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00:00We talked about this in the pre-show, just asking the why behind Andrew Barry's media tour.
00:07And I always go the simplest explanation on this.
00:10I think it's that the Browns knew that they were going to upset a lot of people with the Miles
00:14Garrett trade.
00:16And Andrew Barry's a guy that thought of it and executed it.
00:20And so it was a little bit of, I got to at least sing for my supper here to tell
00:24fans, be the face of this trade.
00:26I think it's even easier than that.
00:27I think that might even be giving it too much credit.
00:30Because that would assume that he would be standing up to a decision that he made.
00:34And for the previous year, we just kind of watched him not do any media tour and not do anything.
00:39Now in the past week, he's been on this station.
00:41He did Peter Schrager's podcast.
00:42He's being places and doing things.
00:44And I think it comes from the idea that he feels like he won the Miles Garrett trade.
00:48And it feels like things are headed in the right direction.
00:51Yeah, I feel like this is a victory lap.
00:52I feel like because things are starting to go well for Andrew.
00:55And we can point to things that he's done in a solid way for the Browns over the previous couple
01:00seasons.
01:00I think this is him trying to do a victory lap of sorts.
01:06He knows his image isn't tarnished right now.
01:08I couldn't have made that claim at any other point up until, I don't know, maybe even just before this
01:14draft, this most recent draft.
01:16But now his image across the league seems like it's been relatively repaired.
01:19He seems like he's in fans' good graces for the first time in a while, including my own, by the
01:24way.
01:24I like Andrew Barry today way more than I've ever seemed like I've liked him.
01:28And so, yeah, I think he's reading the room right.
01:31Now's the time to do these things.
01:32I just think what's funny about it is, to me, I'll think Andrew Barry's good at his job again when
01:38this thing's set up for sustainable winning.
01:41Like, I agree.
01:43Like, I like Harold Fannin Jr.
01:44Swessinger, I think, was great last year.
01:46Like, I'm excited about what I think this roster is, but now it's got to go out there and be
01:53that.
01:53Like, for all the talent it has, if they win two games this year, that is a massive indictment on
01:59how the team is built, and that starts with Andrew Barry.
02:03I'm not even going to blame Todd Munkin if this thing doesn't go anywhere because, well, this was the guy
02:10that traded Miles Garrett.
02:11This is the guy that's made all these draft picks, and they can't really be all that talented if they're
02:15a two-win team after winning five games last year.
02:18Yeah, you still got to go out there and do it, obviously.
02:19I just feel like his image has never been higher than what it is right now, or at least not
02:24in the past few years.
02:25And so, like, when he went in, like, basically the witness protection agency and just kind of removed himself from
02:30everybody, I think that was intentional.
02:32And I think now that he's popped out like a groundhog, I feel like he's now done that intentionally as
02:37well because he knows.
02:38Whether it's the ESPN guys, the national guys, anyone in between, people have, by and large, said nice things after
02:46the Miles Garrett trade about Andrew Barry.
02:47I think that's what might frustrate me about this because I think you're right.
02:50There was certainly intentionality of not speaking last year during the season, and I think whether that was a Jimmy
02:58decision, a PR decision, or Andrew's decision himself, I think it set Kevin Stefanski up quite visibly to be the
03:10fall guy for last year's disappointment.
03:12So, if this is then him trying to turn around and take a victory lap, I'd probably have more of
03:17a problem with it just because, like, to me, all those people who have been giving him his flowers the
03:23last, you know, three weeks, my rebuttal still is the Deshaun Watson trade.
03:28And it will be.
03:29Like, it's not just enough to win now.
03:33Like, you need to make sure that you win and that your players are a part of it.
03:37I know, but you see how even within that context, part of that has already been changed.
03:40I wish I could remember what guests we asked in the last week about Andrew Barry and where he sits,
03:45but the response was pretty swift, and it was the idea of, and it was a national report, I just
03:49can't remember who it was now, but they said something to the effect of, well, you can't blame Andrew.
03:53He didn't have any picks to work with.
03:55And it's like, well, no, I can blame Andrew.
03:57Because the reporting from The Athletic and Cleveland.com at the time was that he and Kevin Stefanski took that
04:02idea to Jimmy Haslam.
