In one of the sports stories today following up on the weekend football playoffs, the New York Times featured Ricky Manning of the Chicago Bears. The theme was Manning’s effort to calm down his lifestyle off the playing field. The following describes Manning’s stadium exit after his team won. Kicker Robbie Gould was surrounded by news pros and the increasingly expected phone cam crowd:

Manning walked past a makeshift TV studio where Gould was being interviewed about his game-winning field goal. A dozen fans, many of them holding camera phones as if they were lighters at a concert, had gathered to pay homage to Gould and were blocking the exit.

A security guard cleared a path for Manning, who slipped through as cleanly as a knife through a perfectly baked cake. Not a single fan stuck to him. One did recognize him and, nudging another, whispered, ‘That’s Ricky Manning,’ but by then, Manning had disappeared into the cold, rainy night.