Cantlay takes advantage of Pebble: 10 birdies, no bogies

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — This was a day to play Pebble Beach, a day, gray and quiet, for tourists to wrap themselves in sweaters and dreams, a day for a golfer to go after a course that without the elements virtually begged you to make birdies.

Which on Thursday, in the opening round of the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, is what Patrick Cantlay did. Not that he was alone.

Cantlay is one of those guys just on the fringe of fame, and this week on the fringe of the world’s top 10 — he’s No. 11, the highest ranked player in the field and, after 18 holes, the highest placed player on the scoreboard.

Ten birdies and no bogies for Cantlay, which of course is 10 under par at a course that through the ages has become as famous for wind and rain — and gallows humor — as for the people who have won here.

People named Nicklaus, Palmer, Woods, Mickelson and, way back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, Hogan, Snead and Demaret. First names are not needed for those guys, although everyone knows Woods by his adopted first name, Tiger. And someday, a first name may not be required for Cantlay.

In the last two tournaments he’s entered, Cantlay has a 61, 11 under, in the American Express down in Palm Desert and then, 400 miles north and a couple of weeks apart, the 62 at Pebble.

“Yeah, especially a continuation of the desert on the weekend,” said Cantlay of his golf Thursday along Carmel Bay. “My swing feels really good right now. The ball's starting on the line that I'm seeing, and then my distance control has been really good, which is key out here.”

Cantlay was two shots ahead of Akshay Bhatia and Henrik Norlander. Another shot back at 7-under 65 were Nate Lashley, who you may not have heard of, and Jordan Spieth — who you also may not have heard of lately other than for his struggles.

Which finally may be over.

When it comes to overcoming struggles, the 28-year-old Cantlay is the unfortunate poster boy. Ten years ago, at UCLA, he was the nation’s top college player and for more than a year the No. 1 amateur in the world.

But he incurred a stress fracture in his back and couldn’t play for months.

Then, after he recovered, in February 2016, he watched from a nearby curb as his caddy and pal from high school in Anaheim, Chris Roth, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Newport Beach.

Cantlay was so shaken he couldn’t play. “For a while, I couldn’t care less about everything,” he said at the time. “Not just golf. Everything that happened in my life for a couple months didn’t feel important. Nothing felt like it mattered.”

The healing process took weeks. Cantlay returned, with a boom. He won the 2019 Memorial and then, near the end of 2020, the Zozo at Sherwood in southern California, about a hundred miles from where he grew up. Now two scintillating rounds in his home state.

“I always like being up here in Monterey,” he said. “Even though it’s cold this time of year, I like playing Pebble Beach. I like Spyglass (where he and Spieth play Friday).

“So I’m excited for this year. It looks like we’re going to get some rain, which isn’t uncommon, but I always like being here, and I like the golf courses and I like the California golf.

Because of Covid-19 restrictions, there are no amateurs this year in the AT&T. No spectators either for an event as well known for celebrities such as Bill Murray and for the fans who tend to be as excited to watch them as, say, Patrick Cantlay.

“Yeah, we did play a lot quicker, which is nice,” said Cantlay. “Anytime you play this tournament and get finished under five hours, it's a good day.”

Anytime you shoot 10-under at Pebble, believed to tie the course record for a round in the AT&T, it’s a great day.

Kamaiu Johnson at Pebble: A Hollywood story

By Art Spander

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The shame is none of those high-powered Hollywood types who usually fill the amateur slots will be playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. They’d love the Kamaiu Johnson story.

Then again, who wouldn’t?

It seems more fiction than fact, a kid from nothing, who dropped out of school in the eighth grade, starts swinging a stick near a golf course in Tallahassee, Florida, catches the eye of the course general manager and works and putts his way to the big time.

Kamaiu is 27, an African-American who — could this be any more perfect? — in Black History Month will make his own history when he tees off Thursday in the AT&T.

All that beauty and wealth of Pebble, where it costs just to get through the gates, where the waves crash and seagulls sweep. And where Johnson will make his first start on the PGA Tour.

Is it redundant to say he came up the hard way, winning an event on the Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour, a circuit created to “bring greater diversity to the game by developing African Americans and other minorities for careers in golf”?

Sure, there’s Tiger Woods, who remains the face of the game if at age 35 he doesn’t remain atop the standings. Harold Varner III, Joseph Bramlett and Sacramento’s Cameron Champ — who won the Safeway a couple of years ago — are the other black golfers on Tour.

None came up the way Kamaiu Johnson did — or overcame the same obstacles.

“Golf saved me,” Johnson told Tod Leonard of Golf Digest.

Johnson was an athlete, a baseball player, but as one of four children in a fatherless family, he couldn’t afford to play on a club team. So there he was taking big swipes with a branch outside Halman Golf Club in Tallahassee when Jan Augur, the GM, invited him inside to hit balls on the range with a real club.

Obviously he had talent. And finally he had an opportunity. There were lessons. And there was progress. He won the Advocates, and that gained him a place in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines at the end of January. But he was never able to enter, withdrawing due to a positive Covid-19 test.

But he had come too far to be discouraged or depressed, even with his mother in the hospital in Orlando because of breathing difficulties. Word traveled. Johnson was invited both to the AT&T and, a couple weeks from now, the Honda Classic in his home state.

“I thought I was going to get my first PGA Tour event this week,” he told USA Today’s Steve DiMeglio, before the Farmers. “But God had other plans for me.

“I’m just so thankful for the support I’ve gotten over the way I was treated. I’m thankful to the AT&T and Farmers and Honda for all they’ve been doing for me. It’s been amazing how many people reached out to me.”

Johnson had to quarantine outside San Diego. He’s now cleared, of course. His mother has improved.

“I feel absolutely back to normal. I tried to stay active.”

Staying active is not staying in the groove, however. And even when a golfer is prepared, those Monterey Peninsula courses — Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill this year; no amateurs, no need for Monterey Peninsula — can intimidate.

Even veterans know the tales of grief, balls in the water on so many of Pebble’s holes, balls in the bunkers at Spyglass — so a first-timer will have to be particularly defensive.

Then again, after what he’s gone through to get here, no golf course, no matter its reputation, should worry Kamaiu Johnson. When you begin by swinging a stick, the rest is a joy.

Bucs win belongs as much to Bowles as Brady

By Art Spander

Tom Brady was the MVP, of course, because the prediction was that Super Bowl LV either was going to belong to him or the shell-shocked kid on the other side, Patrick Mahomes. And yes, Brady is the greatest ever.

But this one, this mismatch, no less belongs to Todd Bowles as it does to Brady.

Bowles is the Tampa Bay Bucs’ defensive coordinator, the guy who designed the formations and called the plays that for the first time in the season of 2020, really the the first time in the career for young Mr. Mahomes, left him virtually helpless and hopeless.
 Never in his brief career had Mahomes, harassed, chased, and sacked, been unable to create a single touchdown.

