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BY JOHN L. SMALLWOOD, CFP It's the fourth quarter of 2026, on the field and on the calendar. e season is winding down, the stakes are peaking, and for the two players on this issue's cover, the next few weeks will shape everything that comes aer. Here's the difference between their game and yours. Breece Hall and Kayvon ibodeaux can look up and see the clock. You can't. You Can't See Your Clock Everyone reading this is somewhere different in their own game—in high school, 30 years old, five years into retirement, 100 and still going. Or the whistle could come tomorrow, with no warning at all. e first quarter never decides the game, and neither does the second or third; it's the closing moments that set the final score. e trouble is, in life, you don't know when those moments are. So the only safe way to play is to treat every quarter like it counts…and to be ready for the fourth whenever it arrives. Two Players, Two Trajectories Breece Hall came up the hard way. e Jets didn't spend a premium pick on him; he was a second-round choice, 36th overall, in 2022. He climbed anyway: through a torn ACL as a rookie and years of losing football with a revolving door around him, until he became one of the top running backs in the league. is year, the Jets finally paid him like it, with a three-year deal that trails only two backs in the entire NFL in average salary. Fans love him, the media loves him, and the story is generous. Whatever has gone wrong in New York, it wasn't Breece. But that contract doesn't reward what he's done. It's a bet on what he does next. Signing it was the easy part. Now he has to prove, quarter aer quarter, that the bet was right. Kayvon ibodeaux came up the opposite way. He was the blue-chipper, the fih overall pick in 2022, the highest- rated recruit in Oregon history before that. And yet, five years in, he's in the final season of his rookie deal with the scoreboard turned against him: production down, his standing at the position slipped out of the top tier, the Giants stacked around him and unwilling to even discuss a new deal. So how does he enter this final quarter? Force the issue and rewrite the ending or let the clock run out? Can he make up the ground while the time is short? at question decides whether he earns another contract or becomes a cautionary tale. Two players. Two trajectories. One lesson that has nothing to do with football. Plans Don't Fail at the Start. They Fail in the Fourth Quarter. Almost everyone begins strong. e intentions are good, the early years look promising. en the factors you didn't manage begin to compound: taxes, fees, inflation, market volatility, an expense that shouldn't be there, a risk you never covered. Little by little, they chip away at the lead you thought you had. And unlike a football game, your fourth quarter doesn't announce itself. Breece Hall and Kayvon Thibodeaux are on this issue's cover with everything on the line. So is every reader—because the fourth quarter, not the first, is what sets the final score. The Fourth Quarter VUE ON | FINANCE 94 VUENJ.COM

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