There will be only two games this weekend in the National Football League. Down from four the previous two weekends as many as sixteen during the now-completed regular season during which 256 games were played. Many of these would be charitably described as “forgettable.” But what often seemed like a random process of elimination has marvelously reduced the field of 32 to what are arguably the best four teams and, beyond question, to two best rivalries in football and perhaps, for the moment, all of sports.
Begin with the first game. The Denver Broncos at home against the New England Patriots, though for millions of fans anticipating this game, the teams are almost an afterthought. This is a contest between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady; the game’s two best quarterbacks of the old church faith of drop-back and put your trust in the pocket and when you run, you run with Satan. They are master’s of the craft – at reading defenses, looking off receivers, putting the ball where only their man can catch it, and so forth. None better. And they have been doing it for a long time. Long enough to be, for their era, what Unitas and Starr were for theirs.