Tampa Bay limited K.C. to three field goals in its overwhelming 31-9 victory.

Brady will get the attention, and unquestionably he deserves it, quarterback on the winning Super Bowl team for a record seventh time, having wisely joined the Bucs last spring as a free agent after 20 years with the New England Patriots.

Brady threw three touchdown passes, two to his once and current teammate, tight end Rob Gronkowski. Offense glows, but as we’ve been told, defense wins.

“Todd Bowles, Todd Bowles,” Devin White, the Bucs linebacker, said to CBS-TV. “He did it.”

Bowles once was head coach of the New York Jets, and there was a report before the kickoff of the Super Bowl that if the Bucs won, Bruce Arians would retire as Tampa Bay head coach and Bowles would replace him.

Arians denied as much after the game, for now at least, saying, “This is fun. This is what I wanted.”

For a long while. At 68, Arians is the oldest coach in the NFL. And now, certainly, the most elated.

Particularly since his Bucs not only won, but since the game was played at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, where because of the pandemic there were more cardboard cutouts than live fans, also won the first Super Bowl held in a home stadium.

Kansas City was the defending champion and a narrow favorite (3 points). But after taking a 3-0 lead, the Chiefs were barely in the game. They struggled with a patch-up offensive line, true, but in truth they struggled with the Bucs’ relentless pursuit

There were reminders of Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium, when the Denver Broncos, underdogs, stopped a brilliant Carolina Panthers offense and Cam Newton.

Somehow these defensive coaches, with a two-week window between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, figure out how to unnerve the big boys — like Mahomes.

“Our timing was not there,” said Mahomes, who was 26 of 49 for 243 yards. He was sacked three times and intercepted twice.

Their timing wasn’t there because invariably someone from the Bucs — White, Antoine Winfield — was there, in their face. Mahomes, known for his scrambling, could not escape. Tampa defenders went wide, Mahomes not knowing which way to go.

“Give them credit,” said Mahomes about the Bucs.

So we will, as we give Brady credit, a 43-year-old who seems destined to play until he’s 53. The Serra High (San Mateo) grad is the essence of confidence and reliability. Wisdom and guile, goes the aphorism, make up for age and immobility.

Arians knew last spring he needed a quarterback, and when the Patriots decided for one reason or another not to bring back Brady, the Bucs had one. And now, after languishing since winning the 2003 Super Bowl, they have another title.

Tom indeed is one of a kind, and brought to the same franchise where Todd Bowles put together the defense, it’s a perfect union.

One knows the way to get points, the other the way to keep from getting them.

A super matchup of quarterbacks in the Super Bowl

By Art Spander

It’s about the quarterback. Isn’t it always? It’s about Joe Montana or Terry Bradshaw or John Elway. Or Sunday in Super Bowl LV, Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes.

Decision maker. Play caller. Man in bubble. Man under pressure.

Brady, 43, arguably the best ever; Mahomes, 25, arguably the best now.

Such a disparity in ages. Such a similarity in production.

So much is made of quarterbacks, yet it never can be too much. Montana was the reason the 49ers became champs. Bradshaw was the Steelers’ anchor, Elway the force on the Broncos.

There’s never been a great team without a great quarterback. Defense may dominate — it won Super Bowl 50 for the Broncos. The other team will have the ball.

But what you do when you have the ball? That’s where the quarterback makes the difference. As Brady completing 43 of 62 attempts in New England’s comeback win over Atlanta in Super Bowl LI made a difference. As Mahomes completing passes to lead K.C. from behind in the fourth quarter to beat the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV made a difference.

Now with possibly the best Super Bowl quarterback matchup of all time, Brady of Tampa Bay vs. Mahomes of Kansas City — yes, Montana vs. Dan Marino in XIX is up there — the question is who will be the difference maker?

Mahomes has the arm, as well as the legs. He’s stronger, longer and, when needing to escape or run the ball, faster. Brady, in his 10th Super Bowl, is wiser.

Mahomes was MVP of last year’s Super Bowl in Miami. Brady has been MVP of multiple Super Bowls — his team, the New England Patriots, winner in six of them.

The Chiefs liked what was available. Mahomes lasted until the 10th pick of the 2017 draft (the Bears took QB Mitch Trubisky with the second overall pick).

The Bucs knew what they needed in the spring of 2020, a free agent quarterback. “Of course it was Tom Brady,” said coach Bruce Arians, “not thinking he would become a free agent.”

Brady became one, after 20 years with New England, and Arians reacted. “That’s how you live life,” Arians explained. “Do you sit and live in a closet and try to be safe, or do you go have some fun?”

The answer is written not on the wind but in the wins.

“I looked at the whole situation,” Brady said after signing with Tampa Bay. “There were a lot of reasons to come here.” Not the least of which was a two-year, $50 million contract.

Mahomes in July signed a 10-year $500 million contract, which, if it goes to completion and he stays healthy and interested, would make him a free agent at 35.  Presumably Brady will be retired by then, but one never knows.

What we do know, not surprisingly, is that both Mahomes and Brady seem as impressed with the style and results of each other as the performances would indicate.

“You’re crazy,” said Mahomes, “if you don’t look up to Tom Brady as a young athlete. He’s the type of greatness you strive to be. It’s going to be a great opportunity for me to get to play against Tom, an all-time great, the GOAT (greatest of all time), everything like that.”

Brady, a sixth-round pick in 2000, surely looks at Mahomes and pictures himself. The way it was, the way it is and maybe the way it will be.

Said Brady of Mahomes, “I think he’s got the ability to focus when the moments are the biggest. That’s probably the mark of any great athlete, coming through in the clutch. I think he’s off to a great start in his career doing that.”

The chance for Mahomes to continue comes in a Super Bowl against Brady. What a matchup. It’s always the quarterback.

Goodell on Brady (the greatest) and Kaepernick (unrecognized)

By Art Spander

He is the son of a politician, a U.S. Senator from New York. No surprise that Roger Goodell can maneuver so well through the tough times — and yes, the most important sporting league in America has them — and the difficult questions.

He is 61. NFL commissioner for some 14 years, paid enormously ($40 million annually) and, when needed, able to slip past the criticism and doubt like a great running back through would-be tacklers.

This is Goodell’s week, the annual week for the Super Bowl, “America’s Great Time Out,” it’s been labeled. And Goodell, as did his recent predecessors, the late Pete Rozelle and John Tagliabue, gets his glory and his grief, the latter when he addresses and responds to the media.

Rozelle, eagerly — hey, he helped create the Super Bowl back in 1966 — and Tagliabue, reluctantly, held their sessions on the Friday before the game. A couple years back, Goodell switched it to Thursday.

He was well prepared this Thursday. He’s always well prepared.

A one-time prep football star in suburban New York — Goodell’s career at Washington & Jefferson College was ruined by an injury — he pays attention both to game plans and possibilities.

Very little catches him off guard, whether it’s the understandably repetitive queries about the lack of African American coaches for a league in which 70 percent of the players are black; or the somewhat oddball query whether Tampa, host for this Sunday’s Super Bowl LV, will get the game in a “normal,” year, not haunted by the pandemic, when fans again will be permitted.   

"I don't know when normal will occur again," Goodell confided.

Nor, he could have added, does anyone else.

The new normal, if that’s the proper label, is to have as many media on Zoom calls as are in the room. Yes, journalists from some locations were there in flesh and blood. But so were journalists from as far away from Florida as Great Britain, via video conferencing.

Each constituency had its own requests, whether about Goodell’s relationship with Tom Brady, for whom the commissioner’s 2015 suspension for “Deflategate” was overruled, or what thoughts he had on Super Bowl LVI at the $5 billion SoFi Stadium in L.A., which opened last fall and where there hasn’t yet been a game with spectators.

“Tom Brady has shown himself to be probably the greatest player ever to play the game,” said Goodell about the 43-year-old quarterback who will start for Tampa Bay in his 10th Super Bowl game.

“His leadership, his ability to rise to the big occasion,” Goodell continued, “to make everybody around him rise ... and he’s one the great guys. I’ve known him for about 15 years. I think he’s going to continue to be a great player. I’m glad he’s going to play a few more years.”

Ben Volin of the Boston Globe — remember, for 20 years Brady was with New England — wanted to know whether Goodell punishing Brady back in 2015 was “the right thing to do.” That never was answered directly.

Goodell was more candid about Colin Kaepernick, who after leading the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII in February 2013 was ostracized because a few years later he knelt during the National Anthem to protest racism.

Urged by then-President Donald Trump, team owners refused to sign Kaepernick as a free agent. In 2016 Goodell actively advised teams to bring in Kaepernick, but none did.

“We wished we had listened to our players two years ago,” said Goodell, which was as contrite as someone in his position could be.

“I said very clearly back in June (2020) that he deserves recognition. We started working with the players’ union and Black Lives Matter. He and other players brought the issues to us. We are now working with them.”

Too late to save Kaepernick’s career, but in time to help others. Goodell is nothing if not attentive.

Bucs’ Antonio Brown: From troubles to a place in the Super Bowl

By Art Spander

It’s all about production in sports.

There are exceptions, individuals or organizations with a genuine concern about civility and morality. Yet the issue rarely is what the athlete has done away from the field — his troubles in society — but what he is able to do on the field.

There was a wonderfully skilled receiver on the Oakland Raiders in the late 1960s, Warren Wells, who could catch anything. Unfortunately the law caught up with him, and he was arrested just before a huge game in Oakland.

For Raiders owner Al Davis — “Just win, baby” — the problem was less why Wells had been jailed than it was getting him back in the lineup for that Sunday.

It is ironic that receiver Antonio Brown, scheduled to play for Tampa Bay in Super Bowl LV on Sunday, once was also with the Raiders, if very briefly, a few days in the summer of 2019.

Then he was with New England. Then he was suspended eight weeks for multiple violations of the NFL’s personal conduct policy (burglary and sexual misconduct).

Then in October 2020, partly on the recommendation of Tom Brady, who for a few days was a teammate on the Patriots, Brown was signed by the Buccaneers and now is to play in the most important game of the year.

Hey, it never hurts a quarterback to have another guy who can run routes. Besides, as you’ve heard before, everyone deserves a second chance. Or for Brown is it a third or fourth one?

Brown was great with the Steelers for several years. He was unable to reach an agreement for a new contract, and everything turned nasty, not the least of which was Brown’s disposition.

Which didn’t affect the way Brady judged him.

“Certainly I’m happy for Antonio to get an opportunity to resume his career,” Brady said in a Westwood One radio interview, Oct. 26, 2020, when Brown joined the quarterback on the Bucs. “He’s put a lot of time and energy into working on a lot of things in his life.”

Including the restraints placed on him by the NFL. Brown is on probation for two years, must undergo a psychological evaluation, provide 100 hours of community service and attend an anger management course.

In a Super Bowl interview session via Zoom on Wednesday, Brown was asked about the legal woes, which also included being sued for hurling furniture off a 14th-floor balcony and nearly striking a 22-month-old and grandfather walking below. His answer was really no answer at all.

“I’m just extremely grateful to be here,” said Brown, evoking memories of Marshawn Lynch (“I’m only here so I won’t get fined”) before Super Bowl XLIX in 2015.

Lynch was repetitive, offering the line repeatedly for five minutes. Brown was evasive.

“It’s a blessing to be here,” said Brown. “Super grateful. I’d be doing a disservice if I talked about things that are not the focus of the game.”

Sort of a variation on a theme by Brady’s former boss at New England, Bill Belichick, who following a rare loss talked only about the next game on the Patriots’ schedule. “On to Cincinnati,” was the memorable Belichick observation.

For Brown, it’s on to a world where the points on the scoreboard are almost all that matters, to him and those around him.

“I’ve been through some things, but that’s life,” Brown said. “We all have a story. We all have to allow ourselves to grow for the betterment of ourselves. I’m just grateful for the journey.

“I want my legacy to be a guy that was persistent, a guy that never gave up, no matter the odds, no matter the hate.”

Persistence counts. Production counts more. As we were reminded by the treatment of Warren Wells. And Antonio Brown.

Andy Reid: No Geritol or yelling, just wins

By Art Spander

Of course they’re older — with one exception, Sean McVay. The reason these guys are coaches is they have gained experience, in football or life. As you’ve heard, age is only a number, an insignificant one when compared to another number, wins.

How the conversation reached the point is hard to say, but apparently in his Tuesday presser, Zoomed for players and media separated by pandemic protocol, Kansas City’s Andy Reid was asked his age, an implication that he didn’t know how to deal with a new generation.

Reid is a mere 62 — the other coach in Sunday’s Super Bowl LV, Tampa Bay’s Bruce Arians, is 65 — and he joked that he and his staff are “no Geritol crew.”

If the reference is dated — Geritol was a mineral supplement pulled off the market maybe 30 years ago when the FDA denied the claim it cured “tired blood” — Reid is not dated.

As his 25-year-old quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, pointed out, Reid is young enough.

Reid also is part of the renowned Bill Walsh coaching tree, men who as assistants were fortunate enough to have a connection with the individual who perfected the West Coast Offense and, in turn, helped the 49ers win five Super Bowls.

Each became an NFL head coach, and now four, George Seifert, Jon Gruden, Mike Holmgren and last year Reid had their own Super Bowl victories.

West Coast (capitals) and for Seifert, Holmgren and Reid, California guys, west coast, lower case.

Reid grew up in Los Angeles, not far from Griffith Park. There was a fine story by Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times the other day of Reid, your typical offensive lineman, and his pals from Marshall High cramming into a VW bug and hitting the town — but not until they made their hits in prep games.

Reid moved on to Brigham Young, where in 1988, after six years as Niners quarterback coach, Holmgren had become the Cougars’ offensive coordinator. When Holmgren took over as head coach of the Green Bay Packers, he brought in his group.