04:03I can blame him for that, but it's not being remembered that way, Nick.
04:06It is locally with us, but from a national perspective, all that blame goes to Haslam.
04:12It doesn't go to Andrew Barry.
04:16And so Andrew Barry is getting almost like a five-year pass for having bad drafts because nobody in the
04:21national media thinks that he actually made those picks, and he didn't have enough picks to begin with anyway.
04:25And then the other side of this, past couple drafts have been great, and it's almost absolved him of some
04:30of this.
04:31I have a question off that, 216-474-0092, what do we make of the Andrew Barry media tour?
04:37We've played a lot of that sound, including the sound from his hit with The Morning Boys today.
04:45How long do you think that lasts?
04:47Because I think that's, again, we've talked a lot about how this season for the Browns is going to end
04:52up being one of the rare, let's see it play out.
04:56Yeah, I think it's simple.
04:56You started talking about a three-win team or a five-win team or a six-win team, and even
05:01in you talking about it, my feelings on Andrew Barry was moving pretty quickly.
05:04Oh, see, it's interesting because I think with the way people reacted to the Todd Munkin hiring, I think people
05:13are going to all over Todd Munkin if they have a disappointing season.
05:18And I think that's insane to me.
05:20Like, Todd Munkin—
05:21Well, either you think this is the plan or you don't think this is the plan.
05:24So, like, if you give Andrew Barry the pass with the idea that this is just going to be a
05:28bad season and the wins and losses don't matter, then you have to give Todd Munkin that same grace, too.
05:33If you think Todd Munkin has to win a lot of games, then you also should think that Andrew Barry
05:38has to as well.
05:39You and I agree, but I don't think that there's a lot of—
05:43Well, because one person feels like they're on an extended leave here and one person maybe doesn't.
05:48Mm-hmm.
05:48And I—well, and I also think that I think the national media relies a lot on perception.
05:55You and I watch this—and all the fans listening right now watch this team and our teams hawk-eyed.
06:02We watch every second of it, and we watch as much practice as we can, and we watch the preseason
06:07games, and we follow these storylines, so we kind of know the score.
06:12There is a follow-the-bouncing ball, but somebody else is doing the bouncing that I think the national media—I
06:20think they can get carried away or get distracted very easily.
06:24I think that's my concern.
06:27I'm not buying the win here.
06:30I don't dislike Andrew, but I have massive questions on how he's been able to survive all this, and I
06:37have massive questions how you can just—
06:40I get that teams aren't honest.
06:42This was different.
06:43This was after redoing the contract, and even today, you made sure to keep that bit of his truth out
06:52there.
06:53When Daryl said, you know, hey, do we get to—do the media get a little bit of acknowledgement here that
07:00when you made that move to move the dates on Miles' contract into the season,
07:06that we were right about this, and he said, no, no, that was—the side effect was the Rams calling us
07:12and asking about Miles' availability.
07:14Like, no one believes you, and I think there was an element of that today, of trying to get people
07:21to believe Andrew again,
07:22and I—with love and respect, you lost it.
07:25You cannot say Miles Garrett is a brown for life while you're actively negotiating his trade.
07:32Now, you don't also have to come out and say he's on the trade block, but how definitive he was
07:37about that, there is an element of Browns fans who should never forget that.
07:43We should never forget that.
07:44There are certain levels of lies, and you told the strongest one possible, and if today was—
07:50He's just not a believable character at this point.
07:52If today was further servicing those lies, I have a problem with it.
07:56I don't know.
07:56I don't know that it was about servicing those lies.
07:58I think—and they were two different themes, Nick, okay?
08:02And the Peter Schrager one happened in the past couple days.
08:04I don't know if you were able to listen to it or not, but the Peter Schrager interview had a
08:08lot of personal stories.
08:10It wasn't about recapping a Miles Garrett trade.
08:12It was talking about him at 27, sleeping on the floor of the Colts facility and staying overnight, right?
08:17It was about telling—
08:17With that Harvard education.
08:19Yeah.
08:19Real hard scrabble upbringing.
08:21He was telling that story to the chaplain for the Colts about—he tells them—the chaplain goes,
08:27where'd you go to school?
