Brandon Stokley, Super Bowl Champion & 104.3 The Fan Host

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There's a lot to listen to, so get started and download the free Odyssey app today. Nathaniel Hackett out in Denver, as that's a surprise to no one. We'll see what happens with the future of Russell Wilson. Let's welcome in a man that's won a few Super Bowls in the NFL, played with the Baltimore Ravens, the Indianapolis Colts, and then also the Denver Broncos, and does a talk show daily out in Denver on the fan, and that is Brandon Stokely. Brandon, hope you had a great Christmas. Appreciate the time. How you been? Doing great. Thanks for having me, Zach.

Appreciate it. So, this wasn't a surprise that Nathaniel Hackett is out. It wasn't a matter of if anymore, it was just when. Are you surprised at all that he just didn't get the final two weeks of the season?

A little bit, yeah. Like you said, definitely thought he would be gone here right after the season was over, but they've gone through a real rough patch, and they kept him, and it seemed like they were supporting him, and they were going to at least let him finish out the year, but another spotlight game, national spotlight game, and another embarrassment. I guess they just decided, hey, we're going to do it 100% at the end of the year. Let's just go ahead and get this process going so we can be a little bit more open about our new coaching search, and certainly that's what happened, but it's too many embarrassments, and I think it just was a culmination there with yesterday's game and that spotlight, that national spotlight on Christmas that they just couldn't ignore anymore. And forget the score, we know the score is an embarrassing part yesterday, but Brett Rippet and Dalton Rice, they're getting into it on the sideline. What's the truth there, because I know Brett and Dalton kind of both downplayed it after the game. Yeah, I mean, things happen on the sidelines, emotions get high, especially when you're getting embarrassed on Christmas, and it's been a very disappointing season, and so emotions get high. One thing said, another person thought he said something, and you don't want to push anybody, and you saw Dalton Rice push Rippet there, so you don't want to see that. Then at the end of the game, you see Randy Gregory throw a punch at a Rams player and hit him in the helmet, so it was a snowball effect. I mean, it was an absolute disaster from that incident to Randy Gregory to the scoreboard. It's like when you don't think it can get any worse, it just continues to get worse here in Denver. Brandon Stokely here with us.

So, obviously, hack it out. That needed to be happened, even though you never want to see someone lose their job, but I don't think this overshadows what Russell Wilson has done this year. If you were a teammate of his, what advice would you give to him, because he's got a long ways to go in order to win back that locker room, I think. Well, he's got a long ways to go to just get to be a competent quarterback.

I really don't know what's going on. It's really mind-blowing to see how far he has fallen off, and I don't know exactly what was going on in Seattle and how they handled him offensively, but he looks like a mess here. He looks like a rookie quarterback that has no clue of what's going on, and he doesn't go through reads and progressions. It looks like he gets really, he's not comfortable in the pocket. He looks at one read, and then he wants to get out and get outside the pocket. I don't know if it's because he can't see very well or if he's just not comfortable going through his progressions. Not quite sure, but that's first and foremost, I mean, that's this new head coach that they're going to hire.

That's what you got to look for. If you're Greg Penner, who's the new owner and that group is, you know, who can we hire that we think we can get Russell Wilson back to playing at a competent high level, because you're pretty much stuck with Russ probably for a couple more years. So it's all about finding that coach and getting the most out of Russell Wilson moving forward. And everyone right away is going to throw out the name Sean Payton, Brandon Stokely. I don't know why he would take that job right now.

Exactly. I mean, Sean Payton is not coming to this mess. I mean, he's a smart guy. Why would he come to Denver and inherit a quarterback that's on the downside of his career that might be actually done?

And then what do you do from there? So Sean Payton will have his pick of jobs. And Denver is not one of the top jobs now.

You just arguably might have. We'll see how it plays out. Made one of the made the worst trade at NFL history, and then you sign them to a big contract.

So you're stuck with all of this for a while. And when you make those type of massive mistakes, usually there's consequences down the down the line here when it comes to salary caps, when it comes to loss of draft pick that the Broncos have given up for Russell Wilson. Why would Sean Payton want to come here?

The only reason that I could think of is if you open up the checkbook and you give him all the power he wants, plus you open up that checkbook and you write him a huge, huge check, which obviously this ownership group can do. So once you navigate away from Sean, I know what you said about the offensive side of the ball, and you got to bring someone in that could fix Ross. But the first two names I really went to that I thought were realistic was Dan Quinn. It was a finalist a year ago, and then what D'Amico Ryan's has been doing on that defense with the 49ers. Would you be surprised if they bring in a head coach that is major emphasis on the defensive side of the ball?

I wouldn't be shocked. I think first and foremost for me that they have to get an experienced coach. We've had three first time head coaches in a row, and they all been a disaster.

They really have. So I don't think you can hire an inexperienced coach. You have to get an adult in the room. You have to get a guy that's been there and done that. I think that's the first thing that I would look for if I was hiring the next coach. Then after that, maybe, you know, you lean more towards the offensive side of the football.

But I think that's secondary. And if you're going to go to the defensive side, you want to know, hey, well, who's your offensive coordinator going to be? What is that plan going to be to get Russ' plan at a high level? And then Dan Quinn. Dan Quinn was my guy last year. That's who I wanted for the Denver Broncos. That's who I wanted them to hire. That's who I thought they were going to hire. And then the momentum went to Nathaniel Hackett for some reason. So I don't know if Dan Quinn would want this job now. He's going to be a hot candidate next year, and he got overlooked last year. I think he really wanted this job last year, and he got passed over for it. So why would he want this job now? It's a complete mess.

You live in Denver. You talk to the fans each and every day on your radio show. Where are the fans at with Russell Wilson? Like, does anyone still have optimism that he'll find the way to be the quarterback of old, or they just all feel like this is a lost cause at this point? Well, I mean, it's been awful this year, obviously. But, yeah, I mean, you got to be hopeful and optimistic that if you get the right coach in here with the right system around him, like Seattle had, maybe you can get competent quarterback plays from him. I mean, that's all you can do right now is hope, because you're not going to be able to get out of this contract for a couple years, really, realistically. So I think that's the sentiment. It's been very disappointing because expectations were, since post-Tayden Manning, they were higher than ever, and all of a sudden it's been worse than ever. So you really can't make it up how bad it's been this year because of the expectations and then how far they've underdelivered. Wrap it up with Brandon Stoker.

Let me get to one of your other former teams, the Indianapolis Colts. Is it still bizarre for you to see Jeff Saturday on the sideline now as the interim head coach? A little bit, yeah.

It definitely is. That's a tough thing to do, not be around that program day in and day out, and then all of a sudden you'd be asked to take over. I don't blame him for taking the job.

I would have taken it, right? I mean, this might be your only opportunity to get that chance, and they've had a couple games there where if they could have finished them off, it would have been a great story so far. But they're on the primetime stage tonight. They got a chance to kind of put one to a playoff-caliber team in the Chargers, so I'm pulling for Saturday. I love his attitude, his competitiveness, and you see him on the sidelines. It's the same thing when we were teammates, and so I'm pulling for that guy. Hopefully he can get a chance to be the guy and go through the whole offseason and kind of make it his own. It's really tough to take over a program and have the quarterback situation the way it was there and try to fix it.

So I'm pulling for the guy. He's a great guy, and he was a great teammate, and I hope it works out for him. Yeah, I don't see there's any way that he's back next year as the head coach, but the name that I keep on throwing around has been Jim Harbaugh. You know that Earth say Jim is going to make the phone call to try to go get Jim Harbaugh to be the next coach. I just don't know if he'll leave Michigan. I mean, Zach, I'm trying to be all optimistic and positive and talk about my guy. You just kind of put that to bed right away, like, nah, that's not going to happen.

We don't worry about it. It's not going to happen. Yeah, Jim Harbaugh, man. Look, that's a big name, and he's been successful everywhere he has been. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens with him. It seems like he was going to be set at Michigan, but he's got an itch that he needs to scratch, and that's the NFL.

So I think he'll be back in the NFL this year. Where? I don't know.

It might be over here in Denver. We'll see. You know a few things about getting to a Super Bowl, Brendan Stokely. If you had to just make a prediction right now, who gets out of the AFC, who gets out of the NFC this year?

Oh, my goodness. I'm going to go with the Bills. I just love Josh Allen. If they can get that running game going like we saw them a week ago, if they can keep that more consistent, then it takes a little pressure off him. And then the NFC, I'm going 49ers. I don't know what's going on with Jalen Hurts. We saw the right tackle, Lane Johnson, but the Eagles get hurt. 49ers right now. Even with Brock Purdy, I love how Kyle Shanahan could just call up an offense and take some pressure off of him.

And this guy just makes a couple plays a game, and that's what he's been doing. So I love that 49ers defense, love that 49ers team. So I'm going 49ers, Bills. And then before we let you run, Brendan Stokely, just getting back to the Russell Wilson conversation. It still always rubs me the wrong way. Because I know that they had a little difference between Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson. Russell wanted to throw the football more, and Pete said we don't want to have you throw the football as much as you like because of the potential turnovers. But it's still mystifying to me they couldn't find a way to make that work and how Seattle was almost okay with letting Russell Wilson go and didn't really put much of a fight up there. Maybe we all, not to this level, but maybe those should have been some signs now looking back at it that this wasn't going to work out in Denver.

Absolutely. You look at how this thing played out and how Russ is playing now and Russ wants to cook. Russ wanted to be more of an in-the-pocket Drew Brees type of quarterback and play for the next 10 years. And that's just not who he is. That's not how he operates.

He's not comfortable there. So did Seattle know something? Of course they did. They saw the writing on the wall and they probably thought they could get another year or two good years from him.

But then after that, what's it going to look like? So they made the move early, like we see the Patriots do all the time, and it's paid off in a big way for Seattle, obviously. With Geno Smith playing the way that he's played this year and the draft picks that they have accumulated for Russell Wilson, it looks like a disaster for the Broncos and just a grand slam for Seattle. You've got to give John Snyder and the GM there and Pete Carroll a lot of credit for making the move. Is your dear, close, personal friend Peyton Manning at all interested in becoming the next head coach of the Broncos? I want to, I mean, just Saturday's coaching, right? You know, you, you see him coach.

I was surprised by that. If Peyton Manning becomes the head coach, I'll drop dead. I'll just have a heart attack.

So there's my answer. I'll just be done. I'm done. I'm just done. I'm done. Yeah. I had to ask that question.

There's no way that would happen. Brandon Stokely. Appreciate the time. Good to catch up with you.

Hope you and the family had a good holiday season. Thanks, Zach. Appreciate you, buddy.

Take care, man. You got it. There's Brandon Stokely. Throughout the sixties and seventies, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm interested in making money. I'm not interested in hurting people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change.

I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season two, the Dixie mafia available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. The listening you love is on the free Odyssey app, your trusted local radio stations, coverage of your favorite teams, live news from your hometown and millions of podcasts on demand. Best of all, you can completely customize your listening experience. Follow topics you care about, like leagues and teams. Pause or rewind your local sports and news and add shows to your queue to catch up later. There's a lot to listen to.

So get started and download the free Odyssey app today. Throughout the sixties and seventies, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm interested in making money. I'm not interested in hurting people. 15 years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season two, the Dixie mafia available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.