The tree bloomed once more. According to the Kansas City Chiefs’ web site, in 1992 the Packers, under Holmgren, had five future NFL head coaches on the staff: Reid, Gruden, Steve Mariucci, Dick Jauron and Ray Rhodes.

They were sharp and aggressive, and intent on reaching the sky.

Just as years earlier, in the 1960s, were Walsh, Dick Vermeil and Jim Mora Sr., on staff at Stanford. They would stay after practice drawing plays on what then was a blackboard, trying to outfox each other. ”Last man with the chalk wins,” was the observation.

Which sounds very much like what you’d hear about Holmgren’s Packers assistants. “It was an exciting group of young talented coaches,” Gruden told the Chiefs web site.

“I love football and had a lot to prove. Andy (Reid) also had a lot of love for the game and a lot to prove, too. It was all so exciting being in the NFL at a young age, being with Mike Holmgren and a having a chance to show we belonged.”

As Walsh, Vermeil and Mora did some 40 years earlier, Reid and his colleagues challenged each other with concepts and plays, “intrasquad” stuff you might call it, ideas that in time would become functional.

“In our staff meetings,” said Holmgren, “you could throw out ideas on a table and if it was a good idea I’d stick it in the game plan. What I didn’t realize is they kept track of that. They’d go back and give a hard time to each other about that.”

It was all in the learning, the experience, as was the Philadelphia defeat when Reid was the Eagles’ head coach in the 2005 Super Bowl. A hard time? That’s all they ever give losers in Philly.

But he went to the Chiefs in 2013, and the Chiefs got their first Super Bowl win in a half century. He has the goods. He’s always had the perspective.

“We all want to be treated a certain way. If not, I know how I like to be treated,” he said. “That’s (what) tells me what I need to do to get better at what I’m trying to get accomplished. You don’t necessarily have to yell and scream at me to get me to do something better. I kind of go about it that way, going to treat people the way I want to be treated.

“We’re here as teachers, and that’s what I do. That’s how I look at myself is a teacher — of, in my case, men. Whether it’s on the field or off the field, if I can give them any experience to become better players, husbands, fathers, that’s what I do.”

He’s done it beautifully — and successfully.

As Goff learned, they love you — until they don’t

By Art Spander

This is the way it is in pro sports: They love you — until they don’t. And that’s management, the people in control. Sometimes the fans never love you. No matter what you accomplish.

The linking of Jared Goff and the Los Angeles Rams was perfect. Until, alas, it wasn’t.

He was born and raised in California; played quarterback at Cal so effectively the Los Angeles Rams made him the overall No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft; helped lead the Rams to the Super Bowl in his second season.

A golden boy from and in the Golden State.

Then, whup, traded to the Detroit Lions. For another quarterback, Matthew Stafford, also an overall No. 1 pick. Well, maybe “whup” isn’t quite accurate.

As of a few days ago when the Rams failed to offer anything more than unqualified support — “He is our quarterback right now” was the cryptic comment from L.A. coach Sean McVay after the Rams’ playoff loss two weeks ago — change was a possibility.

The hero has become a bum. The golden boy has been tarnished. At 26, Jared Goff was dispatched. Thanks for dropping by, and good luck on that team that never has any luck — real or Andrew Luck.    

He’s the Stanford quarterback also selected No. 1 overall, in 2012, who after injuries retired before the 2019 season. And is rumored to be coming back.

Those QBs are so valuable. You don’t win only with a quarterback. You need a defense, receivers, running backs, a kicker. But rarely do you win without a quarterback. He is the leader, the one who — as we’ve been taught — handles the ball on every play.

Norv Turner, who has coached several teams, including the Chargers, said during a season a great quarterback will win a couple of games that, without him, you would have lost.

Then again, if Stafford is the answer, the savior, someone the Rams preferred over the man they had, Goff, why didn’t the Detroit Lions ever win a playoff game in Stafford’s 12 seasons?

This is the start of Super Bowl week, and unquestionably the teams who made it, Tampa Bay and Kansas City, have brilliant quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes of K.C. arguably the best now playing, and Tom Brady, arguably the best of all time.

Such a quest to find somebody of quality, if not another Mahomes or Brady. Or Joe Montana. Or John Elway. Or Terry Bradshaw. Someone to win those couple of games along the way you would have lost.

The 49ers have the guy who once was Brady’s backup at New England, Jimmy Garoppolo. He helped direct the Niners to the Super Bowl in 2019. As with Goff when the Rams got there, Garoppolo was on the team that didn’t win.

The 49ers are looking for someone else, according to the rumors. Stafford was one of their preferences. Now he’s joined one of their division opponents.

What happens to Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, as Goff a Cal alum, who describes his future as a “beautiful mystery,” is, well, beautifully mysterious.

Everybody except K.C. and Tampa Bay (and of course the Rams and Lions) wants Houston’s Deshaun Watson, who wants out of Houston — but according to the Texans will remain.

So much instability. So much uncertainty.

A year and a half ago, the Rams signed Goff to a four-year $134 million contract extension. He was their quarterback. He’s now the Lions’ quarterback.

Goff incurred a broken thumb in the last game of the 2020 season. Yet it was broken trust by McVay and the Rams’ front office that cost the quarterback his job.

Along the way the decision was made, quoting that nefarious phrase bosses often employ, to go in a new direction.

How far the Rams — and Lions — will go after trading their franchise quarterback for a franchise quarterback should create as many questions as answers.

Where Brady goes, championships follow

By Art Spander

It isn’t only Tom Brady. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have an excellent defense — doesn’t every great team? — and fine receivers and running backs. But so much is Tom Brady. Where he goes, championships follow.

John Brodie, who quarterbacked the 49ers when Brady’s father, Tom Sr., came to be a fan, once told me you can’t blame an individual for failure in a team sport. You can, however, credit him for success.

Some people are winners. Some are not. Brady is a winner. Thus, so are the Tampa Bay Bucs, as was Brady’s former team, the New England Patriots, the one which for a varying set of reasons, Brady’s age, a need to rebuild, chose not to re-sign him after 20 seasons.

Which allowed the Bucs to do that, and in turn after a Sunday in Green Bay, when Brady threw three passes for touchdowns and numerous others to get control and keep it, underdog Tampa Bay defeated the Packers, 31- 26, for the NFC Championship.

For the 10th time, Brady will be playing in a Super Bowl, this one LV — 55 in the vulgate. And through fortune more than preparation, the game will be in Tampa, making the Bucs the first team in a half century to play the game at their home stadium.

He, or more correctly his team, the Patriots, has won six times previously.

Not bad for the kid from Serra High in San Mateo (from which Barry Bonds also graduated), who went to Michigan because no West Coast university was particularly interested and then wasn’t selected in the draft until the sixth round. Too slow was the judgment.

But Brady had an arm and a presence. He’s never had to run the 50, only run a football team.

