Tom Krasovic: NFL playoffs are anyone’s guess, but it might be wise to follow the golden tickets

The Super Bowl tournament begins this weekend, and here’s the flash-preview:

Watch out for … almost everybody.

The majority of the 14 teams actually have a decent chance to win the 60th Super Bowl, come Feb. 8 in Santa Clara.

Two are the Bills and Jaguars. They play Sunday in sunny Jacksonville, a day after the Bills and Jaguars launch the six-card wild-card round that ends Monday night in frigid Pittsburgh.

But my main topic, here, concerns something else Super Bowl-related.

Namely, a team-building formula that’s taken many clubs to the Super Bowl under the league’s current labor pact and the one right before it.

Here’s the three-step formula:

One, draft a quarterback who can lead your team while he’s also on his cheap first contract that runs up to five years;

Two, use the salary-cap savings to beef up other positions;

Three, just win, baby.

Now, it’s hard to pull off those three steps.

But several teams with young, bargain QBs have pulled it off since the compensation of a player’s first NFL contract was reduced under the league’s pacts agreed to in 2011 and 2020, benefiting veteran players.

The Seahawks went to two Super Bowls, winning one, with savvy, mobile third-round QB Russell Wilson on an ultra-bargain first contract and the “Legion of Boom” defense leading the way.

The Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes won their first of three Super Bowls together in the quarterback’s third year.

The first Super Bowl trophy the Eagles won, nine years ago, came after second-year QB Carson Wentz fueled a run to the NFC’s top seed. Returning to the big game three years ago, the Eagles had Jalen Hurts, a second-round draftee, at the helm in his third season. And Hurts’ salary was still subpar among starting QBs last winter when, in his fifth year, he and the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

I have a term for these special QBs who are fine starters yet also on their first NFL contract.

They’re golden tickets.

The Chargers obtained a golden ticket in the 2020 draft, taking Justin Herbert sixth overall. But in those five years, the Chargers never got near the Super Bowl. It was one of the franchise’s bigger missed opportunities.

The Chargers’ playoff opponent Sunday, in Massachusetts, will be a Patriots club that’s 14-3 and favored by 3 1/2 points.

What has fueled the Pats’ rise?

They got a golden ticket two drafts ago, when they chose Drake Maye second overall.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft didn’t dawdle last winter after the Patriots went 4-13 with Maye as their main QB.

He fired head coach Jerod Mayo, though Mayo had been on the job just one year. The replacement: Mike Vrabel, a very good coach.

Doing Maye another big favor, Kraft and the talent man he hired, Eliot Wolf, paid up for a top offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels.

McDaniels wasn’t a good head coach, either with the Broncos or the Raiders. But he’s a top-tier coordinator under whom Tom Brady directed several Super Bowl-winning seasons and NFL-best offenses.

Young quarterbacks find great comfort in a capable tight end.

The Patriots paid up to retain one in Hunter Henry. The ex-Charger’s $11.5 million cap charge is ninth among NFL tight ends. He’s worth it. Elsewhere, the Patriots carry large cap charges at right tackle, No 2 cornerback and both starters in the defensive line’s interior. Most of those moves have panned out.

The 23-year-old Maye, whose size, arm strength, agility and processing somewhat recall Herbert, erupted this season into an MVP co-favorite with the Rams’ Matthew Stafford.

Helping Maye out in the backfield, the Patriots provided him a first-rate running back tandem in Rhahomdre Stevenson, a powerful, underrated veteran, and rookie TreVeyon Henderson, a blur.

Maye and Herbert seem to have similar abilities. But because of the labor pact and their disparity in work service time, there’s nothing similar about the salary cap charges.

Herbert’s hit of $36.8 million stands ninth at the position, one year after it was $6.5 million and 20th.

Maye is at $8.3 million and 27th.

He’s a golden ticket deluxe.

For Herbert’s first four years, the braintrust of Dean Spanos, John Spanos and Tom Telesco did not provide him with very good head coaches — Anthony Lynn for one year, Brandon Staley for three years — nor were the rosters very good.

The Spanos rallied entering Herbert’s fifth year. They hired a great head coach in Jim Harbaugh. And the general manager Harbaugh hired, Joe Hortiz, has made numerous good moves. The Super Bowl window is open.

But, compared to the Spanoses and Herbert, Kraft and his executives seem to have gotten the jump much sooner with Maye. And that’s not a good sign for anyone else in the AFC.