08:28Andrew Barry's like, I went to Harvard.
08:29And the chaplain goes, and you're here?
08:32Like, where did you go wrong in life?
08:33You know what I mean?
08:34But he was.
08:34And then he dropped a JC.
08:36They never do that.
08:37It was like mad disrespect from the chaplain, but neither here nor there.
08:40But, like, that's what I thought was interesting.
08:42And, like, the Schrager one, he had that mentality of, I'm going to show everyone my personality, I'm going to
08:47do that.
08:48Today, with Daryl and Anthony, that's not what that was.
08:52That was him re-litigating.
08:54That was him going down Miles Garrett trade stuff.
08:57That was not—he didn't show much personality today.
08:59He didn't get into trying to, I don't know, maybe showcase a little bit of a different side to himself.
09:05And I thought the contrast between the two was interesting.
09:09But ultimately, why he's doing these things, I think just remains true.
09:12He feels like when he goes on these shows now, people are going to say nice things about him,
09:16and they're going to paint him in a nice light.
09:17He couldn't say that a year ago.
09:21I would like—in the same way that I would like to do business with Deshaun Watson,
09:27again, if he can play at a high Houston level, and anything less than that really doesn't interest me,
09:33I am so on the Andrew Barry has to prove it to me.
09:37I hate the fact that this offseason has turned into, well, Dee Podesta was the problem.
09:42Dee Podesta didn't create the trade.
09:44He didn't sell Jimmy Haslam on the trade.
09:46That was Andrew Barry.
09:48And everyone else went along with it.
09:50That doesn't make them better, much better, but this was—that was the—from the mind of Andrew Barry,
09:56and he willed that to happen.
09:58And everything that has happened since then has watched a team that had a Super Bowl window,
10:02slam shot, and turn into crap for the last, oh, I don't know, four or five years.
10:09I just think we're all a little too quick to forget that.
10:12And I get it.
10:14Great stories on Pete Traeger.
10:16I thought he was nice on the morning show, but I just—
10:20Oh, this is some of that PR damage that we always talk about, right?
10:23Like, and this is it.
10:24And this is him.
10:25This is him doing that.
10:26And I find it interesting because he didn't—he didn't want to or he didn't feel it was necessary a year
10:31ago.
10:32Ultimately, because I think a year ago, I think he just would have thought he was going to get just
10:35body-bagged
10:36by every interview that he did.
10:38And it was going to be a constant reminder of how far Deshaun Watson took this team
10:41and put him into the absolute ground.
10:42And you notice, he doesn't have that concern now.
10:45Help me set up this Dan Lobby clip because I didn't hear it.
10:48It was pretty simple.
10:49It's just the idea of whether or not—Daryl's actually what first sparked this for myself
10:53because Daryl was very hard on Todd Munkin when he got hired.
10:56I thought that was an accurate portrayal of Daryl.
10:59Do you agree with that?
11:00Yes.
11:00And so I've watched and I've listened as Daryl has seemingly come around to Todd Munkin
11:06just on the practices.
11:08Not necessarily comes around in the big picture, but every—it seems like him and a lot of these B reporters
11:12that were maybe skeptical in the beginning, they've since turned the corner on Todd Munkin
11:17because they respect what these practices have turned into.
11:20And listen, is a lot of this based off of the idea that Stefanski ran practices like Camp Cupcake?
11:25Yeah, I think so.
11:26I think that really gets into people's brains.
11:28So we asked Dan about that, Dan Lobby, who was on yesterday,
11:31and Dan talked a lot about how he feels a very different practice is happening.
11:35I've been really impressed, actually, because I think this is exactly what this team needs right now.
11:40They need a guy that's going to make them be on the field, that's going to make them practice.
11:44You know, Todd today said, hey, there's not going to be any veteran days off.
11:47If the medical staff says a guy needs to be down, fine,
11:50but there's not going to be just veteran days off in training camp.
11:53So, you know, I don't think that necessarily means the way Kevin did it was wrong.
11:57There was some level of success there with Kevin's system.
12:00But I think this team needed a little bit of a kick.
12:02I think they needed somebody to come in and be like,
12:05listen, we're going to play football for two, two and a half hours a day.