This one season he ran the Bucs effectively, making us wonder what would have happened if he stayed with the Patriots, or gone to the team he cheered as a youth, the 49ers — who relied on Brady’s former backup in New England, Jimmy Garoppolo.

We’ll never know. What the Bucs know is, as they hoped, Brady provided the leadership and performance that made a difference in the locker room as much as on the field.

“I was excited when I saw on television that we signed him,” said Shaquil Barrett, the linebacker who on Sunday made others excited by combining with Jason Pierre-Paul for five sacks, speaking to Fox TV.

“You know what he can do. He treats everyone the same.”

Brady knows the drill. With all the attention over the years, all the accolades, he is almost too cool in interviews, offering a “been there, done that,” response — which you suppose is to be expected from someone who had his own weekly radio show in Boston and is married to a supermodel.

“It’s great to get another road win,” said Brady, “and now we got a home game.”

That will be in two weeks against the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and their own heroic (but younger) QB. At 25, Patrick Mahomes is 18 years younger than Brady and also is a Super Bowl MVP.

Quarterbacks are a necessity to win titles. Brady has understood this for years. Tom was wasn’t quite 5 when he was taken by his dad in January 1982 to “The Catch” game at Candlestick Park.

That’s the one where Joe Montana passed to Dwight Clark, lifting the 49ers to their first Super Bowl.

A long time, from virtual childhood to actual greatness. Brady perhaps never could have imagined he would return again and again to the Super Bowl, especially this season when so much changed.

Except his brilliance.

How Hank Aaron handled the pitches — and the situation

By Art Spander

Hank Aaron handled everything better than most of us — better than the commissioner of baseball, Bowie Kuhn; better than the sports columnist of the New York Daily News, Dick Young; better then a certain journalist from the San Francisco Chronicle, me.

We had our reasons, unusual as they might have been.

It was the opening of the 1974 major league season. Aaron had finished 1973 with 713 career home runs, one fewer than Babe Ruth’s cherished total. It was inevitable that Aaron would first tie the record, then break it. History would be his, and ours.

The years flash past, our heroes age and leave us too soon. Aaron died Friday. He was 86. “Hammerin’ Hank.” An athlete of brilliance, an individual of dignity. They tell us that you learn most about a person with how he or she deals with adversity.

Those had been a difficult few months for Aaron, the winter of ’73. He was surrounded by attention. And odium.

Baseball still was the national pastime, in fact as much as in fiction. Babe Ruth was the game’s singular legend. Perhaps no less important in a changing society, he was white.

Aaron was African-American, and some didn’t want him toppling Ruth’s record. There also were those, who as now, simply were bigots. Aaron received hate mail, threats on his life. He was shaken but resolute.

Tradition, now revised, dictated that every season would begin in Cincinnati. Writers and broadcasters — we were yet to be called media — descended on the city. So did nature.

On Friday, April 3, a day before the opening game, a tornado struck southern Ohio. I hid under a bed in the hotel. Fifty miles away in Xenia, buildings were destroyed, fatalities recorded.

Aaron played for the Braves, first in Boston, then in Milwaukee, finally in Atlanta. Braves management wanted him kept out of the lineup until the team came home, the next week.

But Kuhn, the commissioner, decreed Hank must appear in at least two of the three games at Cincinnati. Dick Young, the New York columnist who had come to cover Aaron, wanted him to play all three games and in print ripped Kuhn, the commissioner.

So many subplots. So much tension. So little drama.  One pitch, one swing and Aaron drove a fast ball from Jack Billingham of the Reds into the left field seats of Riverfront Stadium.

The press box was enclosed — we used to joke it was “hermetically sealed“ — the setting surreal. No crack of the bat but a ball silently sailing out of the park and into our minds.

In time, on cue. Hank would not depart unfulfilled. Either would we dozens of journalists, some who came from as far as Europe.

Aaron played only one of the next two games in Cincy, and so he, the Braves and the press entourage went on to Atlanta, where it would be Monday night baseball, the Braves against the Dodgers.  

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, as Riverfront, was a multi-sport complex, home also to the NFL’s Falcons. Unlike hulking Riverfront in Cincinnati, a fortress, the stadium in Atlanta was more accepting — the press box open — and home run-friendly.

The outfield fence was chain link, like that at a local playground, and the relievers sat behind it in utilitarian bullpens.

It was just after 9 o’clock that Monday night, April 7, when the Dodgers’ Al Downing, who was always called “that little lefty,” pitched to Aaron. Darrell Evans was on first, and Downing was looking for a double play, What all of us looked at was a two-run shot that sent Aaron ahead of the Babe.

The bullpen guys had decided among themselves where to watch the game if not warming up. Tom House caught the ball that set the mark. While House grabbed his bit of history, two teenagers jumped from the stands to join Aaron circling the bases.

Security was different then. The post-game scene was the same, reporters jammed into the clubhouse seeking Aaron while Milo Hamilton, the Atlanta TV announcer, tried restoring a semblance of order.

The next morning, several of us drove the 150 miles down I-70 to Augusta, where the Masters would be played; the defending champion was Tommy Aaron.

You couldn’t have scripted it any better.

To Curry, ‘kind of like a blast from the past’

By Art Spander

Steph Curry hit this one. Not with a jumper, with a comment, about a victory that that was as emotional as it was unlikely. “It was,” said Curry, “kind of like a blast from the past.”

From the distant past, from the Warriors’ championship seasons, five, six years ago, when Golden State was Golden and no deficit seemed impossible to overcome — which Monday night against the Lakers a deficit seemed to be but wasn’t.

You know the NBA. There’s almost no time to dwell on what happened. Virtually every night there’s another game, in these Covid-19 days of a compressed schedule, frequent back-to-backs, sometimes on consecutive days.

The next game for the Warriors is Wednesday night against the Spurs at Chase Center. Then Thursday, there’s another one, against the Knicks at Chase. No time to reflect on a game that may be the most significant for a team trying to find its identity.

The Warriors trailed the Lakers, the best team in basketball, by 19 points in the third quarter, then trailed them by 14 in fourth. And the Warriors somehow won, 115-113, when Curry, who had an OK night, made a big basket at the end and LeBron James, who seemed distracted, missed one.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr was both disappointed with that start and delighted with that finish.

“We had a couple of good days of practice,” said Kerr, doing a remote interview from Staples Center in L.A. “Then we came out and stunk it up. It was way off, at least for the first half. But I liked our fight. We came back in the second half and finished it off.

“Our guys were flying around. We have to scrap. I don’t think we scrapped enough. If we play defense and compete like that, we have a chance to beat anybody.”

Well, they did beat the Lakers, who are the current champions and who had lost only three times previously this season. The game was the third of a TBS triple-header, and as Kerr pointed out it gave the nation a chance to see Kelly Oubre, who replaced Andrew Wiggins as the catalyst of the second unit, the guys off the bench.

