Imagine being in a crowd at a professional hockey game drinking a soft drink, sharing a sandwich with your wife when your cell phone goes off. It is a working opportunity to live your dream. Minutes later, you are in bowels of the arena, strapping on pads and skates and headed onto the ice.

Within an hour, you’d become the stuff of legends. An NHL team would have a t-shirt on sale in their team store with your name and number on it. Your cell phone would burn up with media requests. Airline tickets would be ordered so you could be celebrated with a standing ovation as Ayres was last night.

The past 48 hours have brought a lot of Patrick Mahomes news. As the second-year quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs delivered that city’s first Super Bowl victory in 50 years a thrilling 31-20 win over the San Francisco 49ers, he’s been on quite a roll.

• Named MVP of the Super Bowl, which meant delivering the now iconic, “I’m going to Disney World” line.
• Actually going to Disney World and taking a young Chiefs fan with him as part of Make-A-Wish.
• Bringing the Lombardi trophy back to the people of Kansas City in a parade scheduled for today.
• Making a former high school classmate look like Nostradamus.

That’s a lot of dreams coming true over a couple of days in the life of a 24-year-old.

Like nearly 26 million other people, I sat down on my couch Monday night to take in the College Football Playoff National Championship game between the LSU and Clemson. What I witnessed was quarterback Joe Burrow putting on one of the clearest displays of Greatness I’ve ever seen.

And it happened after the game was over.

If you follow college basketball, you know the near-mythical rivalry that is Duke-North Carolina. Over the last 100 games between these two teams coming into their matchup over the weekend, each school had won 50 and they scored the exact same number of points. Those freaky statistics make clear this isn’t a gimme type of series—each team brings its best whenever the game is played.

That being said, I wasn’t expecting much from this game: it’s been a brutal season in Chapel Hill, with the Tar Heels sitting at 10-12 overall and 3-8 in the ACC at tipoff. Duke, on the other hand, came in ranked seventh in the nation and hadn’t been out of the top 10 all season. A blowout seemed to be in order.

I was getting ready to go to Tampa yesterday when my phone started buzzing. I ignored it for a while in order to get my shirts packed the way I like them, but the thing just kept buzzing. And buzzing. And buzzing.

Finally, I picked it up. Several different people had texted, all saying similar things.

Kobe.

Did you hear?

Oh my God. Kobe.

After 20 seasons, six Super Bowl rings, scores of NFL quarterbacking records, and an ever-increasing grip on the title of GOAT (Greatest of All-Time), you’d think Tom Brady might enter his offseason with a bit of introspection. With all his accomplishments, now might be the time to consider what’s next, given how he’s conquered his profession in ways that few have.

So after the Patriots first-round exit from the NFL playoffs, what does Brady do?