00:00Here was Mary Kay Cabot on this station earlier today talking about the quarterback conversation
00:04and the timeline shift that has happened. The messaging changed last week from Todd
00:09Munkin. Instead of being adamant that he wanted to have his QB depth chart set by the end of this
00:15minicamp, he hedged and backed off of that a little bit and was saying, hey, you know,
00:19we haven't seen these guys in pads. We haven't seen them against real, you know, other teams,
00:23other competition. So now I think that he might just kind of hold off a while on giving us any
00:29indication whatsoever who he has as his QB one right now. I think he wants to let Sidor Sanders
00:34come up the learning curve even a little bit more because as I wrote in my preview yesterday,
00:39Sidor is a player who learns by getting out there and putting it on the grass. And the more he's
00:43done that, the better he's gotten. And I think they want to see where that goes if he continues
00:47at his current trajectory. So I just don't think we're going to have anything definitive by tomorrow
00:52or by Wednesday. Yeah, I think this always made more sense. The longer you let this quarterback
00:58competition run, I've always felt the better chance Sidor actually has to take it.
01:03Yeah. Now, at some point, obviously, I think a lot of people wanted it to be settled earlier
01:07just because then you can give the quarterback that is in the lead the bulk of the ones and
01:11give them as much of a chance to have success. But as long as we're still splitting this up and
01:15as
01:15long as everyone's still feeling like you're getting a fair shake. I mean, this isn't this isn't
01:19Sidor practicing, you know, in colleges on different fields like he's still even if he's splitting the
01:24ones with Deshaun. If that's what it takes before they they settle on this, it's not the end of the
01:28world. Yeah. And we're in a spot where I I expect the longer the offense plays together post installs
01:35that like that's so like even now, like I think this is a big week for Sidor, but I think
01:40it's a
01:40big week for Deshaun. I really and honestly, this would be a moment where Dylan Gabriel, if you were
01:46going to make any play for the job, this will have to be the week for him and tailing greens
01:50different
01:50because he's a rookie for what job? Uh, trying to make a push for the starting job. Yeah. Okay.
01:55It's nice of you to put his name in there. He's got a new number. I want to get a
01:57little
01:57new treatment. Very nice of you. He's going to be in Atlanta in three months. I'm just trying to be
02:01many short jokes to try to reel this thing back with Dylan Gabriel for my, in my opinion. What?
02:06What? Why? Okay. I'm going to be the most half-hearted why I've ever heard in my life towards his
02:16exit.
02:16Yeah. That's right. We kick him immediately for a year and change while he's here. And then when
02:22he leaves, that's, that's when we tell him, all right, good job. We should do this. I'm from the
02:26Midwest, Jonathan. Okay. And then if I ran into him at camp this year, it'd be, Oh, didn't see you
02:30there. A year ago would have been get out of my way. Short stuff. No, this year, if I, instead
02:34of
02:35pirouetting out of his way this year, if I do actually just run into him, nobody's going to care.
02:39Yeah. That's a thank God. Nobody, they might be like, all right, that's you're, you're fine. Don't worry.
02:43You might've done us a solid if we can get an injury designation here. But like, I, I think
02:47if the quarterback competition got called at the end of this week, I would just assume
02:51someone forfeited it. Yeah. I'd be shocked. You can't call it after this week. Like somebody
02:55would have had to punt in the most tremendous of ways. I would just be very, very surprised.
03:00And again, this is, this is what Todd Munkin should be doing. Exhaust all your options, go
03:04through, make sure that you certainly know, uh, and definitively know exactly what quarterback
03:09you want to QB one. I gotta say, like I said earlier, uh,
03:13I'm excited to hear about the quarterbacks. I also am like Zach Jackson's tweet that the arrow
03:18is pointing up for Isaiah Bond and Denzel Boston. Those are the things you start, like you need to
03:23start hearing more of those things. The closer we get to camp specifically, the next thing I'm
03:27going to hear about is the offensive line. But I just, I don't really see, I don't really see it
03:33as
03:33like this big impossibility that the offense can surprise if we continue to hear the right things
03:37like this out of the right young players. Yeah. The wide receivers have to give you a lot of,
03:41I don't know, confidence is what I'll go with because we've seen, I mean, and this is just,
03:45I mean, Joe Burrow is a great quarterback, obviously. Uh, but Joe Burrow having the wide
03:50receivers he did early in his career made a massive impact. Having Jamar Chase, having T Higgins,
03:54having all those guys matters. I'm not saying we have a Jamar Chase in our team. That's crazy town,
03:58but the idea that you have, let's call it, I don't know, the 15th best wide receiver room instead of
04:04the 32nd like we had last year, that's going to make a difference. Yeah. And I do think,
04:09you know, uh, franchise quarterbacks elevate everyone else around them. I think that's a
04:13truism that we've heard enough to say when it comes to, if you don't have a true, like we're
04:18talking like elite quarterback. So a guy that still might even be franchise level, but not,
04:23you know, the, the, the top four, top five quarterbacks. The next best thing you can have
04:27is a Jamar Chase, a T Higgins, a Justin Jefferson, like a top 10 wide receiver, and then maybe another
04:34good wide receiver behind them. Those guys can make an average quarterback better.
