Christmas Day in the NFL was a bust as Mahomes and KC and Lamar and the Ravens annihilated the Steelers and the Texans, respectively. I still don’t know why Mike Tomlin of the Steelers is considered such a prolific coach. He hasn’t done much since he won the Super Bowl in 2009 with Bill Cowher’s players. Just because he’s never had a losing record to me is irrelevant. He’s not done anything in the postseason the last several years, and that’s what matters. The Steelers have only had three coaches in their history: the Great Chuck Noll, who won four Super Bowls with the greatest teams of all time, the 1970’s Steelers. All 22 of those starters should be in the Hall of Fame. I know Lombardi and the Packers, Shula and the Dolphins, the Raiders, the Cowboys and the Patriots are in that conversation, but give me Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, Franco Harris, Terry Bradshaw, Mel Blount and John Stallworth all day and Bill Curry might have been able to win a Super Bowl with those players. I take that back; they would have gone 8-8 under Curry and made the playoffs once in his tenure. But Chuck Noll was a superb football coach as well. Lombardi and Shula are hard to go against as an all time great, I would have to take the generationally great Lombardi, but as far as the talent, I’d go with the Steelers, and Chuck Noll is right up there in that upper echelon with Lombardi, Shula, George Halas, men like that. Jimmy Johnson was good, but he didn’t stay in Dallas long enough, mostly because of Jerry, and Bill Belichick-who’s now coaching at North Carolina? Are you kiddin me?- won 6 Super Bowls, though he did it all with Tom Brady. Without Brady he was never that successful.

Tomlin is a smooth talker, but he just hasn’t gotten the job done when it matters. He’s fine. I don’t have a major problem with him. Do I think the Steelers can do better? Yes. Will they change coaches at some point if Tomlin just keeps on with his winning records, but no success in the playoffs? I know the fans are tired of it. But the Steelers’ ownership is loyal to a fault. You’ve got to be loyal to the fans who support you more than one person despite the fact that you like him. The Steelers are that way with Tomlin. Just kind of spinning their wheels and not getting anything significant accomplished. I don’t see another Lombardi Trophy for the Steelers if they keep Tomlin for the long run. He’ll have to resign though. They won’t fire him.

On the flip side of that, Patrick Mahomes is more prolific than ever. He completed 29 of 38 for 320 yards, 3 TDs and 0 ints in the Chiefs’ 29-10 victory over the Steelers in a matinee yesterday in the steel city. He was the player of the game, according to Netflix, which broadcast both games and did a horrendous job with it. I don’t know about other people, but I had to do a lot of fast forwarding to get to the current state of each game yesterday. It was ridiculous. I ended up watching the movie Zero Dark Thirty about the takedown of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 and it was terrific. We had our family get together on Christmas Eve.

The Netflix crew offered Mahomes some sort of velvet cake afterwards, but he declined saying he wanted to watch his diet for the playoffs. Like the discipline. The guy’s just got it together. The Chiefs have been criticized for winning a lot of close games this season, but they’re 15-1 for crying out loud with the home field advantage for the entire AFC Playoffs at Arrowhead. Now Arrowhead is a massive home field advantage. That place gets electric, raucous. The Chiefs are looking strong once again heading into the postseason. The main question to me is: can Mahomes break Tom Brady’s all time Super Bowl victories record? Brady earned seven Lombardi’s and Mahomes has three. Mahomes turned 29 in September and won Super Bowls 54, 56 and 58, in the 2019, 2021 and the 2023 seasons, respectively. Mahomes is under contract wih the Chiefs until 2032, when he will turn 37. He’s making $55 million a year, loves Kansas City and do they surely love him there. They’ll extend his contract with another Super Bowl victory this year and may anyway. I watched the first season of Netflix’s documentary called Quarterbacks in the summer of 2023 in which Mahomes was one of the quarterbacks featured. His work ethic is beyond reproach. I’ve never seen a quarterback, much less any player, who trains as hard as he does. I can see him breaking the record. He’s a little more down to earth to me than Brady, who has always loved the celebrity spotlight. If he continues with his work ethic and humility, I see him breaking Surfer Boy’s record. In my preseason NFL projections, I picked Detroit over KC in Super Bowl LIX at Caesar’s Superdome in N’Awlins on Sunday, February 9th, 2025 with a 5:30 PM CT kickoff on FOX. However, I’m rethinking that right now. Can the spontaneous Lions’ decision making coach Dan Campbell not mess up his team with dumb decision making on fourth downs? That’s a real question mark to me. I can see Andy Reid outcoaching him and Mahomes just being too good for the Lions to stop and the KC defense being, as always, totally awesome under defensive coordinator Steve Spagnola. We’ll get to that in January as the NFL Playoffs are just around the corner.