“Down the stretch, in order to make that comeback, it started with our second unit,” said Kerr. “We were able to come back and continue building.”

To the public the Warriors are Curry, and he is the star. But Curry and Kerr — and Draymond Green, who had his best overall game so far — will remind us the key is defense. When the Warriors make stops, they subsequently make runs, which was the case Monday.

Curry gets open, free of the double teams, the Warriors get baskets. Steph was only 1-for-6 in a stagnant opening period and was just 8-for-22 for the game, but did get 26 points.

“I didn’t shoot well,” said Curry, “but I was aggressive. So were the others. When we’re aggressive, we’re able to make plays.” 

Oubre had 23, and Eric Paschall 19.

Rookie James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick in the November draft, struggled, but Green told him, and us, that there will be days like that even for veterans and particularly for the new kids.

Green went to the basket a couple of times as well as going to teammates with passes, and was a major part of the equation.

“I think Draymond is still finding his way,” Kerr said of a man not long ago chosen Defensive Player of the Year. “He was off for nine months. His energy and intensity is what we need to win games.”

Once the defense was effective, Green and Curry worked together on offense, as we remember.

“This was a measuring stick for us,” said Curry. “We have to prove this is who we can be.” 

Which they did in the second half.

January 19, 2021 /Art Spander

Lakers, Warriors

articles, basketball

You still wonder what could have been for Aaron Rodgers

By Art Spander

It’s hard to watch Aaron Rodgers play as efficiently and successfully as he did in the NFL playoff game Saturday and not think what could have been. Indeed, what should have been.

Rodgers threw for 296 yards, and the Green Bay Packers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 32-18, to advance to next week’s NFC championship game, where they’ve been before. Four times before.

And when it comes to Rodgers, who has won a Super Bowl, we’ve also been there before.

He seems to be everywhere; in those State Farm Insurance commercials; usually in the field for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (not this year, however — no amateurs) and in the opposition’s hair. Or end zone.

Where he isn’t is in a 49ers uniform. Even though he grew up in Chico hoping to be, and as an undergrad played for Cal, maybe 25 miles away from the Niners' facility.

An old story? Absolutely, but also an irritatingly unforgettable story.

The Niners had the No. 1 selection in the 2005 NFL draft. The presumption was they would choose Rodgers, who one Saturday against the previous No. 1 team in the land completed his first 23 passes, tying an NCAA record.

That wasn’t good enough for the new 49ers coach, Mike Nolan, who wanted someone more athletic and mobile than Rodgers. The pick was star-crossed Alex Smith of Utah, who now 15 years, several teams, many coaches and one serious injury later is with the Washington Football Team.

Nolan last was defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys who, failing to qualify for to the postseason, fired him a week ago.

Nolan was hardly the only one not to put his faith and future in Rodgers. The quarterback remained untaken until the 24th pick by the Packers, whose QB at the time was Brett Favre.

“Quarterbacks need time to develop,” said Mike McCarthy, who in one of those all too typical sports mixtures was San Francisco's offensive coordinator when Nolan didn’t take Rodgers, became Rodgers' head coach with Green Bay and is now coaching the Dallas Cowboys, who just let Nolan go.

Rodgers has developed — into a star, a salesman and a celebrity. He’s 37, older than most NFL quarterbacks but younger than Tom Brady and Drew Brees, with whom he is ranked.

Asked about his performance Saturday, Rodgers was not quite as cool as he appears in the State Farm ads, like the one in which he launches a tee shot, wonders if the ball came down yet and then shrugs as it plops into the cup.

The victory Saturday at Lambeau Field in Green Bay (no frozen tundra on a 35-degree afternoon) set up Rodgers for his first home conference championship game. The other three, including last year’s loss at San Francisco, were on the road.

Unlike games in California during this Covid-19 crackdown, a few thousand fans were permitted to attend the win over the Rams.

“I’m definitely a little emotional, just thinking about what we’ve been through,” said Rodgers, who Saturday went 23 of 36. “It got me emotional with the crowd out there today.”

Rodgers threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Davante Adams and a game-clinching 58-yarder to Allen Lazard with 6:52 remaining. Rodgers also had a 1-yard touchdown run, the first by a Packers quarterback in a playoff game at Lambeau since Bart Starr’s winning sneak in the Ice Bowl against Dallas on Dec. 31, 1967.

The Rams also had a Cal quarterback, Jared Goff, who was the first overall pick in the 2016 draft. He was in the Super Bowl his second season, but as of now he’s not Aaron Rodgers. His lone TV commercial is one of those ESPN promos.

At Pebble, a Pro-Am without any “ams,” including Bill Murray

By Art Spander

It was created by a man who could swing a 5-iron as impressively as he could hold a musical note. In time, his tournament, the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, became the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. What didn’t change was the last part of the label, “Am.”

The pros, from Snead and Hogan to Palmer, Nicklaus and Woods, had their place and their victories, but what made the Pro-Am special were the amateurs: entertainers, athletes and politicians as eager to compete and as we were to watch them. 

Now the event, a mid-winter festival on the Monterey Peninsula, has fallen victim to Covid-19, as have so many other attractions. They’ll hold the AT&T in February, as always, but not like before.

According to a release from the PGA Tour, the AT&T will be played “without the traditional multi-day format,” which means it won’t be the traditional Crosby/AT&T.

Inevitable, perhaps, the way the virus has surged, chasing the 49ers and the Sharks to Arizona and forcing the suspension of so many NBA and college basketball games, but still disappointing.

The courses are the same, although only Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill will be used, Monterey Peninsula Country Club unneeded for a greatly reduced field.

The charity beneficiary is the same, the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, which Crosby told me in the early 1970s, when some of the pros didn’t like the format, was the only reason he didn’t withdraw his support.

The threat of inclement weather will be the same, although the Pacific storms are as unreliable as were Jack Lemmon’s tee shots.

Lemmon, of course, was a regular, a good guy if not a good golfer, who tried for years without success to make the cut but even in his unfulfilled attempts made us appreciate his persistence and sense of humor.

Sure, we were thrilled by Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson, but we were no less enthralled by Huey Lewis — who might break out in song at every tee box — or Tom Brady.

Back in the ’50s, when the world was naïve, the guy who kept us attuned and laughing was Phil Harris, who had a ton of one-liners and also more than a minimum of one-putts.

In one rainy Crosby, he slopped off the inundated 17th green at Pebble and told the press, “I can’t wait to get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.” If you’ve heard that before, well, jokes survive.

The routines by Harris, Dean Martin and even Crosby himself have been taken over by Bill Murray, who has done everything from pull a female spectator into a bunker to hurl a frozen fish at spectators.

If the tournament occasionally resembled a variety show, well, how many times could you remind the audience that every putt breaks toward Carmel Bay?

Murray was a player as well as a comedian. He grew up near Chicago, caddying with his brothers, and in the 2011 AT&T he teamed with D.A. Points, who won the pro section. Murray won the pro-am.