12:08These practices are going to be hard.
12:10They're going to be physical.
12:11And the thing I like about it is, you know, they are paced well.
12:15They are organized.
12:16You know, when Freddie Kitchens tried to do this back in 2019, everything was a mess.
12:19Todd has a better grasp of kind of how to do this.
12:22And so I think we're seeing really physical, hard practices.
12:25And I think it's exactly what this football team needs right now.
12:28So, one, I just love to hear that.
12:30And the camp cupcake versus guys practicing a lot,
12:35like, one, that's a personal preference.
12:37I just think if you practice with intent and you practice hard,
12:42I just don't see a real negative to that unless you push it to a degree that,
12:47that, you know, is unsustainable and the league prevents you from doing that.
12:51Well, and so there's, that draws another thing, right?
12:53Is, you know, when we had all those rash of injuries starting with MJ Emerson last year,
12:56nobody got on Stefanski for like, oh, they're just too hard.
13:00It's like, no, they're not.
13:01We're all watching these things.
13:03We're not going to blame them.
13:04But if Munkin does, in fact, have a couple injuries that pop up,
13:07I would imagine there's going to be a lot of these same media members that are going to be quick
13:10to be like,
13:10yeah, yeah, he's doing these things a little bit differently.
13:13He's going a little too hard here.
13:14But what I hear is Todd Munkin is instilling a personality or a mentality or a,
13:23what's the word we've always used that Kevin Stefanski's team never had?
13:27An identity.
13:28And, and yes, it is.
13:30He's making them in the identity of what he perceives himself to be,
13:34which is a no BS, kind of no nonsense head coach, but that's good.
13:40Like, I think the best coaches, the coaches that I like,
13:42like one of my favorite coaches ever is Arians because he could be point blank,
13:47the most blunt guy in the world.
13:49And if a player had a problem with it, he could say, well,
13:52then I must've said it the wrong way.
13:53Or he could, you know, like,
13:54I think there's this idea that every guy who's a tough talking coach is Rex Ryan,
13:59who's never admitted he ever did anything wrong in his life.
14:02That's like, that's bull crap.
14:04There are so many tough nose, you know,
14:06a hard-minded head coaches who also know when they can say, you know what?
14:11I got that wrong.
14:12And if that pissed you off, I'm sorry.
14:14I don't know for myself.
14:14It just kind of seems like he has a plan.
14:16And the part that I enjoy the most out of this is that it seems,
14:19and again, we'll have to see it for our own eyes,
14:21but it seems like at 59 years old,
14:24he's a guy that got the job and always knew what he would do with practices
14:27if he got the job.
14:28And there's two different types of people.
14:29When you get hired at that age and you've been passed over for so long,
14:32there's the person that had been always preparing to be the head coach
14:35and the person that gave up on ever being a head coach and had none of that prepared.
14:39And clearly Munkin's the first guy.
14:41He's the guy that is like, I've just been biding and waiting my time
14:44until I can actually do this.
14:46And he's had these camps ready for, this is 20 years in the making
14:49that he's had these camps ready to go.
14:51I just think this is, I think Todd can be who we were hoping Freddie would be.
14:58Like, Freddie was kind of, I think so much of what we thought of Freddie
15:02was because Baker said it or because, you know, somebody else said it,
15:06or he had one funny line in a press conference and there was just no substance there.
15:12Todd Munkin is a bit bombastic.
15:14He is almost flawed to a point when it comes to honesty.
15:20And he is very much just like, this is the way we're going to be.
15:23And I think those are things that a lot of good coaches have.
15:27Now, every personality style can succeed in the NFL,
15:32but each has their own trappings and each has things you have to have.
15:36I loved hearing Dan say this.
15:38I like hearing Daryl, who after the first OTAs had some concerns
15:43about how things were being run, kind of morph into, hey, they've got a plan.
15:48And you're starting to see that come together.
15:50Well, I think some of Daryl's concern.
15:52Because I think that's how it starts.
15:54I do think Munkin got some bad, I don't know, we'll call it just backsplash,
15:59off of being on Freddie's staff.
