Sports Time Radio

Now I know that we’ve already had the Hall of Fame game that kicks off the NFL pre-season, but I honestly didn’t realize that starting tomorrow every team in the league will have a pre-season game this weekend.

Are you ready for the NFL to get up and going full tilt; because I’m not. I guess we don’t have much of a choice. There are two games tomorrow and three games on Friday. The bulk of the NFL action is on Saturday as there are 10 games on the schedule while the first full week of pre-season NFL football wraps up on Sunday.

I guess it is August and it’s the time of the year that the NFL gets started, but I guess I just wasn’t paying close enough attention. I guess it’s time to start getting ready for my fantasy drafts and I have some questions that need to be answered.

Last season I took a chance on Cam Newton and it started out like i had made a good choice, but we all know how it turned out. Well it looks like Newton will be the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots Week 1, but how long will he keep that job if he struggles again. Everyone seems to be onboard with Mac Jones taking over at some point this season; so if you end up with Newton on your fantasy roster; do you also draft Jones?

You could ask the exact same question about the San Francisco 49ers. It looks like Jimmy Garoppolo will be the starting quarterback when Week 1 of the regular season rolls around, but 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan has already said he has a package of plays for rookie Trey Lance to run. Garoppolo is another quarterback who you have to wonder how long he’ll be the San Francisco starter.

There are a couple of other teams that have quarterback competitions going on and as of now we don’t know who seems the leader right now.

The New Orleans Saints have to replace Drew Brees at quarterback and it’s going to be either Taysom Hill or Jameis Winston. Now Winston has actually experience as a full time NFL starting quarterback while four starts as a quarterback all of them last season. Now this is Hill’s 4th season in head coach Sean Payton’s system; so you have to wonder if that will give him an advantage, but Winston is a former #1 overall pick. Winston is also just 26 years old while Hill is 30 years old. This will be a tough choice for fantasy owners to make as it wouldn’t surprise me if both players get time under center this season.

For a couple of seasons now the Denver Broncos have been trying to convince everybody and maybe themselves a little bit that Drew Lock is a NFL caliber starting quarterback. Lock was kind of the starter for the Broncos last season by default as there wasn’t another quarterback on the roster to challenge him. Well this season the Broncos brought in veteran Teddy Bridgewater to challenge for that #1 quarterback spot. Bridgewater looked like he was going to be a very good NFL quarterback with the Minnesota Vikings, but after a terrible knee injury caused him to miss the entire 2016 season Bridgewater has bounced around to what is now his third team in four seasons. This is another interesting choice for fantasy owners to make as it’s very unclear right now who the Broncos might go with.

Hopefully these quarterback situations will start to clear themselves up as fantasy owners get closer to their drafts, but there are some leagues out there that have already drafted and you have to wonder how those fantasy owners handled these situations.

The other interesting quarterback situation going on right now is with the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts traded for Carson Wentz this off season, but Wentz injured his foot and the timetable for his return is anywhere from 5 to 12 weeks. Now it looked and sounded like Jacob Eason would be the net in line for that open quarterback job, but it’s being reported that Eason is splitting first team reps at practice with rookie 6th round pick Sam Ehlinger.

Now obviously neither of these quarterbacks are the long term solution for Indianapolis, but it looks like one of them is going t be the Colts starter for Week 1 against the Seattle Seahawks. There is an outside shot that Wentz will be back for Week 1, but I don’t know how many people are counting on that happening.

Eason was drafted by the Colts in the 4th round of the 2020 draft, but didn’t play in a regular season game last season. Eason was the Colts 3rd quarterback last season behind Jacoby Brissett and starter Philip Rivers. Ehlinger of course was just drafted in the 2021 draft and is in his very first NFL season.

The only plus here for fantasy owners is the fact that Wentz should be back early in the season unless he has a setback, but Wentz has had his injury issues in his career.

Well if you’ve already had your fantasy draft let me know how you handled these quarterback situations and if you’re fantasy draft is up coming left me know how you’re planning to handled these quarterback situations.

Now Schaumburg Stu had a 4-0 week with his predictions. He hit on Team USA winning a gold medal and then he stuck with the Chicago White Sox in their weekend series against the Chicago Cubs and hit on all those predictions. He had the White Sox winning both Saturday and Sunday’s games as well as the White Sox recording more hits than the Cubs in Sunday nights game.

Now if you want to hear Schaumburg Stu’s predictions live he makes them every Friday on the Sports Time radio podcast which airs on BlogTalkRadio.com. If you just can’t get over there to hear Schaumburg Stu’s picks live or any of the other podcasts just head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen any time you want to.

You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime