Sports Time Radio

I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one who was surprised that when the NFL draft was over Andy Dalton was still a member of the Cincinnati Bengals. It’s been clear since the Bengals ended up with the #1 pick in the draft that Dalton’s career with the Bengals was over.

There weren’t a ton of quarterback openings this off season, but it seemed like Dalton might be able to find himself a starting job somewhere, but what would the Bengals want for him. It didn’t seem that there where any real serious rumors about where Dalton might end up, but there was some talk here and there.

In the end you have to wonder if the Bengals held out for too much or if they seriously considered hanging onto Dalton as a back up and to maybe show Joe Burrow the ropes. I guess will never know what Cincinnati was thinking when it came to Dalton.

In the end it turned out that the Bengals ended up getting nothing for Dalton and they just ended up releasing him.

Not surprisingly it didn’t take Dalton to long to find work. The Dallas cowboys signed Dalton to a reported one year $3 million dollar deal. It’s been reported that with incentives Dalton’s deal could reach $7 million dollars.

Obviously it’s clear that Dak Prescott is the Cowboys starting quarterback, but remember Prescott has only been offered the franchise tag; so could the signing of Dalton be looked at as a kind of leverage play by the Cowboys. A lot of people don’t see this as the case. To them it’s just seen as the Cowboys trying to get themselves a highly experience quarterback to back up Prescott. With all of their pieces Dallas looks like a Super Bowl contender; so it wouldn’t be a bad idea if they had what would be looked at as a high quality back up quarterback just in case Prescott was to get injured or in the event that he might possibly hold out.

It appears at least in the media that the talks between Prescott and the Cowboys are going well on a new contract, but as you know that could change rather quickly. Not everyone is sold on Prescott being able to lead the Cowboys to a Super Bowl, but to be fair Prescott has started all 64 games since being drafted by the Cowboys in 2016. Dallas is 40-24 with Prescott as their starting quarterback and they’ve never had a losing season with him under center, but they where 8-8 last season.

Since Prescott is a mobile quarterback and not afraid to run the football when he has to it won’t hurt the Cowboys to have a back up quarterback that has made 133 starts in the NFL and has played in 4 playoff games.

The Cowboys also have Cooper Rush who’s been Prescott’s back up for the last three seasons, but hasn’t had to play much. Rush has appeared in 5 games over those three seasons and hasn’t thrown a pass in an NFL regular season game since 2017.

Rush is due to make $2.1 million dollars this season and even though the Cowboys are close to the salary cap they should be able to keep Rush on their roster as the #3 quarterback.

I’m sure you’ve heard at some point and time that the life span of an NFL running backs career is very short. While there are quarterbacks out there that are talking about playing until they’re 45 years old if  running back can get four or five quality seasons in it’s looked at as a successful career. I guess Frank Gore is the exception to this rule.

Gore will be entering his 16th season as an NFL running back as a member of the New York Jets.

Gore will join the Jets as Le’Veon Bell’s back up and will be reunited with Jets head coach Adam Gase. Gore played for Gase in 2018 with the Miami Dolphins and Gase was also with the San Francisco 49ers as an offensive assistant when Gore played there. Apparently Gase tried to get Gore to sign with the Jets last off season, but instead Gore ended up signing with the Buffalo Bills.

Gore played in all 16 games for the Bills last season; starting 8 of them. Gore ran for a career low 599 yards and averaged a career low 3.6 yards per carry, but he still played a significant role in the Bills offense.

Gore is currently 3rd on the all time rushing list with 15,347 yards. Gore is 1379 yards behind Walter Payton for the #2 spot on the all time rushing leaders list; so it’s doubtful he’ll be catching him this season. Gore is also 3rd on the all time list for rushing attempts. He’s carried the football 3548 times in his NFL career so far and while he’ll add to that total this season it’s doubtful that he’ll get the 291 carries required to pass Payton on that list either.

At the end of the 2019 season Gore had indicated that he wanted to play this coming  season, but at 36 soon to be 37 years old it was unclear if a team would have any interest in Gore. It looks like Gore will get his wish to play in 2020, but is it possible that Gore continues to defy logic and comes back for the 2021 season?

As long as Bell stays healthy Gore will have a very limited role with the Jets, but it’s good that he’s getting a chance to play next season. Bell did miss one game last season; so maybe Gore will get an opportunity here and there to put up some solid rushing numbers with the Jets.

How do you think Gore will end up doing with the Jets this coming season?

We’re still putting up episode of the Sports Time Radio podcast, but unfortunately we’ve had to skip a few here and there due to my illness. Hopefully soon will be back to doing the podcast five days a week. Checkout BlogTalkRadio.com for the podcast and don’t forget that the podcast is also available for you to listen to whenever you want at TuneIn.com.

You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime