Super Bowl participants do not spring from a flurry of victories gained over a few weeks in January. Organizations that reach the pinnacle of success in the National Football League are like any operation that achieves success. It is the final product of dedicated work to build something that will endure the challenges in development and succeed through the final rigors required to win.

All four teams participating on Sunday in the NFL Championship Games have paid the prices to get here. The National Football Conference finds two teams not led by a quarterback who was a first round draft choice, but rather men that every other team had a shot at adding to their roster. The Philadelphia Eagles are led by 24-year-old Jalen Hurts, who was selected in the second round with the 53rd pick in the 2020 draft. Four quarterbacks were taken before him in the first round. They were Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert and Jordan Love.

The San Francisco 49ers are guided by a rookie seventh round pick, Brock Purdy. He opened the season third on the 49ers depth chart and after both Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo were sidelined with injuries, has won all seven of his NFL starts.

Then there is the American Football Conference battle set for Arrowhead on Sunday between the Cincinnati Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs. These two franchises are led by first round draft choices at quarterback. Cincinnati’s Burrow was the first player chosen in the same draft that brought Hurts to Philadelphia in the second round, and no one has doubted it was a brilliant selection by the Queen City franchise. The Chiefs are guided from behind center by the second quarterback and tenth overall selection in the 2018 draft, and no one has ever questioned whether he deserved to be the first player chosen that year.

That fact is particularly true in Chicago, where fans of the Bears are still bemoaning that their team left Patrick Mahomes on the board while selecting Mitch Trubisky with the second pick in the 2017 draft. Six years later, the Bears are still looking for their franchise quarterback.

Mahomes versus Burrow is arguably a battle between the best two quarterbacks in football today. That is taking into consideration that Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have reached the shadowy side of their storied careers, and Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence have not yet cracked a Super Bowl field.

Burrow led a young Bengals squad to the Super Bowl last year, and did it on the Chiefs home field by downing Mahomes and his Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. In that contest, the Bengals were decided underdogs to a Chiefs team that was looking to make their third straight Super Bowl appearance. Two years earlier, Mahomes led the Chiefs to a win over the San Francisco 49ers to complete the 2019 season, and lost the following season in Super Bowl LV to Brady and his Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

On Sunday, the Bengals are looking to get back to the final leg for the Vince Lombardi Trophy, which they failed to gain last February while losing to the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI. This year, the Bengals are given a much better chance to advance out of Arrowhead with a victory than they were last season.

Earlier this year, the Chiefs visited Cincinnati and were favored by 2½ points over Burrow and his Bengals. And for the third time in a row, Burrow downed Mahomes and company with the Bengals third straight three point victory over the Chiefs.

So, if the Chiefs were favored in Cincinnati on December 4th by 2½ points, why are they favored by fewer points on their home field tomorrow?

Two reasons come quickly. First, Mahomes suffered a high ankle sprain during last week’s win over the Jacksonville Jaguars and no matter how good he looks this week in practice, people in the know realize that a high ankle sprain does not heal in one week. And second, football bettors have a memory on par with an ostrich.

The football world is driven by the most recent results, and when the Bengals went into Buffalo last week as nearly a touchdown underdog and came away with a convincing 27-10 win that wasn’t even as close as the score, the assumption is made that they can repeat that kind of performance.

In truth, when one knows what drives results, a dominating win that was a surprise to most is a valid reason to expect a less impressive performance in their next game. That is because the motivational dip comes at a team in the Bengals spot from both directions.

First, when preparing for a tough battle, as Cincinnati was last week heading into Buffalo, and that victory comes easy, the next week’s preparation is almost always less intense. And second, when the Chiefs see the Bengals hammer a team that beat them on their home field earlier this year, Buffalo downed Kansas City at Arrowhead in mid-October, their preparation is heightened.

This week, Cincinnati has nearly 70% of the wagers on this game backing their chances in Kansas City. This is a long way from where the Bengals opened this season, a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on their home field.

That early season defeat was attributed mostly to the Bengals suspect offensive line. The same unit that allowed Burrow to be sacked nine times in last year’s playoff game in Tennessee while still downing the top seed Titans the week before they upset Mahomes in Kansas City. That was the Bengals in last year’s playoffs, a team spiked by the motivation to end a thirty-year drought without a postseason victory.