16:02And so then for people seeing as disorganized as it was when Freddie was here
16:06and seeing Munkin be a part of that,
16:08while understanding he wasn't the one that was calling the shots
16:10and how to do all that, I think in turn,
16:13I think a lot of people that are close to this thought,
16:17that was that bad.
16:18But does Munkin actually know what he's going to do?
16:20And some of those same people, including Daryl,
16:22are turning around and saying, no, he's got an idea.
16:24He's got a clue.
16:25When he gets a chance to run it, this is going differently.
16:28I also think we just, I think media members have a really kind of narrowed way
16:34of thinking about coaches and their personalities.
16:36Just to get back to the idea of like, you can be an old school,
16:40very plain spoken, blunt head coach,
16:43and still have the personal skills and the intellect to handle both
16:48a different generation of players and analytics
16:51and a front office that speaks like a Fortune 500 company
16:57and doesn't speak like a bunch of football good old boys.
17:00And in the same vein, there are plenty of guys,
17:02like I don't think Kyle Shanahan is a throwback, right?
17:06Nor do I think players love the guy personally.
17:09No.
17:09But they respect him, and that's pretty much where that goes.
17:13Sean McVay, by the way.
17:14Yeah, that's the goal.
17:14That's the goal.
17:14They just have to respect him.
17:15But McVay is a completely different personality of coach
17:18than Shanahan is.
17:20They both happen to just be genius offensive play callers and schemers.
17:24But like, McVay found his way.
17:26I think the beauty of hiring a guy that's 59 is he's already found his way.
17:31Now it is, does the way he found, does it work?
17:34And if not, can he adapt?
17:35And I just have every faith.
17:37I really do think that Todd Munkin is going to be our Bruce Arians.
17:40What Bruce was to both Indy that first year with Luck
17:43and then certainly in Arizona.
17:46And will they buy into it is the other part of this, you know?
17:48Like, there is something that comes with it.
17:49Like, there's that one video going around about Munkin
17:52has started having everyone do basically these, like, handshake lines.
17:55But they, like, run through them,
17:57and they just, like, give each other a high five
17:58is, like, a fun way to start the day.
18:00It's like, Dylan Gabriel, by the way, got very into this.
18:02You see the clip.
18:03Gabriel's really excited to get some high fives.
18:06Him and Schlesinger had this, like, dap-up situation.
18:11They're clearly buddies.
18:12I don't know if you caught that or not.
18:13They clearly like each other.
18:14Ever since he's moved to the number six,
18:16I think he looks six foot to me now.
18:18He looked like he was having the time of his life
18:20doing this stupid clap-up line.
18:21I think he's grown a little bit.
18:22Is that right?
18:23Yeah.
18:23He's looking taller than me.
18:24He might actually be five foot eights.
18:25Like, maybe the shoulders developed a little bit.
18:27He's looking like a real man these days.
18:29It's just such a stupid thing, though.
18:30And if you're a coach that isn't respected
18:32or a coach that doesn't have the room,
18:34I could see people laughing at that.
18:35I could see people jeering at that.
18:37But, like, for right now, it's working.
18:39If you start losing games, maybe the, I don't know,
18:42the handshake run-through, give-everyone-a-high-five line
18:46doesn't work the same way.
18:47But right now, he's got people going.
18:49Yeah, I think it's interesting.
18:51Like, Dan Campbell was a joke around the NFL.
18:54He started 4-19.
18:55What, the end of his second year is when they started putting it together?
18:59And now, you know, we spent three or four years wanting him to be the guy.
19:04Mike Vrabel was not a highly sought-out commodity as an assistant coach
19:08before he got the job in Tennessee.
19:10And even then, Tennessee was a bad job.
19:12And he went in and earned the respect.
19:15Conversely, everybody thought Kevin Stefanski was the second coming
19:18of Shanahan or McVay as things started to fall apart.
19:22And it took two years for people to go, hmm, maybe he's not a wizard.
19:27Maybe he is just a flawed head coach.
19:29I also think Stefanski got a lot of people to just kind of say,
19:32no, these practices are done right.
19:34Boy, these are great.
19:35Sure, everything's working.
19:37And it's like, I, there was multiple practices that was out there
19:40and I thought to myself, this doesn't seem right.
19:43This is what you're doing.
19:45This doesn't seem right.
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