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This last week we watched the NFL Combine, the annual job fair that draws college football players to interviews wearing shorts and t-shirts and carrying gym bags rather than briefcases. For a solid week, they took turns running, jumping, sprinting, lifting, throwing and catching, and were measured by every possible means, all in the hope of getting included in the NFL Draft, which will take place this year on April 25-27 in Detroit.

I watched the great NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions, which San Francisco won 34-31, with complete fascination. By the end of the game, two numbers stood out to me as the most instructive of all: 77 and seven.

Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills are the new Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. They are two quarterbacks who are the unquestioned field leaders of their respective teams and improve each other every time they meet.

Their record against one another, alone, proves the point: prior to Sunday’s game, the quarterbacks faced each other six times, splitting those games 3-3 and scoring close to the same number of points as each over the course of rivalry. Sunday marked the seventh time they’ve played against each other and the third time in the playoffs. Mahomes’ Chiefs won all three playoff games, so Mahomes would arguably be considered the more successful of the two, yet nobody could deny they demonstrate a model rivalry.

The beginning of a new year offers the opportunity to reflect on the topic of change and how it relates to leadership. Big-time college sports have never been more driven by change than it is at the moment and, when reading so many on the internet, the change is driving people to say the most distasteful things!