This year, after a rocky start, the Bengals offensive line issues appeared to be handled as the team molded into a solid unit to protect their franchise quarterback. But, in recent games, injuries depleted the Bengals front line as starters La’el Collins, Jonah Williams and Ted Karras will all miss Sunday’s game against the Chiefs.

So, can a Championship Game come down to the offensive lines?

Kansas City comes into this contest with the most sacks registered by an AFC team against opposing quarterbacks, 57, which is second in the entire league to the Eagles. And the Chiefs offensive line is a unit that has avoided injuries this season and has the challenge this week of protecting their hobbled prized field general.

After the game, the heroics of the winning quarterback, receiver or running back will grab the headlines, but going in, the unit I think will most contribute to the winning squad is the men up front.

Qoxhi Picks: Kansas City Chiefs (-1½) over Cincinnati Bengals

For more than 50 years; beginning in high school, as a member of the Oakland Raiders front office after college and since I opened Qoxhi Picks in 1981, I have chronicled National Football League games. That experience has offered me an opportunity to view most matchups with a reference to a similar situation that happened before.

The trick is, finding what parallels will repeat.

No rookie quarterback has ever led his team to a Super Bowl, let alone win one. On Sunday, Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers is going to attempt to write a new chapter on that stat when he leads his team into Philadelphia to battle the favored Eagles.

First of all, the idea that no rookie quarterback has ever led his team to a Super Bowl has a number of elements that contribute to that fact. The four highest rated quarterbacks coming out of college according to scouting reports over the past 50 seasons were John Elway, Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck and Trevor Lawrence. All of them were first picks in the draft and selected by teams that had the worst record in football the year before they were chosen.

Right, a team with the worst record in football one year has never won a Super Bowl the next season. That is one of the major reasons why a rookie quarterback has never won a Roman numeral game.

Another possible parallel to match the 49ers trek into Philadelphia took place in 2004. That year, rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was a first round and 11th overall selection by the Pittsburgh Steelers that year, was forced into action when starter Tommy Maddox was injured in second week action. Roethlisberger opened his NFL career with 15 straight wins before being beaten in the AFC Championship Game by Tom Brady and his New England Patriots.

Brady. Yep, Tom Brady of the Patriots.

By my calculations, this is where the 49ers might benefit if we are to use history as our guide.

While 2001 was his second pro season, Brady saw little action in his rookie year, one game with three passing attempts and one completion for six yards. He was forced into a starting role when Drew Bledsoe was injured in a second week of the regular season loss to the New York Jets. Brady, a sixth round draft choice who had trouble even holding a starting spot in college at Michigan, ended that year in a hail of confetti after leading the Patriots to an upset win over the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.

Purdy did not get drafted by a team with the worst record in football, like Elway, Manning, Luck and Lawrence. Instead, he went to the San Francisco 49ers who were in the Super Bowl three years ago and the NFC Championship Game last season. He is also not running into a juggernaut that is a defending Super Bowl Champion like Roethlisberger did with his Steelers when he took on Brady and the Patriots in the 2004 AFC Championship Game.

Nope, Purdy is leading an experienced playoff team that is up against an Eagles squad that earned a Wild Card berth last year and were eliminated in their only postseason game of 2021. This Eagles team comes into play with the number one seed in the NFC and were the last team this season to fall from the unbeaten ranks. Their strength is not the passing game of their quarterback, Jalen Hurts, but a punishing running game that racked up 268 rushing yards last week in their dominating win over the New York Giants, 38-7.

The Eagles are favored in this game for all the right reasons, but from a football perspective their strength, running the ball, runs smack into the league’s top defense against the run.

As for a road map, I’m looking at the sixth round choice that won the Super Bowl to complete the 2001 season a lot like what could very well happen this year when a seventh round draft choice directs the 49ers fortunes.

So, why hasn’t a rookie ever led a team to the Super Bowl?

Because Brock Purdy hasn’t yet had his turn.

Qoxhi Picks: San Francisco 49ers (+2½) over Philadelphia Eagles

Sudden shifts always concern me.

A lifelong resident of California, when the ground shakes like it did this morning in Southern California, residents most often hold in place before scampering for safety if the intensity worsens.

