00:00New England got a bump up, Chicago got a bump up, Jacksonville got a bump up.
00:04Like these teams that hired these first, not even first-time coaches,
00:07in this instance, I mean, Vrabel had been around the block, he'd been with Tennessee,
00:11but at least in the instance of like Ben Johnson for the Bears,
00:15there's an immediate bump up that happened in getting somebody new into the position
00:19for those three teams.
00:21Jacksonville went from a four-win team, the Bears had barely won anything in year one
00:24with Caleb Williams, and the Patriots were also a four-win team.
00:27The turnaround was drastic, and I think that's, it's not that that should be the expectation
00:33with Todd Munkin, I don't believe that, but I do think because that happened
00:36in three different spots last year, fans are going to highlight that,
00:40fans are going to go to that and say, where's our bump up?
00:42Yeah, I'll say this, there's, for Todd Munkin, because of how bad last year was,
00:50I think there is a lot of room for there to be just a natural bump up,
00:53because the common phrase that we all say is, well, how much worse can it be
00:57than last year, right?
00:58Well, even in the last two years, they've won eight games in two years.
01:01We all throw out there like, hey, if they can, if they have competent quarterback play, right?
01:06Like Spencer, you know the saying of, you don't want to be the guy to follow the guy?
01:11Yeah.
01:12You want to be the guy that follows the guy that follows the guy,
01:14but you don't want to be the guy to follow the guy,
01:16and part of that is because then the parameter is so high.
01:20Right.
01:20Like, you don't want to have to clear that bar, that bar is so high.
01:22Following Kevin Stefanski, that's the guy you want to follow.
01:24That bar is not high.
01:26That bar is non-existent.
01:27There was probably a point where you didn't want to be the person following Kevin Stefanski
01:30with the two playoff appearances, but the last two years of Kevin Stefanski,
01:33you're in a good spot to be.
01:35And listen, I will concede from the start of this conversation
01:38that it's the Browns, and you just never know,
01:42and it's the NFL, and you just never know.
01:44Albert brought it up like every year you're seemingly seeing at least one team
01:48fire a coach that was only there for one year
01:50and have that one-and-done situation play out.
01:51And so this is part of what's going against Munkin, I would imagine.
01:53It's just more commonplace just to have a coach for a year and fire him,
01:56and then we also talked about the three cities that had this big bump up,
01:59all things considered.
02:00So I'm willing to concede that, like, anything can happen with the Browns,
02:03and you just never know because we've seen this before.
02:04Yeah.
02:04But I just look at the situation, and I don't know how you could possibly –
02:11the phrase I've used is, like, Todd Munkin being Freddie Kitchens bad
02:14because all we've heard with Freddie Kitchens and that whole disaster was,
02:18yeah, he came in, he didn't know how to, like, game plan throughout the week.
02:21His practices were just all over the place.
02:23They may not have been sauced up.
02:25Right.
02:25It wasn't a good look.
02:26Todd Munkin is organized.
02:27I think that's obvious.
02:28He has a very different approach to practice.
02:30He's getting on guys.
02:31He's holding them accountable.
02:32He's stopping to make sure things are being executed appropriately.
02:36Like, I think we've already seen this spring that that's not going to be
02:38a problem for him.
02:39He's not going to be Freddie Kitchens unorganized,
02:41and that's, I think, a huge step in the right direction just from that
02:44standpoint.
02:44And so unless it's that bad week to week and his game plan sucks, but, guys,
02:49like, we've seen him – we have seen him put together offensive game plans
02:53in Baltimore that were brilliant, and he might not have the talent to do that yet,
02:56but that's all part of the equation here too.
02:58I think you're going to see a coach that certainly sets his team up
03:01to be successful, and he might just not have the dogs to do it yet.
03:04But I think as long as you're seeing steady progress from these young guys
03:08throughout the season, I don't think there's a set win total that has to happen
03:12here for Todd Munkin to be safe.
03:14I think you have to see the young guys progress.
03:16I think you have to see a team that's more competitive.
03:17That's maybe that bump up that you talked about.
03:19But the Browns have to understand the timeline they're on.
03:21Like, they traded the franchise's best player.
