The Super Bowl may be Sunday. That's not stopping some reporters at media night from breaking out a variety of games to liven up a night featuring lots of interviews.
One reporter gave Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill the kid's game "Let's Go Fishing" before asking him to pick a question out of a bowl. Someone else carried around a "Rockem Sockem Robots" game.
Two women wearing football deely boppers on their heads went around with flashcards for a game, then tossed a football back and forth with players on the crowded turf at Marlins Park.
They spent time with Chris Lammons, a defensive back on the Chiefs' practice squad who said this is what he expected.
"It's the Super Bowl, man. It's one of the biggest events in the world," Lammons said.
Kansas City Chiefs
Brett Veach never grows tired of telling the story about how he uncovered Patrick Mahomes.
Now the general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, Veach had just been promoted from a rather low-level job as a pro and college personnel analyst to then-GM John Dorsey's right-hand man. It was 2015 and Veach was watching film of Mahomes from Texas Tech when coach Andy Reid walked by his office door and asked what he was doing.
"I told him, 'I'm watching the next quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs,'" Veach recalled with a smile Monday night.
Veach spent most of the next two years showering Dorsey and Reid with video clips of Mahomes, to the point where they told him to back off. But it must have worked. The Chiefs traded up to select Mahomes with the 10th pick in the 2017 draft, then turned the starting job over to him after a year playing behind Alex Smith.
Now, the second-year GM and second-year starting QB have the Chiefs in their first Super Bowl in 50 years.
49ers
Raheem Mostaheem Mostert is with his seventh NFL team. None of the other six is here at the Super Bowl. Mostert's 49ers are.
It's a tribute to the special teams star turned game-breaking running back's perseverance.
Mostert is with his seventh NFL team. None of the other six is here at the Super Bowl. Mostert's 49ers are.
It's a tribute to the special teams star turned game-breaking running back's perseverance.
"I took a piece of every city I was in," Mostert said Monday night, "and applied it to my life and I will always cherish that.
"You go through tough things, but you don't lose faith. My wife was with me through all the cuts and did a great job of keeping me level-headed, letting me know I had a purpose in life to fulfill. It was tough, but we made it through."
Mostert was with Philadelphia, Miami and Baltimore and released by each of them in 2015. The next year, it was the Browns, Jets and Bears saying hello and goodbye.
His career with the 49ers was not a headline grabber; he was mostly a special teamer, though a good one. Then he began getting the ball as a running back, and in this postseason he's been one of the biggest stars in the NFC.
He ran for 220 yards and four touchdowns in the 37-20 win over Green Bay for the NFC title.
"It's having the faith and never losing the faith," he said. "It's been quite a journey."
