00:00Daryl Reiter, host on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland.
00:04Daryl, thanks for the time, man. Good morning.
00:06Good morning.
00:07So how have you processed this news?
00:10Obviously a huge, basically put the A.J. Brown deal to the Patriots on the back burner
00:14that Miles Garrett leaves Cleveland for the Rams in a massive trade.
00:20A first-round pick is coming back.
00:22Jared Vers is coming back in the deal.
00:24Multiple other picks as well.
00:26Are you still processing it?
00:27How surprised were you by the news?
00:30Well, I wasn't really surprised because I started to hear whispers on Sunday
00:34that this was a serious possibility, more so than just a conjecture or conversation.
00:42And, you know, once they made the alteration to the bonus payment schedule
00:48in Miles' contract earlier this spring, that really seemed to set up
00:53that the Browns were positioning themselves to be able to trade Miles'
01:01Now, Andrew Barry vehemently denied that that was the motivation behind it.
01:06And really, there was nothing to see here.
01:10We got nothing to see here as far as no face-to-face meeting between Garrett and new head coach
01:15Todd Munkin.
01:16We got nothing to see here with Miles Garrett not hanging out at any of the OTAs.
01:22And then we now find out that Brown's ownership brought Miles Garrett into the building on Saturday
01:29to inform him that, yes, they were prepared to move him to the Los Angeles Rams.
01:36And with his no-trade clause, they needed his permission to waive that and facilitate this trade.
01:45So, not surprised, but the reality has set in that the Browns ended up trading
01:52the greatest defensive player in franchise history and a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
01:57Yeah, I mean, it's tough. I've got to imagine it's tough for fans, but can a percentage of them
02:02see the logic, though, and the long-term benefit for the Browns, potentially?
02:08Right now, no. I think the wound is still fresh.
02:11You know, I think it's going to take some time.
02:13And I've been trying to explain to folks that Jared Vers is a really good football player.
02:18This is a former Associated Press Rookie of the Year,
02:22a defensive Rookie of the Year, I should say, in 2024.
02:242024, he's got the third-most pressures in the NFL since coming into the league,
02:29behind two players, one of them being Myles Garrett, the other one, Micah Parsons.
02:32That's a pretty good company to be in.
02:34He has stepped up on the biggest stage in the playoffs.
02:37He has played extremely well.
02:40Now, is he Myles Garrett 2.0? No, probably not.
02:44And it's really unrealistic to have those type of expectations.
02:48But when you make a trade like this, I certainly understand why fans feel the way they do.
02:53And I still believe that this is a residual effect of the Deshaun Watson trade
02:59and the failure that ultimately has been.
03:03And, you know, Myles Garrett 2, I don't think that there is anyone happier.
03:07As much as Myles loves the Browns, loves Browns fans, loves Cleveland,
03:12I don't think there's anyone happier yesterday than Myles Garrett to find out
03:16that he now gets to go play for a Super Bowl that he has been begging to play for in
03:21recent years.
03:21Daryl, can you let our listeners in on what sort of salary cap hell the Browns are in?
03:27You touched on the Deshaun Watson deal, like the dead money hit that's coming for the Browns.
03:32I'm sure that precipitated getting this deal done.
03:35And look, I'm sure they wanted to do well by Myles Garrett.
03:39Like you said, he's the greatest defensive player in franchise history.
03:42Give him a chance to go win a Super Bowl with a contender
03:45while they're trying to rebuild things there in Cleveland.
03:48Yeah, the timelines just didn't align.
03:50And that's the other thing I've been trying to explain to fans.
03:52Myles Garrett's 30 years old, two-time defensive player of the year.
03:56He wants to win Super Bowls.
03:57He's accomplished everything he sought to accomplish as an individual.
04:01And he's focused now on the bigger prize.
04:03Where the Browns are at, yes.
04:04They have a very good defense, but they're coming off a year in which
04:08that offense they put on the field last year was an insult to the 1999 and 2000 expansion Browns,
04:13or the 0-16 expansion Browns.
04:16It was that bad.
04:17They averaged 16.4 points per game, okay?
04:20They only had eight seasons since 1999, averaging 20 or more points per game.
04:26Four of those came under Kevin Stefanski, and they showed him the door this offseason.
04:30As far as the salary cap goes, the post-June 1 trade helps the Browns.
04:36$15-16 million hit this year.
04:39$25-26 million hit for Myles Garrett next year.
04:43So you get to spread that out a little bit.
04:45But Deshaun Watson's salary cap does not clear until the 2028 season, because what they're
04:52going to do, they put that dummy year on the back end of his contract for 2027 so that
04:58they can cut him next March.
05:00It's an unguaranteed veteran minimum that they tacked on there, and they can do the post-June
05:06one for him next March, which then allows them to split the remaining two years of salary
05:11cap, or I should say the remaining year of his salary cap hit, which is pretty sizable
05:15over two years, thus lessening the burden of getting out from underneath that contract.
