time Super Bowl winner, Allen is still waiting to make it to his first. So don’t be too quick to double down on that Brady-Manning 2.0.
“On the AFC side, you have this guy in Cincinnati in Joe Burrow who played in two straight AFC championship games and won at Arrowhead,” he said. “So be careful. He wants it to be Mahomes-Burrow, and he’s building a pretty compelling case.
“Then you have Lamar Jackson in Baltimore, and we know what happened as far as the playoff shortcomings, but he’s a sensational player.
“Those four names – Mahomes and Allen, Burrow and Jackson, they’re not in the middle of their careers. So you hate to say, Boom, it’s Manning and Brady. Because one of those other quarterbacks could be one of them. »
What we do know is that Nantz has become close friends with Brady and Manning, and now Mahomes and Allen. He plays golf with them all, and they all went to the backyard of his Pebble Beach home where he has a scale replica of the famous par-three seventh hole at the world-famous course next door.
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In fact, Nantz’s backyard is where Manning shot his episode of “Peyton’s Places” with Brady.
“Peyton called me and said this would be the biggest one I do,” Nantz recalled. “It’s with my rival and I want to do it on the tee in your backyard. I said, “I have there. I would be honored. ‘”
Nantz now lives most of the year at his home in Nashville, Tenn., which is much more convenient for covering NFL games. He also has a replica hole in this yard. It’s a rendition of the 13th green at Augusta National, and you access your approach. Allen stopped by last summer and tried mightily to be the first name on the “Rock of Fame,” where Nantz commemorates friends who suck the hole. This did not happen.
“He was there for a long time,” Nantz said. “You get unlimited attempts until you get so frustrated that you give up or you get bored.”
Not only is Nantz friends with all four quarterbacks, but he has also become friends with their parents and families.
“There might be people who say, ‘Isn’t that blurring the lines?’ How does it work? “, he said. “But sometimes you can’t help yourself. Life goes on.
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Now a new course is in play.
For Nantz, the respect remains the same.
“All four of them have experienced so much in terms of expectations, representing a franchise,” he said. “Being the face of a franchise. Be a leader in their communities. And all four are exceptional.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.