KRON 4 News at

Monday, December 12, 2022 SECTION B Matt Miller . Sports Editor . 707.427.6995

Armijo’s Jericho Johnson has good head on his broad shoulders

Matt Miller

MMILLER@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Jericho Johnson has a voice mail on his cellphone that sounds like a little kid pranking a caller.

“What if a college coach calls?” he is asked.

“I should change that,” he says.

“What if Deion Sanders calls?”

“I should really change that,” he adds.

Armijo High School’s junior gets a lot of telephone calls these days. He also gets text messages, a flood of social media mentions and yes, the occasional old-school mailed letter. The 6-foot-5, 305-pound linebacker is a highly sought after Division I football prospect, likely the No. 1 such talent in the area heading into the 2023 season. Johnson already has 10 offers on the table: from Miami, Oregon, Oregon State, San Jose State, Colorado, Arizona, Cal, Washington State, Washington and Utah. And he says he’ll take until next December to officially make a decision. He still has all his official visits available.

“Man, it’s a blessing,” Johnson said. “It’s something I never saw coming. People have told me I’m going to be great, but you never expect it to come like this. I appreciate all the opportunities I’ve been given.”

Rodriguez star Leroy Bryant has been a top prospect as well but he made his decision to attend the University of Washington before his senior season. Bryant even had UW head coach Kalen DeBoar at his house this week but the decision in his mind had already been made.

The process is just beginning for Johnson.

Johnson has the mix of speed, size and strength that coaches covet. He was the coMonticello Empire League Lineman of the Year and has been an all-MEL selection as a sophomore and a junior. There are times he can simply push aside offensive foes en route to the backfield.

“It’s been that way since I was a 10-year-old playing Pop Warner for the Solano Warriors,” he said. “I always thought it would be fun to

See Jericho, Page B2

Matt Miller/Daily Republic Armijo High School junior linebacker Jericho Johnson is a highly sought after Division I prospect by Cal and nine other schools.

Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group

San Francisco 49ers starting quarterback Brock Purdy (13) celebrates his touchdown throw with San Francisco 49ers’ Kyle Juszczyk (44) against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Sunday.

49ers win sixth straight, a 35-7 rout of Brady, Bucs

triBune Content agenCy

SANTA CLARA — Brock Purdy’s first career start had his dad shedding joyful tears in the Levi’s Stadium stands, and the 49ers’ Faithful shared that sentiment Sunday by chanting “Purdy! Pur-dy!” at times in Sunday’s 35-7 rout of Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

A 28-0 halftime lead made certain Purdy – and the 49ers’ top-ranked defense – would upstage Brady’s rare and perhaps final homecoming to his native Bay Area.

On the 49ers’ way to a sixth straight win, however, came trouble, in the form of Deebo Samuel getting carted off with an ankle injury, 5 minutes before halftime. It’s the latest, scary injury to a franchise that deployed Purdy as its third starting quarterback this season, a week after losing Jimmy Garoppolo to a potentially season-ending foot fracture.

The 49ers (9-4) must quickly cast aside their mixed emotions and worthy ego. Thursday night brings their next game, at Seattle’s daunting venue where they’ll face the Seahawks (7-6) to possibly clinch the NFC West crown.

Purdy, as surprisingly impressive as he was in relief last Sunday to beat Miami, put forth a masterpiece Sunday. He became the first of seven quarterbacks in NFL history to win a debut against Brady, a San Mateo native who played only once previously on the 49ers’ field (a 2016 New England Patriots win).

Afterward, Purdy had to wait his turn in a reception line of 49ers that gathered to shake hands with Brady, a stream that included Fred Warner, Charles Omenihu, Talanoa Hufanga, Deommodore Lenoir and, finally, Purdy, with general manager John Lynch also in the wings.

The 45-year-old Brady rifled 55 passes and completed 34 for 253 yards, See 49ers, Page B2

Like his approach or not, Deion Sanders makes Pac-12 more interesting

larry Stone

THE SEATTLE TIMES

SEATTLE – Way back in another life, I covered Deion Sanders for a half-season as a beat writer for the San Francisco Giants. The year was 1995, and the Giants had acquired Deion in a July trade with the Reds, trying to capitalize on his local popularity as a Super Bowl winner that year with the 49ers.

