Last night was Tom Brokaw’s finale on the NBC Nightly News. I guess that means we now can start the long goodbye for Dan Rather who will be leaving in March.

One of the popular games right now is guess who will replace Rather at the CBS anchor desk.

The inside track seems to belong to CBS White House correspondent John Roberts. He’s 48 but doesn’t seem to have the name recognition or street cred to be successful. If the gig was simply about an order of succession, then Roberts would be a lock. But CBS needs something more than just a company man to fill that seat.

The favorite among some news junkies is NBC’s Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert. He’s great on Meet the Press but is under contract with NBC until 2012. In terms of pure likability, I think Russert has an edge. He’s got great credibility in Washington and has been visible on NBC and MSNBC. The 54 year-old will likely stay right where he is.

Speaking of likability, if CBS could score Matt Lauer, it would certainly be a coup. They’d hurt NBC in the morning and bolster their evening news. Lauer does have some news credibility, but probably isn’t enough of a heavyweight to carry the evening newscast. It would be very difficult for someone like Lauer to move from the Today Show which is such a mix of news and entertainment to the evening news which has to be completely news.

There is plenty of talk of either Diane Sawyer or Katie Couric taking the job. Sawyer would be a good pick, but I don’t think she wants it or would be able to get out of her current contract. I won’t even dignify the Couric speculation with a comment.

If this decision were up to me, here are the names I’d be considering:

If CBS really wanted to shake things up, picking FOX News’ Brit Hume would be the way to go. Hume jumped to FOX in 1996 from ABC News where he was the White House correspondent. I know Hume is seen as being the too conservative, but I think he’d bring a lot of his FOX audience with him, healing the rift among that audience and CBS in the wake of Rather’s bungling of the National Guard story. I don’t know if Hume would even want the job, but it would signal a new direction for CBS.

My personal favorite is Lester Holt from MSNBC. He used to anchor the local 10pm in Chicago on WBBM-TV 2. His stint at MSNBC has been nothing short of stellar. He’s credible, likable, and as an African-American, would certainly represent a nice step forward for CBS. He’s relatively unknown by most viewers because, well, no one watches MSNBC. But that might work in his favor. Most of the names above already are associated with other networks and other roles. Holt could come on the national scene and build a great reputation for himself in the anchor chair.

There are plenty of other wildcard names that are fun to throw out like Jon Stewart, CNN’s Bill Hemmer, and Chicago’s own Carol Marin. I doubt CBS will choose any of these names, but it’s fun to play this game.