03:25They got rid of Miles Garrett.
03:26That's not something that endorses winning for a first-year head coach.
03:29Like, they embrace this rebuilding team that they have the moment they made that trade.
03:34And you could argue they were doing it before that anyway.
03:36Like, how do you hire a guy and then do that to him and then be like,
03:40ah, you know what, you had two hands tied behind your back.
03:42But, yeah, you only get one year.
03:44And the other part of this is the quarterback situation.
03:46The hope here is that Todd Munkin can get the most out of one of these guys or both of
03:50these guys or whatever
03:51and that maybe they find their franchise quarterback in Shador Sanders.
03:54But if neither of these guys is it, what sense does it make?
03:58And, again, I know it's the NFL and it's unfair and it might not matter.
04:00But what sense does it make to hire this guy, another offensive-minded coach,
04:04and not give him a chance to choose his own quarterback and stick him with two guys that were here
04:08before he even got here
04:09and one that he had no chance of even getting out of because of the contract situation
04:12and then being like, well, we're going to grade you off of these two quarterbacks who just weren't any good
04:16before you get a chance to choose your quarterback.
04:17Unless he's just a placeholder.
04:19Yeah, I think the argument you would make, and I think, well, I don't know.
04:24We haven't seen him coach.
04:25I have no idea if he's going to be good, if he's going to be bad, anything in between.
04:27I really truthfully don't know.
04:29But there is that world that exists.
04:30I'm not betting on this, but there's that world that exists that he is just the guy before.
04:35Let's say they have this big Arch Manning plan.
04:37He's the guy before, if you happen to get into the Arch Manning sweepstakes
04:40and you get the number one overall pick because obviously it didn't go so well
04:43in the win-loss department, even if that's not Todd Munkin's fault,
04:46well, you get Arch Manning and then all of a sudden more people want to be the head coach
04:49of the Cleveland Browns.
04:50And so maybe this big grand plan, and again, I don't think this is the plan,
04:55but play with me for a second, is the idea that if you have a more enticing roster
05:00and things start to come together and then you do have that quarterback
05:03and the job becomes more appealing,
05:05then maybe that's when Munkin gets shown the door.
05:07He gets the job until the actual job becomes more enticing to somebody
05:12that is better, more qualified, and more apt to do the job themselves.
05:16See, but what's interesting about that is like, who's that coach?
05:19Is it...
05:21Well, we don't know at this point.
05:22We don't know.
05:22Is it Nate Shieldhouse?
05:23Who's like second place for this job, apparently, or whatever?
05:26Like, is it one of these young guys?
05:27No, no, no, no.
05:27Wouldn't be that.
05:28No, wouldn't be that.
05:29I'm talking actually, like, it's not a roll-of-the-dice type coach then.
05:33This is a, hey, Vrabel was waiting for the right situation and wanted a quarterback.
05:37This is what this is.
05:38Hey, Ben Johnson, everyone knows he's a savant at this.
05:41He's waiting for Caleb Williams to be drafted and then he's going to go there.
05:44You know what I mean?
05:44Yeah.
05:45It's one of those type of situations where either it's a proven guy
05:47with a great track record already, or it is legitimately the next greatest thing at this.
05:52The guy that has turned over job offers and everyone knows is awesome
05:55and is just waiting for the right situation.
05:57You would then be that right situation because you would have drafted
06:00and had the right quarterback or the enticing quarterback.
06:03You'd have all these first and second year players that would be year two,
06:06year three, and playing high-level football,
06:08and you'd become an attractive place for a head coach to want to be.
06:12Yeah, I guess what I would say in response to that is just I think Tom Munkin,
06:16like, I think there's reasons to believe that Tom Munkin could be that guy.
06:19Like, everyone falls in love with the fancy upstart coordinator guy
06:23that's coming from the McVay tree.
06:26Or whatever, you know, the Kyle Shanahan tree or whatever.
06:31Like, we all fall in love with these guys, and we think they're the next big thing.
06:33You know, Grant Udinski and all these different names that have been floated out there
06:37during the Brown search.
06:38But, like, if you're telling me that there's supposed to be a coach that comes in
06:41that's, like, the real deal, that has the experience, that has all these things,
06:44sure, Tom Munkin's never been a coach at the NFL level.
