The NFL's spectacular playoff weekend will long be remembered, and not just by the winning teams. It may have been the end of the line for Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, the best quarterbacks in an era of great quarterbacking.
After a regular season in which the 44-year-old Brady and the 38-year-old Rodgers played near the top levels of their careers, the events of the weekend made it painfully clear that their best days are behind them.
If anyone had doubts that the veteran quarterbacks had lost a step or two, those doubts might have been erased Sunday night when Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes and Buffalo's Josh Allen demonstrated emphatically what is required for excellence at that position in 2022.