04:39Yeah. Well, I mean, what made it so easy for Sam Darnold last year was JSN like that,
04:43like that was everything within their offense and their season and how it all went down.
04:46Like this is just, this is not, this is not groundbreaking stuff. Wide receivers matter a
04:51great deal, but the difference between having at least just a competent group of wide receivers
04:55and what the Browns were dealing with last year is going to be night and day.
04:58Yeah. And I, I continue to come back to that idea. Like when people talk in, in, in,
05:02I even heard Ken and Anthony talk about something we talked about yesterday, which is the, the,
05:06the pessimism around the quarterback position. And it's like, I really truly understand it.
05:12And at the same time, they like, I think it's, I think it's tough to really understand how
05:18bleeped from jump street that offense really was and how, how little it takes to just
05:24be better than that. And by better than that, I just mean functional. And I think we've gotten,
05:29we've lowered our standards so much on offense that it gets so easy to just be like, well,
05:34they were bad last year. It's like new head coach, new play caller. Honestly, even if Shador
05:39plays, it's still a relatively new quarterback, but even to Sean place at the new quarterback
05:44that didn't start last year, a new skill playing another year fan and another year Judkins
05:48and a completely rebuilt offensive line. I can't guarantee all of that's going to work out,
05:53but I also don't think all of that's going to fail.
05:55Well, that's the point. There's so many ifs attached to it. We'd be living in la la land.
05:59If we thought that it was just going to all work and everything was going to be great. And,
06:03and it was just all going to come together, but there's going to be parts of this that do
06:06actually come together. And I, if you were to make me bet right now, which part I do think
06:10comes together, it'd be this wide receiving core. And maybe I was, I know I like Concepcion more
06:14than you did in the draft process, but I love Denzel Boston. That was my number one guy outside of
06:19the
06:19big three that we kept talking about. And right now he's making a lot of plays.
06:22Todd Munkin did say, I'm not going to name a number one thing. He just doesn't see it right
06:27now between Shador and Deshaun. Also sad, Shador had a very nice day and commented Deshaun did some
06:34nice things as well. Yeah. So it was the, it was the pause he had between saying Shador and then
06:39adding Deshaun's name that did it for me. And when we get the clip, obviously we can run it back,
06:44but it did do anything for you. The idea that clearly what he was telling you is that Deshaun Watson
06:48had the lead, Deshaun Watson was in the front and now what Shador has done in the past week
06:52and a half is forced his hand to not just name Deshaun the starter and actually have this as a
06:56competition. I did hear the pause. It was, I mean, the only way you do the pause is if you
07:00were
07:01understanding in the moment that you didn't want to just give it away.
07:04And it felt like when he said both functioned better or not better, but both functioned well
07:09today, that felt like the makeup for maybe his first line there. I mean, it just, it's one of
07:13those things that won't read well. If you're just on Twitter, for instance, it's like, Oh,
07:17Shador. Yeah. Shador and Deshaun are both playing well. It's like, no, he said Shador and Deshaun
07:24to cover himself up. Cause he understood in this and how he was talking in that setting in that moment,
07:28he was telling you Deshaun had the leg up. Shador has played well enough now to force his hand
07:33to not name a starter and to have this as a real competition. He also said the rotations for the
07:37quarterback flip back tomorrow. And then on day three, which is Thursday, they're going to split
07:43them. So that's kind of a little update on the process they're going through. And I'm pretty
07:48sure the first question, which we didn't actually hear, but we got to the answer, which was on Mason
07:52Graham, the line that kind of sticks out there was I don't see anyone who won't be ready for camp.
07:58And they kind of said, except him, but maybe not. So he didn't really know yet. And then he went
08:06with the won't comment on injuries, but then did offer up some commentary on Lee Collins injury.
08:11So it's like, is this a, how committed are you to not commenting on injuries during this press
08:17conference? So it's interesting that you say that because in my experience, the guys who are least
08:22comfortable talking about injuries are the older head coaches like, and now in fairness, Kevin
08:30Stefanski stepped in it a couple of years back and then got real uncomfortable. But early Kevin
08:35Stefanski outside of the Baker thing would kind of freely talk about injuries. Definitely would.
08:40All of the older coaches there, there seems to be an extra reticence to talk about it. I don't know
08:44if it's an age thing. I don't know if they're worried about HIPAA violations. Does he just not want to
08:48screw it up? Is that the idea? Yeah, I think it's, you don't want to be the wrong headline.
08:52I also think he just didn't want to tell us whatever he knows right now. And that's for
08:55whatever reason. And I, I, you know, that's, that's where maybe you press him a little bit
08:59more. I thought there was a follow-up. I, and I, I guess I would say good job on the
09:03follow-up,
09:03but if that's the precedent that he's setting and everyone's just going to abide by it, then
09:07okay. But also found out about KT Leveston at right guard today saying, just trying to,
09:13to, to move around to see where, you know, what we have the best five guys we can get,
09:17but did kind of laud him on his power and kind of run blocking ability. And then a lot of
09:21love
09:21for Isaiah Bond as well. Yeah. And Bond, I mean, by all accounts deserves it. All he's done is make
09:26big plays after big plays in this. I can't wait for coach Riz's recap to find out exactly what he
09:31says and what he saw today.
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