00:00Deshaun's athleticism shows up.
00:02Obviously he's had that, but he's had his injuries that have set him back.
00:05But that's been, I wouldn't say a surprise, but it's exciting to see.
00:08It's a weapon for him.
00:10It's one of his superpowers is athleticism.
00:12And I think Shadour's come miles in terms of his progressions,
00:18getting the ball out, his understanding of concepts.
00:21I think he's really, really come along that way.
00:25That was Todd Munkin from last week.
00:32After, well, the first day that we were allowed to watch overhyped training activities,
00:38team activities, whatever it's called, OTAs.
00:44I used to get excited about spring football practice.
00:47I don't get excited about it anymore because it just feels like training camp is so far away.
00:54I get excited about training camp.
00:56That's when I, that's really what gets my blood flow in his training camp and the competitive battles during camp.
01:04And then about a week into camp, I'm sick of it and I'm ready for the regular season.
01:07That's neither here nor there.
01:09But that was Todd Munkin on both Deshaun Watson and Shadour Sanders.
01:13Obviously, there are a lot of questions that he will continue to be asked about this quarterback competition between them.
01:21My take on where things stand right now, if they were to play a game today and be having to
01:30go to Jacksonville to open the season with the Jaguars,
01:35Deshaun Watson would be your starting quarterback.
01:39If Shadour Sanders would be your backup quarterback,
01:44and then Dylan Gabriel will be quarterback number three and then the rookie number four.
01:52So that, that, that's where I'm at right now.
01:54It's early.
01:55We, you know, the coach was out there with me last week as well.
02:00You know, Shadour did get first team reps, which is not something that he was afford.
02:07I mean, he was barely afforded any reps during the offseason program last year.
02:11So now he is getting some first team reps in some team periods now.
02:18But it does feel like Deshaun is the, the, the lead horse.
02:24And I know the Shadour fans and members of his family don't want to hear that.
02:30But just from my perspective, Lance, I just think that's where it is.
02:34Like Deshaun right now is the leader in the clubhouse.
02:37And Shadour still has an opportunity to catch him.
02:40Oh, absolutely.
02:41He doesn't, you know, obviously I'm a big fan of OTAs and I'm a big fan of OTAs when they're
02:44like
02:44Monk and where they're, they're trying to learn everything.
02:47And I think that's important.
02:48Very old school mentality, what he's doing.
02:50But Deshaun being in front is something everybody should kind of think of as a good thing.
02:54And people are like, if you're, even if you're a Shadour fan, right, this is a brand new offense.
02:58So understand that Deshaun has had injuries.
03:01And I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago, uh, and got a lot of pushback because I said he
03:05looked good.
03:06And what I meant by that is his health looks good.
03:08It doesn't matter, um, you know, what he's doing.
03:11And obviously he's got to play better in games.
03:13And I get all that.
03:13But when you have a brand new offense and you have a guy who's been in the league 10 years
03:18and
03:18he's just going to know more, it doesn't mean he's better.
03:21It doesn't mean he's, uh, automatically going to be the starter.
03:24But if you're asking who's in front, you would hope it would be Deshaun Watson at this
03:28point in time with all that veteran kind of knowledge of multiple offenses, uh, terminology,
03:34how to get in and out of the huddle.
03:36You saw the thing I would tell everybody, they were signaling doing two minute already.
03:40They're killing plays on the line of scrimmage.
03:42So there's a lot of things that have been installed already with these guys, which is
03:46a great thing because there's going to be hopefully, um, you know, mistakes early.
03:50And then that's taken care of late, which has had been the history, uh, historically with
03:54Todd Munkin has been the case.
03:55Um, but it really doesn't matter until they put the pads on.
03:59However, everything that has happened before, everything that people say about Deshaun Watson,
04:04his injuries, his play in norm, none of that matters to Todd Munkin.
04:09And if Todd Munkin, you know, I've had people say, well, Todd Munkin got this job, uh, because
04:13he'll do exactly what ownership tells him.
04:15I hope that's not the case.
04:16I hope at 60 years old, he has some non-negotiables and one of the non-negotiables is I'm going
04:21to make the football decisions and a football decision for a guy that age is whoever the
04:25best guy is plays, whoever they're related to, whatever experiences they had, um, before
04:31he got there absolutely mean nothing.
