Cheryl Bosa Shares How She Picked Between Joey and Nick’s Playoff Games

The Bosa family is facing a bittersweet conundrum ahead of wild-card weekend.

As the mother of NFL stars playing on different teams, Cheryl Bosa has had to make plenty of tough calls when it comes to her gameday plans. But, perhaps none have been quite as difficult as the bittersweet scenario facing the Bosa family this weekend.

The NFL playoffs begin on Saturday with a pair of wild-card round matchups, starting with Nick Bosa’s 49ers taking on the Seahawks in Santa Clara at 4:30 p.m. ET followed by Joey Bosa’s Chargers facing the Jaguars in Jacksonville at 8:15 p.m. ET. For Joey, 27, the contest will be just the third postseason appearance of his career while his younger brother Nick, 25, will be competing in his seventh playoff game. 

While the joy of watching her sons in the playoffs will obviously take precedent, the locations and times of the games presented Cheryl with the tough task of deciding which son she’d support come Saturday. And, as she explained on the latest episode of the Your Mom podcast, the choice eventually boiled to one thing.

“Joey’s been injured this year. I was at a couple of his first games, I was at the game that he went down in, and then he’s been out for 10 or 12 weeks. I went to his first game back, which was two weeks ago. I guess it’s just a numbers game, you know? Like, I need to be there for him,” Cheryl told hosts Ashley Adamson and Lisa McCaffrey, the mom of Nick’s teammate Christian McCaffrey.

As Cheryl alluded to in her explanation, Joey missed the majority of the season with a groin injury he, ironically, sustained against the Jaguars in Week 3. The four-time Pro Bowler made his long-awaited return to the Chargers in Week 17, a week after the team secured its first playoff berth since 2018.

Having his mom in the stands will surely give Joey an added boost as he takes the field in front of a raucous crowd on the road, but, of course, that still leaves the matter of how Nick took the news. Fortunately, the decision didn’t appear to bother him at all, as Cheryl shared that Nick was on board after finding out following the Niners’ Week 18 win over the Cardinals. 

“I was just with Nick. We went to dinner after the game on Sunday [against the Cardinals],” Cheryl said. “And I was just like, ‘Babe, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to go to Joey’s game,’ and he’s like ‘Absolutely, Mom.’“

With both Bosa brothers amped for the chance to keep their postseasons alive, both pass-rushers should make a big enough impact on the game to make their mom (and coaches) proud on Saturday.

Nick, the frontrunner for the NFL Defensive Player of the Year, will look to continue his dominant season after finishing leading the NFL with 18.5 sacks. Meanwhile, Joey, the 2016 DPOY, will look to get back on track as he plays in his third game back from injury.