KANSAS CITY — Once again, Jim Nantz has a front-row seat to history.
The legendary CBS 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 quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs and Josh Allen of the Bills, and Nantz and Tony Romo have called all but two of those. This is the fourth time those superstar players have met in the postseason, all on CBS, with Mahomes holding a 3-0 advantage.
The matchup is laced with nostalgia, especially for Nantz, seeing as he was a constant in those mesmerizing showdowns 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 that,” Nantz said. “I thought I’d just hit magic that it was in our conference. If this had happened over on the NFC side of the world, I’d get one or two swings at the plate if I’m lucky. And I wouldn’t see the individual matchup between the two of them, that would belong to Fox.
“So I struck twice. It was blind luck. I walked into Brady-Manning and Mahomes-Allen back-to-back. One folded into the next, and there wasn’t an empty space for a year at all. It just instantly developed.”
But the Hall of Fame broadcaster is quick to point out there’s a caveat. Whereas Mahomes has cemented his spot in league history as a three-time Super Bowl winner, Allen is still waiting to get to his first. So don’t be too quick to dub this Brady-Manning 2.0.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, left, and Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
(David Dermer, Jeffrey T. Barnes / Associated Press)
“On the AFC side, you’ve got 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’ve got Lamar Jackson in Baltimore, and we know what’s happened as far as shortcomings in the postseason, but he’s a sensational player.
“Those four names — Mahomes and Allen, Burrow and Jackson, they’re not at the midway point of their careers. So you hate to say, boom, this is Manning and Brady. Because one of those other quarterbacks could be a part of it.”
What we do know is Nantz has become close friends with Brady and Manning, and now Mahomes and Allen. He plays golf with all of them, and they have all been to the backyard of his home in Pebble Beach where he has a scaled-down replica of the famed par-three seventh hole at the world-famous course next door.
In fact, it was in Nantz’s backyard that Manning shot his “Peyton’s Places” episode with Brady.
“Peyton called me and said this is going to be the most important one I do,” Nantz recalled. “It’s with my rival and I want to do it on the tee in your backyard. I said, `Have at it. 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 has a replica hole in that backyard too. It’s a rendition of the 13th green at Augusta National, and you’re hitting your approach. Allen stopped by last summer and tried mightily to be the first name on the “rock of fame,” where Nantz memorializes friends who ace the hole. It didn’t happen.
“He was out there for a long while,” Nantz said. “You get unlimited attempts until you either get so frustrated you give up, or you get bored.”
Not only is Nantz friends with the four quarterbacks, he has become friends with their parents and families as well.
“There might be some people who say, `Isn’t that blurring the lines? How does that work?’” he said. “But sometimes you can’t help it. Life takes its course.”
Now, a new course is being charted.
For Nantz, the respect stays the same.
“All four of them have shouldered so much in terms of expectations, representing a franchise,” he said. “Being the face of a franchise. Being a leader in their communities. And all four are exceptional.”