06:48But there's too much variance with some of those young guys.
06:50Like, this is a coach who's true.
06:51No, but it doesn't have to be a young guy is what I'm saying.
06:53Like, if you're doing the placeholder thing, it doesn't have to be a young guy.
06:56But I'm saying, like, Tom Munkin has proven at this level.
06:59I mean, Dan Campbell's one season away from them being, what, three years since they made
07:02the playoffs and they're going to playoff win.
07:03And all of a sudden, the chatter will start to happen there in Detroit.
07:05Right.
07:06But what I'm saying is, like, Munkin has a proven track record of success at the NFL level
07:11as a coordinator that I think can translate to a young team that you're trying to sort
07:14of build this offense from the ground up with.
07:16Like, he has more experience with that.
07:18He was also on a team, by the way, where, no, he wasn't making all the in-game decisions
07:22to, like, go for it on fourth down.
07:24But he certainly, like, it wasn't like John Harbaugh was dialing up that fourth down play
07:30that they ran with the end-around reverse play with Mark Andrews.
07:33That was him drawing that up.
07:34So it's like he has experience with some of these moments.
07:36You're not going to, you might not find a better coach who has some of that experience
07:40under his belt than Tom Munkin.
07:41The experience coordinator thing, like, he gets a bad rap.
07:44It's kind of like the LeBron going to the Warriors thing.
07:46It's like, oh, this guy's too old to be a head coach.
07:48Like, he should be in a retirement home.
07:49What's he doing getting a job?
07:50But in retrospect, like, he's got more experience than most of these other guys that were even
07:54out there with opportunities.
07:56So, but I can't discount the idea that the thing that Kevin Stefanski had going for himself
08:00is that he won early.
08:02The only difference between him and every other coach that has existed here under Jimmy
08:05Haslam is that he won early.
08:07But if the Browns understand where they're at, does winning early necessarily matter?
08:12Like, if this team has fully embraced the fact that they're a real winning team, they have
08:17to know that they're probably not going to win a ton of games this season.
08:19Haslam put Hugh Jackson through 1-31 and then fired him eight games into the first year out
08:25of that.
08:26And he gave him bonuses for losing games.
08:28Well, but he wasn't winning early and he still kept his job for too long, you could
08:31argue.
08:31Two and a half years.
08:33That's the point.
08:33Like, if Todd Munkin wins like five games this year and just matches last year's win
08:36total, it's like, okay, he should at least get another year.
08:38Are we talking Munkin for two years or are we talking him for like, I don't know, five,
08:41six, seven?
08:42What are we talking about here?
08:43Okay, because even if he's not one and done, if he's two years, if he has the same
08:46timeline that Hugh Jackson had where people are like, oh, Jimmy might even find some
08:50comfort here, that's not good.
08:52Like, that's not successful.
08:53That's awful.
08:54That's a waste of Todd Munkin's time to, at the end of this, be like, I went two and
08:58a half years, won very few amount of games and just became a head coaching laughingstock.
09:03Like, that's not admirable.
09:05That's laughable.
09:06No, it's not admirable.
09:07I just think the idea that, like, there's so much resting on this year to define Todd
09:12Munkin.
09:12We probably wish you'd fire him after one year if that's the big grand plan, is he gets
09:15the Hugh Jackson treatment, where you're instructed to lose a lot of games, and then two and a
09:19half years into that, your job is just gone.
09:22That sucks.
09:23That's not great.
09:24Just fire me at that point.
09:25Give me the one year.
09:26I can put in my obituary.
09:27I was the head coach of a football team, and then I can go gamble on ponies or something.
09:31Well, here's the thing.
09:32I can go to the college ranks and get a good coaching job.
09:34I don't need to do this.
09:35I envision it as the timeline really starting for Munkin once he gets his quarterback.
09:38Like, if the quarterback isn't on this team this year, if they get Arch Manny next year
09:41because they lose enough games to be in that position, then it's like, okay, now we're
09:44really judging you.
09:45I don't know that he's got, I don't know that he'll have that grace.
09:47I hope you're right.
09:48I don't know that he will.
