OverDrive - Golic Jr. on Aaron Rodgers’ future, Rodgers’ potential to mentor a young quarterback, the outlook for the Chiefs heading into the Playoffs

Episode Date: January 4, 2025

Co-Host of Gojo and Golic joins the show to discuss Rodgers’ future. Golic Jr. gives his thoughts on if Rodgers can mentor a young quarterback and he shares his take on the Chiefs heading into the postseason

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The smarter way to book travel. Here's Mike Golick Jr. Mike, where do you stand on that? Aaron Rodgers, 500 touchdown. If he throws it on Sunday, what's your reaction to it? I think you have to take time and stop and celebrate the accomplishment. I think maybe any time the end gets near, you get a little bit more nostalgic for what was.

And that's sort of where I found myself with Aaron Rodgers over the last few games of this season because we've ridden the emotional roller coaster. We've obviously ridden the hot take roller coaster with Aaron for a while now. But even hearing him get retrospective about his career all of a sudden makes you realize that no matter what you thought of this guy personally, especially towards the end, he was still one of the most captivating football players I've ever seen, and that level of accomplishment absolutely deserves celebration.

How many teams, in your opinion, would want him next season, if any at all? So I think that number is dictated a lot more by what role Aaron sees for himself and is willing to take than almost anything else. Because we've heard Aaron talk about the New York Jets and say, hey, I'd be willing to come back here and be a mentor to a young guy they wanted to bring along, which is a far cry from what it felt like we used to hear from Aaron. He wasn't exactly the warmest, fuzziest guy when it came to that stuff. And so if he was willing to accept that, if he was willing to go in and be a high-end backup

for somebody there, then maybe he might have a few more suitors. But I heard you guys mention the Las Vegas Raiders. That's about the only team I can think of that might be truly desperate enough to go and make something happen. The Brady reason that you posited for why that wouldn't happen is absolutely valid. But I look around like, you know, would Tennessee and Brian Callahan be desperate enough? The Will Levis experiment failed pretty miserably. I don't know if you're going to be at range for any of the great quarterbacks this year in the draft,

even though there are really no great quarterbacks in this draft class. So it's a situation where the numbers may be one or two, but I doubt even that. Would you want him mentoring your young quarterback? We saw how it went with Jordan Love. It's a different situation. Would you trust that? I think you kind of have to get in person and know for sure.

From a football standpoint, he's a really great football mind. Before things went sour on the field, you heard all the guys in hard knocks at the Jets talking about the attention to detail there, the standard he has. Don't get it wrong. Aaron's an interesting personality, to say the least, but when it comes to the meticulous attention

to detail that it has to win football, he did that to a point where it was almost grating. It would wear on guys. You saw the way he would snap at young receivers. There's part of you that says, hey, that's important culture to have around. But at this point, I just think the totality of Aaron Rodgers would be too much to have in that role at this point.

And what you have physically, because you'd still need some of that in case of emergency, I just think is so diminished that it's probably not worth the squeeze right now. With Mike Golick Jr., Sunday night, Vikings-Lions. It sets up beautifully for the NFL. You couldn't really ask for much better. Whoever's going to win it gets the one seed in home field throughout and a buy in the wild card. The team that loses has to go on the road and play that wild card game.

What's your best guess on how this game plays out? Team with the ball last probably wins. I'm still siding with Detroit in this. I know since the last time these two teams faced in a game that was decided by a last-second field goal, the Lions have done nothing but get more hurt on defense, and Sam Darnold and this Minnesota Vikings offense have done nothing but prove everyone wrong

who thought, well, eventually they'll run out of gas. Sam Darnold had one or two bad weeks in the middle of the season, and we thought, okay, here's the New York Jets version of Sam back, and away we go. And they've defied expectations at every turn. And I think that offense is still incredibly potent. Sam Darnold going to the Pro Bowl for a reason. But I think the Lions are so firmly entrenched in their identity.

And that identity had to change, right? Aaron Glenn of that defense said, okay, if we don't have the body to go at it the way we want to, we'll just blitz all the time. We'll be a little bit more like the Minnesota Vikings. And I think that top-down way that they've built this is going to come in handy in these moments right here where this is the first time we have two 14-win teams squaring off in one game, like an NFL first. We're going to have a team with that many wins playing in the wild card like you just mentioned.

So it's going to be an insanely high skill level for a game of this caliber, and I can't wait. Yeah, it should be an unbelievable ball game. In terms of the Chiefs and where they come into play for you, Mike, are they the pace car? Are they on par with other teams, Detroit, Minnesota, Buffalo, Baltimore? How do you prepare yourself for the Chiefs chasing a three-peat here? They're kind of like the tortoise and the hare thing, right?

This is a real slow and steady wins the race kind of feel for the Chiefs. Because when I look at them offensively, they're not Buffalo, they're not the Baltimore Ravens, they're certainly not some of those NFC counterparts that we just mentioned there. But man, they're great in critical situations. They're phenomenal on third down. It seems like every waning moment of the game where it's a one-score game with only a couple minutes left, and Mahomes and company seem to always find that magic. I think the defense has played better the second half of the season.

So it's one of those things where on paper, do they look as good as any of those teams? No, not consistently, but when it comes to the postseason and with what we saw specifically in that last stanza against the Steelers, it's going to be real hard for me to pick against them knowing what we know about them in this time of the year. Always great catching up with you, Mike. Go Irish. We'll do it again soon. Sounds good. Go Irish. Thanks, guys.

Mike Golick, Jr. He and his dad, obviously, fighting Irish. Notre Dame looking all right.