The lessons of how we treat earthquakes are parallels to a lot of human activity. We, as a species, don’t usually do anything until something gets bad. That may be what's happening this week with the Kansas City Chiefs and the injury to their star quarterback.

Last Saturday, Patrick Mahomes had his ankle turned under and twisted at the end of play. It was not comfortable for either his fans or even opponents to watch. The injury was first feared to be severe, then determined to be a high ankle sprain without any other major damage.

Still, he missed a series of downs while being evaluated and in his place backup veteran quarterback Chad Henne led Kansas City on their longest postseason touchdown drive of their long and storied history. Ninety-eight-yards and a touchdown to advance the Chiefs lead over the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars.

Mahomes returned after Henne’s solid play and while visibly hampered by the high ankle sprain completed the victory over Jacksonville, 27-20. The victory provided the opportunity for the Chiefs to host the AFC Championship Game for the fifth consecutive season.

They have split the first four.

Four years ago, in Mahomes’s second professional season, an offside penalty provided Tom Brady and his New England Patriots a second chance to tie the game late in the contest. If you’ve been paying attention to Brady for his career, you know what he does with second chances. The Patriots escaped Kansas City with an overtime win.

Three years ago, the Chiefs were on a mission, as the Blues Brothers might have referred to it, “A mission from God,” and drilled the Tennessee Titans, 35-24, to advance to the Super Bowl. They won their first Vince Lombardi Trophy in 50 years that year with a win over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, 31-20.

Two years ago, the Chiefs won their third straight AFC Championship while downing the Buffalo Bills by two touchdowns, then were upset in the Super Bowl by Brady and his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Last year, the Chiefs were favored to return for a third straight Super Bowl appearance, but were upset at Arrowhead Stadium by the upstart Cincinnati Bengals. They meet them again this Sunday, and under normal circumstances we would expect the Chiefs to gain a revenge win on the team that knocked them out last year.

That, of course, was before their prospects were dimmed by the injury to Mahomes.

After the game on Saturday, the media reported that the injury to Mahomes may not be as serious as first feared because he left the locker room after the game without wearing a boot to protect his injured ankle. Wearing a boot to prevent further injury to an ankle sprain is standard fare. It is both a proven medical practice and a reliable way to make sure that a twist on a stairway or getting into a car doesn’t further aggravate the injured ankle.

I read him not wearing the boot leaving the locker room different from most. I thought the Chiefs were trying to downplay the severity of the injury and having him leave the facility without a boot or crutches would create the illusion that the injury wasn’t as severe as it really was.

Call it gamesmanship.

Today, Wednesday, Mahomes is scheduled to practice. It will be most revealing to see how he does four days after suffering the injury.

How has the gambling world reacted to the injury and the upcoming visit on Sunday by the Joe Burrow led Cincinnati Bengals?

The point spread opened with the Chiefs favored by 1½ points, and gamblers descended on the books like locusts on a field before harvest to get down on the Bengals with the point-and-one-half. Within hours of the Chiefs being posted as a favorite, the action shifted the favorite role to the visiting Bengals. Early in the week, the line had climbed to Cincinnati by 2½ points. Currently, the line has settled to Burrow and company favored by one point.

What does this tell us?

The public, who won last week while betting on the Bengals over the Bills in Buffalo, are riding last year’s AFC Champions one more week by virtue of both their dominating win over Josh Allen and company and the suspect availability of the Chiefs star.

Nearly 70% of the action on this game is backing a Bengals team that didn’t cover the point spread in either their regular season finale or opening playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens were forced to play without their starting quarterback in those two games. Now, off a complete vanquish of the Bills, they are favored in Kansas City.

The situation does not have me racing to the window to get down on the Bengals, and I’m very interested in seeing how Mahomes looks in practice this week. But I can tell you this, I would expect when all the factors are considered before releasing a play on Sunday, I more than likely am going to be siding with a home underdog Chiefs team looking to avenge last year’s Championship Game loss against an overconfident Cincinnati unit.

What is left yet to confirm is that the injury to Mahomes does not prove more consequential than it now appears, and just like when we hold in place at the beginning of an earthquake, the ground shaking doesn’t worsen and send us scurrying for cover.