Sports Time Radio

With every major sport shutdown in the United States I’ve learned one thing about myself. I believe that I have an addiction to sports. I am really struggling when it comes to turning on the television looking for sports to watch. Now I know that there are a lot of games that are being repeated, but I just can’t fully get into them. I can watch them for a little bit, but then I start to have an issue with them for one reason or another.

Now baseball is my favorite sport to watch followed by football. After that I’d have to say that I watch more NASCAR than I do hockey or basketball; so those would probably be my Top 5 sports with basketball being a distant 5th.

Since I am a fan of NASCAR I’m curious about IRacing. You might be wondering like I was earlier in the week; what is IRacing? It is a sim racing game for your PC that organizes, hosts and officiates online racing on virtual race tracks. Their website says they use the latest technology to to recreate a line up of famed race cars and tracks. It is suppose to simulate what a NASCAR driver goes through in the car.

If your interested in see what IRacing looks like you’re going to get a chance to do that this Sunday as Fox Sports 1 is going to show a 90-minute simulated race starting at 12:30 p.m. Central time. The NASCAR series was scheduled to race at Homestead-Miami Speedway; so that’s where IRacing is going to take us tomorrow.

Maybe you wouldn’t be interested in seeing just normal gamers race, but tomorrow there will be drivers from the NASCAR cup series, the NASCAR Infinity series and the Gander RV & Outdoor Truck series. There is a list of the drivers that are scheduled to participate on the IRacing website IRacing.com, but there are a lot of names that you’ll recognize.

Dale Earhardt Jr. is the name they’re using as their headliner, but Kyle Busch, Brad Keslowski, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliot, Kyle Larsen and Clint Bowyer are listed as appearing.

Not only are the drivers participating in this event, but the Fox NASCAR broadcast team of Jeff Gordon, Mike Joy and Larry McReynolds will be calling the race.

I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but I’m interested to watch this and see what it looks like. Now I’m not what you’d call a gamer in any way shape or form: so I’m just hoping this will help feed my addiction a little bit and help me get through this shutdown just a little bit.

If you’re not interested in watching the IRacing showdown tomorrow, but you’re interested in what I thought about it just tune in to the Monday edition of Sports Time Radio from 4:30 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. Central time and I’ll tell you what I thought about it.

With the Tom Brady to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers deal more or less all said and done there where a couple of top running backs that found new home. One through free agency and the other after being released by his now former team.

I what I thought was kind of a surprise signing the Denver Broncos added running back Melvin Gordon. Denver signed Gordon to a two year $16 million dollar deal.

Gordon turns 27 years old next month and spent the first five years of his career with the first San Diego, but now Los Angeles Chargers. Gordon held out last season and ended up playing in 12 games, but due to injuries Gordon has only played in all 16 games one time in his career.

Gordon has been a solid duel threat as a running back as he averages 4.0 yards per carry and has also caught 224 passes in his career. He had a career high of 58 receptions in 2017.

I am interested to see what Gordon’s role will end up being with the Broncos. Remember Denver already has Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman on their roster. Lindsay handled most of the rushing end of the duo with 1011 yards and 7 rushing touchdowns while Freeman was more of the receiving back as he caught 43 passes. So where does Gordon fit in? Does he take carries away from Lindsay? Or does he take receptions away from Freeman? Or could it be a little of both?

Now it’a always possible that all three of these running backs won’t be on the Broncos roster when the season starts. It’s possible that Denver could deal Lindsay or Freeman possibly for draft picks with the draft being just around the corner.

The other running back finding a new team ended up being Todd Gurley who was cut by the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday. It didn’t take long for Gurley to find a new team as he quickly agreed to a one year deal for $6 million dollars with the Atlanta Falcons.

Now there where some rumors out there that the Rams where looking to try and trade Gurley, but with the contract he had a four year $57.5 million dollar deal he signed in July of 2018 there was no one interested in making a trade for Gurley. With no trade partner to be found the Rams just cut Gurley instead.

While there where some health concerns with Gurley the biggest reason he was cut was for salary cap reason. If the Rams hadn’t cut or traded Gurley by 3:00 p.m. Central time his $5.5 million dollar base salary for 2020 and his $5 million dollar roster bonus for the 2021 season would’ve been fully guaranteed. Now the Rams had already paid Gurley a $7.55 million dollar roster bonus for the 2020 season as there was a clause in his contract that stipulated that the bonus be paid last season. If the Rams would’ve kept Gurley he would’ve counted for $17.2 million dollars against the Rams 2020 salary cap and they would’ve owed him at least $5 million dollars in 2021. Instead the Rams will owe $20.2 million dollars in dead money on their cap for the 2015 1st round draft pick. Now the Rams will designate the 25 year old Gurley as a post June 1st release and spread that money over two years. The Rams will take an $11.8 million dollar cap hit in 2020 and then an $8.4 million dollar cap hit in 2021. This will be one of the biggest cap hits a team has ever taken.

The Rams anted to cut Gurley’s workload last season because there where concerns about arthritis in his knees and they did that. Gurley carried the football 223 times last season which was the lowest total of his career. Even with a limited number of carries Gurley still scored 12 rushing touchdowns. Gurley’s receptions where also down as he was targeted 49 times catching 31 passes which was his lowest number of receptions since his rookie year.

Now the question is; what kind of Gurley did the Falcons just sign? Will he be closer to the player that was the Offensive player of the Year in 2017? Or will he be more like the player the Rams tried to limit last season?

What do you see Gurley doing next season?

Don’t forget to listen to Sports Time Radio live on BlogTalkRadio.com Monday through Friday, but if you miss the podcast live just head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen at your leisure.

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