On the 16th in the final round at Pebble, Points, getting into the spirit of things, yelled at Murray loud enough to he heard, “It would help if you made a putt.” Which Murray then did. “His being funny helped relax me,” said Murray, who hardly needs help at relaxing.

No Murray this winter. No quarterbacks — Tony Romo has been a consistent entrant, and Peyton Manning an occasional one — no wisecracks, no entrants sitting near the 17th tee being interviewed by Jim Nantz.

No crowd at the 15th tee, “Club 15” the description, chanting before the golfers hit their tee balls.

There will be golf played at Pebble next month, but not the golf we’ve come to expect. How can it be a pro-am without the “ams”?

Warriors’ Wiggins plays D and outplays the critics

By Art Spander

When a year ago Andrew Wiggins was traded by Minnesota to Golden State, a sports blogger named Brandon Anderson wrote, “The Timberwolves might have saved their franchise, while the Warriors made a catastrophic misstep that could put their dynasty on the brink.”

Basketball brinksmanship as practiced by the Dubs seems to be working. We’ll learn more after Tuesday night’s game against the Pacers at Chase Center.

The Warriors have won four of their last five, and in their most recent game Wiggins played like a man who could have been the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, which six years ago he was.

Even for his defense, which was unexpected — at least to those who thought they knew a man once labeled “Least Defensive Player” in the NBA from a plus-minus rating.

As an NBA observer tweeted last February when the Warriors acquired the frequently belittled Wiggins, ”Maybe he’ll smile with Steve Kerr.”

Kerr, the Warriors coach, certainly is smiling because of Wiggins. “We’re not asking him to change our franchise,” Kerr said of Wiggins. “We’re asking him to play defense, run the floor and get buckets. He’s capable of doing all that.”

As verified on Sunday night, the night Steph Curry was only 2 for 16, with just 11 points. Wiggins scored 17 and guarded Toronto’s Pascal Siakam down the stretch of the 106-105 victory.

“He just used his length, athleticism and anticipation,” said Kerr. “We now have someone we can put on the opposing team’s best player, whether it’s Pascal Siakam, LeBron James, Kawhi (Leonard) or Paul George.”

Klay Thompson had that responsibility, but of course he’s missing the season with the torn Achilles tendon.

The 6-foot-8 Wiggins always was expected to do more than he did, at least by his critics.

He grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, hockey country, and two years into high school moved to a prep school in West Virginia. A Feb. 7, 2013, article in Sports Illustrated knocked Canadian basketball and Wiggins’ work ethic. In his next game, he scored 57 points.

After a year at Kansas, Wiggins was taken first in the 2014 draft by Cleveland but, quickly enough in a swap that involved the Cavs, T-Wolves and 76ers, went to Minnesota. As part of the transaction, the Cavs got Kevin Love.

What Wiggins would get was complaints. Sure, he had impressive games, but not enough of them, even though he would be voted Rookie of the Year. The era belonged to the Warriors and Cavaliers, and T-Wolves fans were disenchanted.

As were some of the media.

During a Bulls-T-Wolves game two years ago, Chicago play-by-play announcer Neil Funk piled on Wiggins.

“We’ve seen Minnesota twice this season, and Wiggins has not been engaged in either game.” said Funk.

“He just kind of floats around out there — he does nothing ... Zach (LaVine) is just much more active than a Wiggins type, night in and night out … and Wiggins just has that, and I’m sure he wants to compete, we know he’s a talent, there’s no arguing that, but his body language is as if ‘I don’t care, I’m just out here.'”

Then he was out of there. One basketball observer couldn’t decide whether the Warriors were more thrilled getting Wiggins or getting rid of D'Angelo Russell.

The answer has arrived. Maybe Wiggins simply needed a team like the Warriors. Maybe he became more determined. Sometimes what’s needed is a change of scenery. Sometimes a change in motivation.

“I’m playing with the Defensive Player of the Year, Draymond,” Wiggins said of his new approach. “He’s out there, he’s vocal, he helps out a lot on defense giving us advice, just showing us certain things. We’ve got the rook down there, James (Wiseman) trying to clean stuff up. It’s been good.”

For the Warriors, and for Andrew Wiggins. At least so far.

Draymond is the one who makes that difference

By Art Spander

The best defensive player in the world. Steve Kerr said that about Draymond Green. Of course it’s an exaggeration, but this is an era of exaggeration, and if anybody is going tell us that it would be Kerr, who is Green’s coach with the Warriors.

And if anybody deserves that compliment, that exaggeration, it’s Green.

“There’s no sport where one player makes that much of a difference.” So said Chris Mullin, the Hall of Famer who once made a difference for the Warriors in the 1980s and now does their pre- and post-game TV.

That comment is not an exaggeration. It’s the truth.

In football, a player is 1/11th of the lineup; well, 1/22nd, considering offense and defense are separate units; in baseball, one-ninth; in basketball, one-fifth. But numbers alone are inadequate.

Even those of the win streak that the Warriors carry into Wednesday night against the Clippers at Chase Center. Two games.

A trifle compared to the 24 in a row that opened the 2015-16 season. Yet after an 0-2 start to the schedule, a bit of reassurance.

The Warriors have spent time practicing. James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick in the November NBA draft, has spent time improving. Steph Curry has spent time making most of his shots. Green has spent time reminding everyone how much he was missed when absent because of a sore foot.

“He’s kind of our point forward in many ways,” said Kerr, “and the leader of the team.”

That last part is no exaggeration.

Curry is the headliner, the one who gets the points — 62 two games ago — and, with two MVP awards, the most attention. Think of the Dubs, and you cannot think of anyone but Steph. 

Wiseman is the comer, and his progress, with only three college games and then months of relative inactivity, has been tantalizing. When this kid learns the game, others will learn what he’s about to become: one of the greats.

Andrew Wiggins is the mystery, the first man taken in the 2014 draft but who has been twice traded and frequently criticized for being more unpredictable than reliable. Ah, but maybe this is his spot and his year.

Damion Lee, Eric Paschal, Kelly Oubre, Kent Bazemore and Kevon Looney are among the pieces on the roster.

Green is the feisty, experienced and wise guy who has to make certain those many pieces fit properly.

“He impacts the game so dramatically on defense,” Kerr said of Green’s play after the Warriors defeated the Sacramento Kings, 137-106, Monday night. “And then on offense he gets us organized.” 

In those recent glory days when Kevin Durant was around, and Klay Thompson was healthy and Andre Iguodala was anywhere he needed to be, Draymond got what was coming to him — NBA Defensive Player of the Year in ’17 — and made sure teammates got the ball.

There were incidents, the scuffle with LeBron James, then of Cleveland, and suspension in the 2016 finals; the argument with teammate Durant in November 2018. Nothing that would keep Draymond from his role.

Those days, five straight finals, three titles, are gone. So, through injuries (Thompson) or personnel movement, are most of the men from those teams, other than Green, who will be 31 in March, and Curry, who will be 33 also in March.