College Football First Round Playoff games

 The first round Playoff games were a disaster. College Football needs to take away home field in these first round games and use neutral sites, and the Committee needs to employ strength of schedule and football judgment as the main criteria for ranking these teams. SMU? Indiana? Are you kiddin’ me? Clemson and Tennessee weren’t much better.  Greg Sankey and the college commisioners need to think long and hard about expanding the field to more teams. They really need to get this 12 team model right before they do anything else. It should be an 8 team tournament and not any more with the right teams playing. I’m not saying Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina didn’t have their flaws; they did. But Indiana and SMU both proved they had no business being in the Playoff. Conference championships matter for legacy, but they shouldn’t automatically qualify a team for a bye or home field advantage. I just say take away the home field. That’s an unfair advantage for teams that are used to the freezing climates in December against the teams that are not. The committee needs to figure out their ranking of the top 12 teams next season. I’m not sure about a couple of these quarterfinal matchups. Arizona State may do OK against Texas, but Penn State-Boise State looks lopsided in Penn State’s favor, though James Franklin can be unpredictable with how well his teams play when they are supposed to win handily. He may win a game he’s supposed to win, but it gets a little too interesting for the Penn State faithful and the gamblers. Oregon-Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and Georgia-Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl New Year’s Day look riveting. I’ll have previews and predictions for those games on Monday. I would like an eight team playoff with the right teams in it. That probably won’t happen when the TV Playoff contract renews in 2026, but that’s my preference. This 12 team model is not working so far.

Record to date

Last weekend:

Florida over Tulane and 4 first round Playoff games- 3-2 straight up, 3-2 against the spread.

Overall, SU-157-58, 73%, ATS-112-101, 53%.

Friday’s Bowl Games

Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl

 Oklahoma (6-6) vs. Navy (9-3)

 Amon G. Carter Stadium, Fort Worth, 46,000

 11 AM CT

 ESPN

 Courtney Lyle, Rene Ingoglia, Morgan Uber? Can I get a ride from DFW to the Stadium, Ubes?

 Laundry: Big 12, Mike McCabe

 OU by 3

 I’m taking quarterback Blake Horvath and the Midshipmen over a Sooners team that has been decimated by transfers and opt outs. Their quarterback this season, Jackson Arnold, has transferred to Auburn where Hugh tries to do a better job with him than he did with Payton Thorne. Maybe Thorne was impossible to coach and Hugh had no chance making Thorne successful. Thorne just wasn’t good enough either talent-wise or upstairs, or both. Arnold has talent, which he showed against Alabama in OU’s 24-3 victory at Norman in November, so Hugh needs to do better with Arnold or his job could be in jeopardy.

I like the Midshipmen, coming off their extremely impressive 31-13 victory over Army, and Horvath, who rushed for  1099 yards and 15 TDs this season along with throwing for 1,200+ yards and 13 TDs, to get it done in FW.

 Navy 24, Oklahoma 21

Birmingham Bowl

 Georgia Tech (7-5) vs. Vanderbilt (6-6)

 Protective Stadium, B’ham, 47,100

 2:30 PM

 ESPN

 Dave Neal, Aaron Murray, Ashley ShahAhmadi

 Yella: Big Ten, Mark Kluczynski:

 Tech by 3

This is a toss up, but I’m going to Anchor Down in the Magic City.

 Vanderbilt 24, Georgia Tech 21

Liberty Bowl

Texas Tech (8-4) vs. Arkansas (6-6)

 Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, Memphis, 58,325

 6 PM CT

 ESPN

 Anish Shroff, Andre, Carc

 Suds and Duds (What a Due Right needs while standing over a 6 footer): Big Ten, Chris Coyte

 Arkansas by 1 ½

 I like the Red Raiders to pull off a slight upset.

 Texas Tech 34, Arkansas 31

 Las Vegas Bowl

USC (6-6) vs. Texas A&M (8-4)

 Allegiant Stadium, Vegas, 65,000

 9:30 PM CT, Coffee or another six needed.

 ESPN

 Dave Flemming, Brock Osweiler, Stormy Buonantony

 Vogue: ACC, Marcus Wood

 A&M by 4

Mike Elko and A&M faded down the stretch, losing 3 of their last 4, but I like them to prevail over the struggling Lincoln Riley and USC.

 A&M 27, USC 21