Sanders didn’t make much of an impact on a last-place Giants team and never played again for the 49ers, opting instead to sign with their archrival, the Dallas Cowboys, with whom he won another Super Bowl the next year. But those of us who covered the team were genuinely surprised at how unlike his image he turned out to be. Dubbed “Prime Time” and “Neon Deion,” Sanders was quiet, reserved and respectful, earning considerable affection from his teammates, a group that included pre-juicing Barry Bonds.

The mellow version of Sanders I witnessed up close is certainly not the one that is rocking the college football world – and shaking up the dynamics of the Pac-12 – as the new coach at Colorado.

Coach Prime, as he prefers to be called, definitely is trying to stand out these days. And succeeding wildly, with a, well, theatrical introductory news conference, followed by a stunning speech to the Buffaloes squad in which he encouraged players from this past season’s 1-11 team to transfer so he could restock the roster with his guys.

“When I get here, it’s going to be change,” Sanders told them (and everyone who watched the video that was immediately posted on social media). “So I want y’all to get ready. Go ahead and jump in that [transfer] portal and do whatever you’re going to [do], because the more of you jump in the more room you make.”

Say what you will about Sanders’ style – The New York Times described him this week as “a sports mercenary with a carnival barker’s bearing, a roadside preacher’s panache and a talent for winning” – the Pac-12 just got immensely more interesting with Coach Prime’s arrival.

It has been easy for the rest of the country to write off the conference as a largely irrelevant and mostly inferior brand

ANALYSIS

It’s contract madness from MLB owners at winter meetings in ‘age of irrationality’

Bill Madden

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

NEW YORK – Sometime around the midpoint of the baseball owners’ nearly two billion dollar spending spree at the winter meetings in San Diego this week, Billy Eppler got off the phone in the Mets war room and announced to his troops that the earth had just shifted.

Leading up to the meetings, the Mets general manager had devised numerous game plans with his owner Steve Cohen on how to fulfill all of their needs – center field, starting pitching, bullpen – in as prudent a way as possible. They had all but conceded losing Brandon Nimmo to a bidding war that seemed headed for more years than they felt comfortable.

But then Hal Steinbrenner blinked on a ninth year for Aaron Judge and coughed up $146.5 million more than his superstar slugger had originally turned down back in March, and Phillies general partner John Middleton, who had earlier signed Taijuan Walker, the Mets’ No. 4 starter last year, for a whopping $72 million over four years, fulfilled his quest for shortstop Trea Turner with an eye-popping 11-year, $300 million deal. Mind you, Cohen had already seen the Texas Rangers stun the baseball fraternity by luring away Jacob deGrom for a five-year deal worth $185 million – when he and Eppler had privately agreed that three years would be their max for the oft-injured two-time Cy Young winner – and now he was steaming.

Whether they realized it or not, the baseball owners with their contract madness this week in what one high-level MLB official termed “the age of irrationality,” unleashed the spending monster in Steve Cohen, who essentially told Eppler that night: “Screw this. We are not losing Nimmo

ANALYSIS

See Owners, Page B2

Paul Silas, who played for three NBA championship teams, dies at 79

the WaShington PoSt

Paul Silas, a threetime NBA champion known for his rugged rebounding in the 1970s and as LeBron James’s first head coach in the league, died Sunday morning at the age of 79.

Silas’s death, first reported by longtime Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan, was confirmed by the Houston Rockets, for whom Silas’s son, Stephen, is the head coach. According to the Houston Chronicle, Rockets assistant John Lucas is expected to fill in as head coach for Sunday night’s home game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Details about where Silas died and the cause of death were not immediately available.

Paul Silas played for 16 seasons in the NBA, including a stint with the Boston Celtics from 1972-76 when he helped the team win its first championships after the retirement of Bill Russell. Known as “Tall Paul” to legendary Celtics broadcaster Johnny Most, he averaged 11.5 points and 12.3 rebounds for those Celtics teams.

Silas also played for the Hawks in both St. Louis and Atlanta, the Phoenix Suns, the Denver Nuggets and the Seattle SuperSonics, winning a championship with them in 1979 and retiring after the ‘79-’80 season.

He compiled a 387-488 record over 12 seasons as a head coach with the San Diego Clippers, for two stints in Charlotte - first with the Hornets and several years later with the Bobcats - in the Hornets’ first season after moving to New Orleans and for James’s first two seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Silas emerged as a college star at Creighton, setting an NCAA record in rebounding across three seasons and leading the nation with 20.6 rebounds per game in the 1962-63 season. His No. 35 jersey has