A feeling of familiarity. A need for adaptation.

“They know each other so well,” Kerr said of Green and Curry. “So their pick-and-roll game is beautiful to watch with their hand-backs. And Draymond understands how to get (Curry) open. Our defense gets a lot better with Draymond on the floor. Steph gets more transition opportunities as well.”

Then there are the other Warriors who leave Green uncertain.

“There are times out there,” Green confessed, “where I’m out there on the floor and I don’t know where to go because we’re all figuring each other out. So it’s important we get that movement, and even as important that I’m directing that movement and helping guys get that understanding.”

The best defensive player in the world seems as capable with the ball as without it.

For the Niners, a most unusual season

By Art Spander

So similar. And so different. The final game, and the 49ers had the lead going into the final quarter.

They couldn’t hold it a year ago in the Super Bowl, which was notably painful. Or on Sunday, in what ended a season that was as notably unusual, if only a trifle less painful.

A season with the loss of so many key players and, in a day or two, probably a key coach.

A season when a seemingly unstoppable virus, Covid-19, forced the Niners to abandon their training complex in Santa Clara, and forced the players and coaches to leave their homes and families.

A season that created as many questions — the essential one, who will be the starting quarterback in 2021? — as answers.

A season that, with a concluding 26-23 defeat by the Seattle Seahawks at State Farm Stadium near Phoenix, was both distressing, because it ended with a record of 6-10, and encouraging, because players said they gained new respect for teammates.

For the fans, the incidentals become, well, incidental. To them, it’s all about results, and if the Niners had to be transplanted, lock, stock and game plans, from Silicon Valley to the Valley of the Sun for more than a month, well, hey, it isn’t as if they were living in tents.

But sport, like so much in life, is a matter of routine. These weren’t college kids off for a fall break. They were grown men with wives and children and mortgages.

They knew there would be discipline. They knew there would be broken bones and twisted ankles. What they didn’t know until November was they would banned from practicing or playing where the Niners are headquartered — and forced to flee.

It would have been easier to say, this isn’t our year — which it wasn’t — yet in the final game, with a third-string quarterback (C.J. Beathard) with nothing at stake except pride, with thoughts that within minutes they’d be on a flight home, the Niners had a 16-6 lead in the fourth quarter over the playoff-bound Seahawks.

That should count for something, and it counted considerably with head coach Kyle Shanahan.

“I was real proud of the guys today,” Shanahan said. “I thought those guys competed their asses off in all aspects. I told them to hold their heads high. I didn’t think it was a moral victory or anything because I feel we should have won the game.” 

Almost certainly Shanahan and the Niners will lose coordinator Robert Saleh, who designed the defense that held the Seahawks to only two field goals through the first three quarters. “I hope everyone is not very smart and doesn’t hire him,” quipped Shanahan.

The coach wouldn’t offer a comment about the quarterback situation, although he has said as of now Jimmy Garoppolo would be back in charge. Garoppolo only made six games because of an injury. He was replaced by Nick Mullens, who then was hurt himself and replaced by Beathard.

There basically was no replacement for Nick Bosa, the 2019 defensive rookie of the year, who tore up a knee (ACL) in the Niners’ second game of the season. The same thing happened in the same game to another defensive line standout, Solomon Thomas.

Every subsequent game, there would be a graphic on TV showing how many different 49ers were out at one time or another, running backs, quarterbacks, defensive backs — you name them.

“I’m very happy,” said Shanahan, when asked if the end brought relief, if not a championship. “Very excited. It’s the first time I’ve packed two days in advance for anything … Being stuck in the hotel for over 30 days, it does wear on you a little bit. Not just me. The players. The cooks. The equipment guys. Everybody involved with us is ready to get back home.”

And, he pointed out, working for improvement.

“Once we were eliminated from the playoffs, we were ready to move on a little bit and get to next year. But we had to finish it.”

Before it finished them.

For the Rose Bowl, and Alabama, location is second to the result

By Art Spander

In the end, the location became less important than the result. Which despite traditionalists, and that includes me, is what counts.

To paraphrase Shakespeare about a certain flower, what’s in a game? If a pathway to another national championship for Alabama smells just as sweet, call it what you choose.

The red rose logo was on the turf at AT&T Stadium. The Crimson Tide seemed to be everywhere and Notre Dame virtually nowhere.

If one tradition was upturned, the Rose Bowl Game being held in Texas — and not even Pasadena, Texas — another remained: domination by Alabama, a 31-14 win over the Fighting Irish, in the event copyrighted as the “granddaddy of them all.”

Because of the Covid-19 surge in California and restrictions against spectators, for only the second time in its more than 100-year history the game had to be played somewhere other than the 92,000-seat stadium in Pasadena, Calif. 

Notre Dame might believe it shouldn’t have been played anywhere.

The Fighting Irish were down quickly. Alabama (12-0 and deservedly ranked No. 1) was ahead 14-0 with some four minutes to go in the first quarter.

And trying to ignore the critics from the media, most located someplace in Middle America, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly agreed with the announcers who did the game for ESPN.

“They made plays on the perimeter,” said Kelly, an acknowledgment that Alabama had too much speed, particularly receiver DeVonta Smith, who caught three touchdown passes.

That’s as many as anyone ever has caught in a Rose Bowl. But just as whether a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear makes a sound, there could be a question from purists (guilty, your honor) whether a record not set in the Rose Bowl is really a Rose Bowl record.

The record for Notre Dame in Rose Bowl games, whether in southern California or north Texas, is now 1-1, the win coming over Stanford in the 1925 game.

The Notre Dame record for the year is 10-2, which would thrill the fans and alums of all but three other teams in the land but apparently displeases those who remember the glory days of the Golden Dome, and say as much — in print or on air.

Alabama has become what Notre Dame used to be. And that point rubs on Kelly. Or at least the comments in the media do.

The Fighting Irish are now 0-7 in either BCS or New Year’s six bowl games, going back to a rout by Oregon State (Oregon State?) in 2000.

Notre Dame has been outscored by 161 points in those games, with the closest loss by 14 points. So Kelly wasn’t happy with the postgame questioning.

“This wasn’t a matter of not getting knocked off the ball or not having enough players to compete against Alabama,” he said. “I’m sorry if you don’t like it and if the national media doesn’t like it, but we’re going to go back to work and we’re going to put ourselves back in this position again.

“We came up short with the firepower. There is not a wider story than with the firepower and making a few more plays.”

Alabama has the firepower and has been making plays for many seasons under head coach Nick Saban. He missed a few days during the schedule when he tested positive for Covid, but the Crimson Tide never missed a beat. 

What he did miss, however, was the place that gave the game its identity.

“I don’t think there’s anything quite like the Rose Bowl, the tradition, the setting, the mountains,” said Saban. “It’s just a phenomenal experience. I wish our players had gotten the opportunity.”

He’s not the only one. Hey, Rosie, it wasn’t the same on New Year’s Day without you.