00:00We love talking to him about the Browns, especially when it comes to the offensive line.
00:03He is the guru of all time when it comes to offensive line.
00:06I don't care about Joe Thomas in this situation.
00:08Doug Deacon is the man, formerly the Browns Radio Network, now in, I'm assuming, enjoying golf.
00:14And right now he's on the Wiseheart Right. We make it right.
00:17Call Kyle Right. Hotline.
00:19Hi, Doug. How are you? What's up, Deacon?
00:21I'm doing fine, and if you played golf like I do, you wouldn't be enjoying it.
00:28Please tell me you're getting out at least a couple times a week, right?
00:30Oh, no. I get out. We're working on it.
00:36Got to go back to the driving range to find out what's wrong.
00:40Oh, there's nothing wrong. I've seen you play enough times.
00:43Doug, can I tell people behind the scenes on that?
00:46Say no, and I'll stop the story right now.
00:49Doug is just every year. I can't tell you how gracious, even when he was playing,
00:53and we have an annual tournament. It was at Firestone for a long time,
00:55Cystic Fibrosis Tournament, and every year I'd turn up, I'd be like,
00:58hey, there's Doug. And Doug, I always appreciated you being there
01:02and supporting the event, so it gave me a chance to thank you publicly,
01:04and I hope I didn't out you for being at my event, but I do appreciate you.
01:08No, no. I enjoyed it back then. The golf game was a little better.
01:12It's a frustrating game.
01:14God, is it?
01:16I've learned a vocabulary I didn't even use on Dwight White or Joe Green.
01:23I mean, that's hysterical.
01:24All right, Doug, big day for Joel Batonio today.
01:27He announces his retirement.
01:28Just give me your reflections on his career
01:31and what he meant to this franchise and organization.
01:33I mean, I think he was rock solid.
01:35You know, I played against a guy, or not against a guy,
01:38I blew with a guy, Gene Hickerson, that was a Hall of Famer.
01:42Unfortunately, it took a while to get Gene in,
01:45but Joel Batonio, I mean, he's in that class.
01:49He's obviously, you know, he played next to Joe Thomas.
01:53I mean, you've got two Hall of Famers, basically, side by side.
01:57And, I mean, the guy plays hurt.
02:00You know, those are the things that you admire.
02:02I mean, yeah, you watch the game tapes, and you say,
02:05oh, you made a great block.
02:06But, you know, you don't play that many games as Joel did
02:10where you don't play hurt.
02:12And those are the guys that, you know, you count on,
02:14the guys that, you know, have that ability.
02:18What was Joel able to do, Deke, that made him so good?
02:22He was consistent.
02:24I mean, you knew what he was going to do.
02:26And, you know, one of the things is when you break in a new tackle
02:31with a guard, you know, a tackle might set short,
02:34he might set deep, and you've got to get used to that.
02:36And Joel did a great job of adapting, you know, after Joe Thomas.
02:41With Joe, he didn't have to adapt because you knew he was going to take care of business.
02:44But, you know, if you've got a guy that's going to set back a ways,
02:50all of a sudden you create a seam to the inside in case you have a game going.
02:55And, Joel, you know, the other thing is, you know, the games that I broadcast,
03:00I don't remember, you know, saying holding Batonio, you know,
03:04not that I'm aware of what that's all about.
03:09I love it.
03:11It's not holding.
03:12It's more like wrangling.
03:13It's more like just slowing down.
03:15Isn't that what you should be doing?
03:17Mud wrestling without the mud.
03:19Right.
03:19Well, maybe with the mud.
03:21It depends on the weather.
03:22You know, I think the other part, just like you, Doug,
03:25and I think there's a reason that your appreciation in this city goes well beyond football and radio,
03:32it's that you made yourself a member of the community.
03:35Again, he said today, I'm from Southern California, but I feel like I'm from Cleveland.
03:40You know, and he's given his – during the press conference, he's talking about, you know,
03:44Browns give back.
03:44He's talking about the food bank.
03:45He's talking about, you know, opening the fridge after the long losing streak.
03:49Those are all things that endear themselves to folks here in Cleveland that watch him.
03:54And, you know, I don't know, you tell me because you're one of the – I mean,
03:59it would have been easy for you to pack your bags and maybe head back to Illinois at some point
04:02if you wanted to,
04:03but you decided to stay here and he decided to make Cleveland his home,
04:07and that was important to him.
04:08Can you relate to that and understand why and try to explain it to fans too?
04:13You know, I think the best way is, you know, a lot of people say, hey, why did you stay
04:17in Cleveland?
04:18I said it's about the people.
04:19I mean, you've got good people in the town and, you know, you've got all the sports teams
04:26and it's just, you know, a great place to live.
04:30Doug Deacon joining us on the hotline.
04:33I mean, Browns legend.
04:35You know, Deacon.
04:35Come on.
04:36You don't need me to intro.
04:37So –
04:38How about it?
04:39Browns has been.
04:40No.
04:41No.
04:43Come on.
04:44You can still wrangle somebody out there now.
04:46So, Deke, how important do you think it was to have Joe Thomas on one side of Joel Batonio to
04:53begin
04:54and then Alex Mack at center?
04:56How much do you think that helped him be as good as he was?
04:59Oh, I mean, you know, your first couple years you were learning different styles of play,
05:04the different guys, what they do, and the communication within the offensive line
05:09and, you know, how they're going to set.
05:10If they're going to set short, they're going to set deep.
05:12But, yeah, I mean, that's pretty good company to slide in between.