05:21But Andrew Berry, to his credit, the GM, the EVP of football operations, he's done a great
05:27job of recognizing the escalation in the salary cap and the steep slope of it going up year
05:32over year, and so he has done a good job of spreading these dead cap hits out over enough
05:40time to where it still allows him to do what he needs to do as a GM to improve the
05:44football
05:45team.
05:45So, some reports have come out that Deshaun Watson's kind of the leader in the clubhouse
05:50to be the starting quarterback for the Browns this upcoming season.
05:54I kind of want your thoughts on what fans should expect at quarterback.
05:58Is it going to be Deshaun, Shador?
06:01What's going to happen at QB in Cleveland?
06:04Well, right now, yeah, I do feel like Deshaun is the leader in the clubhouse.
06:08Look, we're going to see Shador Sanders at some point this year, okay?
06:11Whether that's in week one or in week 10, we will see Shador Sanders at some point this
06:16year, and if he doesn't ultimately win this job outright by week one, I don't consider
06:23that a failure for Shador, if anything.
06:25I think it might be a good thing for him, buys him a little extra time to prepare himself
06:29to go ahead and hit the field again.
06:33As far as Deshaun goes, he's looked pretty good in practice.
06:36Look, he definitely looks healthy.
06:38I want to see it when a defense is actually allowed to hit him.
06:43That's the ultimate test, and I certainly can understand why the Browns want to give
06:47him an opportunity to go out there and show whether or not he can still play, because
06:52it's been six seasons since he's played a full season and been an impactful player in
06:56the National Football League.
06:57Two ruptured Achilles, actually it was the same Achilles he ruptured twice.
07:00The shoulder surgery that he had as well, combined with the off time, I really have no expectation
07:09that Deshaun Watson's going to be a serious contributor for the Browns this year, but
07:14Let me see this.
07:15I am intrigued, and some of the guys in this room, I know my buddy here to the left has
07:20zero intrigue in Shador.
07:21I am intrigued by him.
07:23I'm not willing to write him off yet.
07:24I felt like I saw something to build on, potentially.
07:29You seem like you want to give him the benefit of the doubt a little bit, too, still.
07:33Not so much benefit of the doubt.
07:35I just want to see whether or not he can do it, right?
07:37Last year, there were all these excuses, okay?
07:39All the distractions with the draft and what may or may not have happened and resulted in
07:44him landing in the fifth round, right?
07:45Then it was his contract and how that unfolded.
07:50Obviously, he made a lot of money on the revenue share from the jersey sales and all those kinds
07:56of things, right?
07:57He broke the record on that last year and changed his jersey number this year back to
08:02the number two, right?
08:03Then there's his family, right?
08:06You got his brother going after a Browns reporter earlier this offseason for writing what they
08:12were told about the quarterback competition.
08:14There's just so many distractions around this young man.
08:17And then, obviously, last year, the narrative was that Kevin Stefanski was sabotaging his
08:21career.
08:22What about the play, though?
08:23What about the play on the field that may have intrigued you?
08:25Was he better than Dylan Gabriel?
08:27Yeah, I think you might be better than Dylan Gabriel.
08:30That's how bad Dylan Gabriel was.
08:33And I still can't believe the Browns wasted a third-round pick on the kid.
08:36Not his fault, but the NFL just isn't for him, okay?
08:39Maybe he'll be the next Colt McCoy where he can make a living being a backup quarterback
08:45because he's extremely intelligent, no question about that, picks up offenses.
08:49But yeah, as far as on the field with Shadour, yeah, there's some bright spots.
08:53Absolutely, there's some bright spots.
08:54He made some plays that I haven't seen Browns quarterback make in a long time.
08:57But also, at the same time, there's a lot of, ooh, that's not going to work at this level,
09:02son.
09:03And so there's a lot of things in his game that he certainly has to work on and clean up
09:07as well.
09:07And that's why I want to see him get the opportunity this year to see whether or not
09:12he can make those adjustments.
09:14Hey, prove yourself when it comes to the off-the-field preparation.
09:17Prove yourself when it comes to practice.
09:19Prove yourself when it comes to film room.
09:21Prove yourself when it comes to learning the playbook and being able to execute and run
09:25the offense and all those type of things with no excuses.
09:29Because this year, for me, there are no excuses for Shadour.
09:33Because unlike last year, he's not watching practice anymore.
09:35He's getting as many first-team reps as Deshaun Watson.
09:39Now, the order of those reps, they're flip-flopping those around to try and even them out.
09:43But I feel like this is a much fairer quarterback competition for Shadour Sanders this year
09:49between Deshaun Watson and him versus last year when the Browns ran that sham four-man competition
09:55when Shadour Sanders was barely getting any reps in practice.
09:58Darrell, thanks a lot for the time.
10:00We know you're super busy with the Miles Garrett trade going on.
10:03We appreciate you taking some time, man.
10:05Talk to you again soon.
10:06You bet.
10:07Thanks for having me.
10:07Thanks, pal.
10:08Yep, that's Darrell Reiter, host on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland.
10:12When we come back, we'll do EB's Entertainment Page next on The Fan.
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