04:34And that, that shouldn't be the case for everybody.
04:36And people have said, well, his injury agreed his injuries, his play, that would probably
04:42mean more to Kevin Zvansky to Todd Munkin.
04:44It means absolutely nothing.
04:45And the best guy is going to play.
04:47So it kind of gets you excited if you're a Browns fan and you're a football fan, because
04:51if Deshaun plays, it tells you he's going to be healthy early on.
04:54Doesn't mean he's going to be healthy all season.
04:56Uh, and if you're a Shador fan, you should also be happy because he's the means that he,
05:01if he starts, that he beat out a healthy quarterback.
05:04And I think that's, you know, the idea of Deshaun being the starter doesn't mean the
05:09end of Shador Sanders.
05:10In fact, it could be a good thing because he's continuously learning the game and continuously
05:15learning Munkin's offense, which Deshaun is going to have a lead on just because he's
05:20been in the game so long.
05:21So I, for me, I like the way that I like how the things have been answered.
05:25I like how the quarterback rotations have gone.
05:28They're going to get their look.
05:29You know, more than one quarterback's going to play, especially with the history injury
05:32of Deshaun.
05:33So I think they're in a good spot and I think they're handling it right.
05:36And I look forward to training camp to seeing some real battles.
05:39Well, when it comes to Shador and what happened last year, first of all, he wasn't prepared
05:47last year.
05:49And I think that there's shared accountability with that.
05:52Okay.
05:54There's, you know, that was an organizational failure to not adequately prepare him because
06:03I don't know how you don't give a guy reps in practice or find a way to give him reps,
06:08even if he's behind in the playbook and struggling with the playbook or whatever, right?
06:13I don't know how you still don't find ways to get him some reps when you know full well
06:20you're going to play him at some point, right?
06:22And so I think that Shador performed pretty well, all things considered, last year.
06:29Yes, there were some really bad moments, but you know what?
06:32There were also some really good moments from him as well.
06:34Very impactful.
06:35I thought he was impactful.
06:36Yep, right.
06:36I agree.
06:37So, and the thing that stood out to me that practice last Wednesday was, actually it was
06:48twofold.
06:48One, and Kevin was this way too, so I'm going to be fair, but like Todd gets his hands dirty.
06:56He jumps in there and he, just like Kevin did, you know, tells the guys what he's looking
07:04for on plays, what the responsibilities are, you know, for the skill guys on plays and that,
07:12like he jumps in there, he really gets his hands dirty.
07:15The second thing that I really, really liked was he made him re-rack plays when there were
07:22mistakes, he's like, all right, no, we're going to run that again, reset, let's go, like we're
07:27not, we're not messing around here, okay, let's try and get it right so we don't have
07:31to do this and slow up my practice because you're not doing what you're supposed to do
07:35when you're supposed to do it, how you're supposed to do it.
07:38Like, those two things really stood out to me, more so than counting completions, more
07:44so than all the other stuff that, you know, we're watching out there.
07:48I was really paying attention to Todd and his interactions with his staff, his interactions
07:53with the players, and the accountability that we're already seeing in practice.
07:58Well, there's no question, he's very, very vocal at practice.
08:01I will say this too, when people ask, like, what are the 11 on 11s?
08:04Most of these 11 on 11s during these OTAs are perfect plays, and we all run a variation
08:09of perfect plays from high school, college, to pro, but Todd Munkin is...
08:13Explain to people the perfect play thing, because you talk about that a lot, okay, I know, like,
08:20I know what you're talking about, but just explain that for people, like, what does perfect
08:27play mean in the practice setting sense?
08:31Well, so if you think about some of the issues the Browns had last year with offsides, you
08:35know, some of these operational things, right?
08:36You always hear that term, operation.
08:38Yes.
08:38So the operation is...
08:39Oh, Kevin loves to talk...
08:41Well, I guess Kenny Atkinson also likes to talk about their operation, but yeah, your
08:44coach is talking about operation all the time.
08:46So you talk about, like, getting out of the huddle to getting to the line of scrimmage.
08:49To even when...
08:50So basically, everything from when the whistle blows at the end of the play till you get to
08:54the next play.
08:55Guys running in and out.
08:57Guys on the field.
08:58So a perfect play is very simple.
09:00And I heard him say the word perfect play, which was kind of exciting.
09:03So that's what he made him start over.