05:17And, you know, Joel, I mean, I don't remember, you know,
05:22maybe calling his name for a holding penalty one or two times.
05:26I mean, the guy did it with great technique.
05:29How do guys like that – I mean, like, I thought it was really important today
05:32that Jimmy Haslam talked about him in the same breath with Joe Thomas and Jim Brown
05:36and Lou Groza as far as 178 career stats.
05:41How do guys who aren't – diva's not the word I want to – they're not flashy.
05:47I mean, offensive linemen go to work, do their job, block,
05:51and make sure that the guys behind him have the opportunity to score.
05:54How hard is it to get a guy who plays guard into the Hall of Fame?
05:58You talked about Gene Hickerson.
05:59Like, again, I could not believe how long it took to get him into the Hall
06:03and how hard is it for a guard to become a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
06:08Well, you know, it takes, you know, the promotion.
06:11And to some extent, the ball club has to, you know, promote the ball player.
06:16And with Gene, you know, Hickerson, they didn't really promote him.
06:20And I remember one of the other teams called me one day and said,
06:26hey, we're trying to get so-and-so, you know, into the Hall of Fame.
06:29You know, can you say something good about him?
06:31I said, no, I can't because I played with Gene Hickerson.
06:34And until Gene Hickerson gets in, I'm not going to endorse anybody.
06:37And, I mean, you know, when you line up with a guy,
06:41and I think I probably played three or four years with Gene,
06:44and, you know, Gene was, you know, set in his ways.
06:49You know, they'd have stunts, and, you know, one time it would be guard first man.
06:55So, you know, if the ant came crashing down, I'd push him to him,
06:58and I'd wait for a looping guy.
07:00And I'm playing with Gene out in Oakland,
07:03and his guy comes and knocks the, you know, out of me,
07:06and I say, hey, Gene, or old man is what we used to call him.
07:09Hey, old man, it's guard first man.
07:12No, no, no, guard first choice.
07:14I said, okay, I'm done with you.
07:19Gene was, I mean, the guy could run a 40 probably, you know,
07:24with the running backs.
07:25I mean, he was amazing.
07:27And Joel was the same way.
07:28I mean, you didn't see mental errors.
07:31You didn't see penalties.
07:33All you saw was a high level of consistent play.
07:38Deke, Joel Batonio blocked for 20 quarterbacks.
07:43I don't even have a question on that.
07:44That's just a statement.
07:45What do you think when you hear he blocked for 20 quarterbacks?
07:49He probably had no clue where that quarterback was because, you know,
07:52some said short, some said a little deeper, some drift in the pocket.
07:57And, you know, if you got a drifter and you think, you know, you got your guy,
08:01and all of a sudden, you know, the quarterback is on the other side,
08:04you know, it's tough.
08:06I mean, you know, everybody says the quarterback's got to get used to the line.
08:11Well, the line's got to get used to the quarterback.
08:13I mean, when we had, after Brian left and we had Paul McDonald, you know,
08:19Paul McDonald, you know, was more like a statue in the pocket.
08:22And, you know, it was tough.
08:25I mean, because he didn't have that ability to roll out or, you know,
08:30do some of those things.
08:33I've never had a chance to ask you this,
08:34but the difference between being an offensive lineman for a right-handed
08:38quarterback versus a left-handed quarterback,
08:39because I always think about that when I think about McDonald.
08:41And then I think about the current situation we have with Dillian.
08:45Yeah.
08:46Well, yeah, I mean, you know, if you've got the blind side of the quarterback,
08:52you know, he doesn't see the guy coming.
08:54So you've got to be able to yell, look out real quick.
08:59That's an actual play, right?
09:01Yeah.
09:01Paul Brown put that in the playbook, the very first one.
09:04You talk about analytics.
09:05That's it.
09:05Look out!
09:08Thanks, Paul.
09:09We appreciate that.
09:10All right.
09:11So let me go back to the beginning here.
09:13Joel Batonio, make the case for him to be in the Hall of Fame.
09:17Oh, I mean, the Pro Bowls, the consistent play,
09:22and, you know, really the credibility of the individual.
09:27Joel, you know, whatever, there is a charity event, you'd always see Joel there.
09:32But, I mean, that probably doesn't enter into, you know,
09:35what makes you a Hall of Fame player.
09:36That makes you a Hall of Fame person.
09:38And that's, you know, besides being a great player,
09:41Joel is, you know, just a rock-solid person.
09:44You never, you know, saw any speeding tickets with him.
09:47Interesting.
09:48It was funny.
09:48I just said that to David.
09:50I said, Dan, I'm like, Dan, I don't remember saying anything bad about Joel ever
09:54the time that he was here.
09:56There was nothing to really worry about, you know.
09:58And I think he also took the role of captain to heart.
10:01I thought that was important.
10:03Yeah, and, you know, Joel is not a, you know, a big talker, you know,
10:08in regards to, you know, rah-rah and all that.
10:11You know, you can, you know, lead by example.
10:13You can lead by, you know, vocal.
10:15And I think Joel did it by example.
10:18I mean, just go out and play consistent football.
10:21You sort of, you know, the coach knows what you can do.
10:23The quarterback knows he's going to be protected.
10:25And the running back knows you're going to get him a hole.
10:28There you go.
10:29Deke, thank you.
10:30You know, we always appreciate talking to you.
10:32Enjoy your retirement and hit him straight, my friend.
10:34Hit him straight.
10:34Okay.
10:35Thanks, Deke.
10:35We'll see you guys.
10:36Doug Seekin, Browns legend.
10:37We'll see you guys next time.
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