Sports Time Radio

When the NFL coaching carousel finally stopped this off season, we ended up with nine head coaching openings. Now in most cases these jobs fill up very quickly, but this off-season teams seem to be taking their time finding their new head coach. This week did finally have three teams make that move and named their new head coach.

The Denver Broncos were the first team to name a new head coach when they announced the hiring of Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. The Chicago Bears were the next team to name a new head coach as they hired Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus. Then yesterday the New York Giants became the third team to hire a new head coach when they named Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll as their new head coach.

All three of these hires are first time NFL head coaches, but one of these hires seem to draw much more media attention and intrigue than the other two and, in all honesty, we shouldn’t have been surprised by that at all.

Almost the minute after the Broncos named Hackett their new head coach the media started talking about Aaron Rodgers going to play with Denver next season. Now the Broncos where one of the teams that expressed quite a bit of interest in trading for Rodgers when there was all of the drama surrounding him last season. They’ve also tried to associate the fact that Rodgers fiancée actress Shailene Woodley has a home in the Denver area. It was also reported that Rodgers reached out to the Broncos to give Hackett a good recommendation for their open head coaching position. There are some interesting points to be made here and it will give the media something to talk about this off season, but is Denver really the place for Rodgers to finish his NFL career?

Rodgers will turn 39 years old next season and you have to wonder how much longer he wants to play. Since Rodgers has made just a little less than $264 million dollars in his NFL career, you’d like to think he’s not hanging around for a paycheck. At this point you’d have to think that Rodgers is looking for that second Super Bowl victory. Then the question becomes, can he get that with the Broncos?

Looking at the Broncos situation they do have a solid core group of running backs. Melvin Gordon led the team with 918 rushing yards, but Javonte Williams wasn’t far behind him with 903 yards. Rodgers is used to having two useful running back to work with. Denver doesn’t have a receiver anywhere near as talented as Davonte Adams, but not many NFL teams do, but they have an interesting group of young receivers that would benefit greatly from working with a quarterback like Rodgers. Tight end Noah Fant led the Broncos last season with 68 receptions. Cortland Sutton was the top wide receiver for the Broncos last season with 58 receptions, but it was Tim Patrick who led the Broncos with 5 receiving touchdowns. Patrick also had 53 receptions last season. Now the many people believe that the Broncos best wide receiver is Jerry Jeudy who caught just 38 passes last season due to the fact that he only played in 10 games last season due to injury. These four Broncos receiver range in age from 22 years old to 28 years old, so it would be a young group for Rodgers to work with. So, it looks like there are some positives on the Broncos offense if they somehow land Rodgers.

Now what you also have to remember is that Rodgers would be going from one of the weaker divisions in the NFL the NFC North to one of the tougher divisions in the NFL the AFC West. Instead of facing the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions twice a season Rodgers would have to deal with the likes of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers and Derek Carr and the Las Vegas Raiders twice a season. The Broncos went 7-10 last season and that put them in last place in the AFC West. If Denver had that same record in the NFC North, they would’ve only finished one place higher in the standings, but they would’ve been just one game out of 2nd place. It would definitely be a step up in competition for Rodgers which he might be interested in, but it would also mean getting to that Super Bowl would become much, much more difficult.

Now I have a feeling that this is going to pay out for quite some time just like last off season even though Rodgers has said that he’s going to make a decision soon will have to wait and see on that.

I think that when it’s all said and done, he ends up in a Packers uniform again next season especially if he’s seriously looking at a chance to return to the Super Bowl, but that’ just me. So, what do you think? Where does Aaron Rodgers end up playing next season if he does decide to play?

Now on to this weekend’s Conference championship games. Both games are on Sunday, but they’re not at the traditional staring times like during the regular season. The first game features the AFC as the Kansa City Chiefs host the Cincinnati Bengals. The game is on CBS and is scheduled to kickoff at 2:00 p.m. Then of course we get the NFC match-up which has the San Francisco 49ers visiting the Los Angeles Rams. This game is on Fox and is scheduled to kickoff at 5:30 p.m.

Well, I guess it’s time to make some picks. As I mentioned in the Wednesday blog, I’m 6-6 with my NFL playoff picks, so I hope you’re getting your betting advice somewhere else. Oh well here goes nothing.

Now back in Week 17 the Bengals did beat the Chiefs 34-31, but that game was in Cincinnati. This time around the Chiefs are at home and arrowhead stadium is one of the tougher venues in the NFL for visiting teams. Kansas City comes into this game as a 7-point favorite, and not only do I think that the Chiefs win the game I also think they’ll cover that 7-point spread.

The second has the buildup of two division rivals facing off for a trip to the Super Bowl. It’s also interesting to note that the 49ers have beaten the Rams in their last six meetings. Now we’re not talking about six games over a long time period we’re talking about six games over the last three seasons. This season the 49ers beat the Rams 31-10 in Week 10 in San Francisco and then the 49ers won their Week 18 match up 27-24 in overtime in Los Angeles. Even though San Francisco has controlled this match up the last three seasons the Rams are a 3 1/2-point favorite in tomorrow’s game. This is a tough game to pick, but I’m going to go with the Rams to win this one and cover as well.

Like we’ve been doing please drop your picks in the comments as I’m sure you’re doing better than I am at picking these games.

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