09:05So, you know, for an offense, it's huddle procedure.
09:08Are you in the right stance in the huddle?
09:10The littlest thing.
09:11Are you in the right spot?
09:12When you get out of the huddle, are you hustling out of the huddle to give you more time at
09:15the line of scrimmage for the quarterback?
09:17Sprinting up to the line of scrimmage.
09:19Are you in the right stance?
09:20Do you have the right split?
09:22Do you understand the formation?
09:24Do you understand the coverage?
09:25What foot are you stepping with?
09:26All those things in offense.
09:28Same kind of thing for the defense.
09:29But offensively, that's what you're looking for.
09:32And if you don't get it, he would make him start over.
09:34Simply, the left tackle would be in his split wasn't right on that particular play.
09:39Or the receiver had his wrong foot up.
09:41Or the quarterback stepped with the wrong foot.
09:45You just think about all those super, super minute details.
09:49They're not perfect.
09:50And for Todd Munkin, perfect means perfect.
09:53And that's kind of the thought process behind it is getting everything right.
09:57So one of the things he made him do that I thought was really interesting is he called the personnel
10:02group from the sideline.
10:03They didn't get in fast enough.
10:05And his thought process was, you've got to get in faster so we can call the play, so we can
10:10get up the line of scrimmage.
10:11So if we need to change the play, we can do that.
10:13We can't do that if you're slow getting on the field.
10:15And just that little bit of saving time, the minute things, the minutiae that everybody thinks is so important,
10:21especially when you're trying to install a new offense.
10:23It was very refreshing coming from Todd Munkin.
10:25That's what a perfect play is, doing everything right before the play even starts.
10:30So the fact that he was making them re-rack a couple of plays, that got my attention because that
10:39is something Kevin did not do.
10:42They just, you know.
10:43They address it, but then move on.
10:44You're correct.
10:45They do that, I'm guessing, in the film room.
10:48Yes, correct.
10:49Where Todd's like, yeah, no, we're just going to do this now.
10:52We're not going to wait until we get back upstairs.
10:55We're going to handle this right now as well.
10:59Another thing that really stood out was the young kids, the rookies.
11:06You know, Spencer Feneau was not with the first-team offensive line.
11:10He was with the twos.
11:13And I don't think that that's reflective of where it's going to end up, but I kind of like that,
11:21too, where, hey, yeah, draft class looks great on paper, but y'all going to earn your spot.
11:29I mean, you know, Denzel Boston, I thought, looked good.
11:33Casey Concepcion, I like what I've seen from him.
11:36And I like some of the concepts that Munkin seems to be setting up, you know, in these practices.
11:48So the more I see stuff like that, the more, and this is why I don't like spring practice, because
11:57when I see good things, okay, then I start to get excited.
12:01And I start to elevate expectations to sometimes, well, they might not be ready for those expectations, right?
12:12But it is a breath, it just feels like there's a breath of fresh air out there with Munkin on
12:19the field.
12:22And I'm not talking the press conference stuff.
12:24I mean, yes, he gives us great quotes.
12:26We could barely get the questions out of our mouths last week, and he had an answer for us and
12:31that.
12:32But, like, it just, it feels like he knows exactly what he wants and how he wants it.
12:42And also, too, he's not the least bit worried about speaking his mind to anybody.
12:49And I do mean anybody.
12:53Well, you know, I tell you what, you know, as you're saying that, two things stuck out to me.
12:56So you're talking about things that you really noticed.
12:58Two things I really noticed is coaching on the run, and I want to explain that a little bit.
13:02So when Kevin was here, yeah, when Kevin was here, they would kind of correct them when they got back
13:08to the huddle.
13:09Now, the coaches now, they're correcting on the way back to the huddle.
13:12So when they get back to the huddle, they're ready to go for the next play.
13:16Next thing you're getting is all the movement and motion and all the things they want to do.
13:20They're not extra, they're a part of it.
13:21So there's things that I'm looking forward to.
13:23Again, is it building towards, I'm looking forward to Wednesday, and I'm looking forward to mandatory minicamp.
13:27We'll see if it continues to progress.
13:28Hopefully they're done installing the run game so we can see the pass game installation.
13:32That's all I'm going to say.
13:33Speaking of adjustments, yeah, it'd be nice if the Cavaliers made a few of those.
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