00:00Last year, we brought Warren Sharpe on, and I got to tell you, he kind of laid things out.
00:04If you were optimistic about the Browns, you may have walked away from that conversation going,
00:08ah, maybe Warren's right. We could be in some trouble.
00:11And he was.
00:12And he was. And so right now, Warren Sharpe, who's got his 2026 football preview,
00:17it is out now from Sharpe Football Analysis, is on the Wisehart Wright.
00:22We make it right. Call Kyle Wright. Hotline. Hi, Warren. How are you?
00:26Hello, Warren.
00:26I am doing great. How are you guys doing?
00:28We are doing very, very good. All right.
00:30Deliver us the news on what you think the Browns will be this year.
00:34Because you set us straight early, and some of us chose not to listen.
00:37Because we didn't want to. We didn't want to have our heart broken in July.
00:42Well, that's totally understandable.
00:43And look, I think the Cleveland Browns are actually headed in the right direction,
00:48as that might be difficult to believe.
00:54Moving your stud, Miles Sanders, I think is a tough pill to swallow.
00:59But I actually think that this was, you know how they say, offense wins games, defense wins championships.
01:07Like, nobody would believe that having watched the Cleveland Browns last season,
01:11because you had a championship caliber defense, but an offense so bad that it couldn't get out of its way,
01:17that that defense was completely wasted.
01:20And so I think the thought process here is, we lose a stud defensive player,
01:27but we couldn't win with him, even if we had him.
01:31And so while it might sting to see him potentially have the chance to win a Super Bowl with the
01:35Rams,
01:36what we got back in return is going to set us up for something special in the future.
01:41And I think that they're actually building the right way here.
01:45I, you know, is the first, this is probably the potentially the first time that I could say that.
01:50The one question mark that I have is a head coach.
01:54I mean, I don't want to throw a cold bucket of water on you guys if you are massive Todd
01:58Monken fans,
01:59but I'm really just not sure how he is going to blend with the quarterbacks that you have right now
02:05and with the way that this team needs to win football games.
02:08But I think from a personnel perspective, I'm more optimistic this year in terms of the future of the Browns
02:14over the next coming seasons than I was entering last season.
02:19Warren, let's connect a couple of things here.
02:20The quarterback situation, we know what it is.
02:24When they traded Myles Garrett to the Rams, they get Jared Verse.
02:27Okay, he goes and plays the defensive end spot, but they pick up that draft capital.
02:31As soon as that happened, it screamed to me, draft a quarterback in 2027.
02:36Did you get that feeling when they traded Garrett, and do you have that feeling now?
02:41I did get that feeling.
02:43I do have that feeling.
02:45The quarterbacks that they had on the roster last year and the quarterbacks that they're entering the season with this
02:51year
02:51do not give me any sense of optimism that they can be a franchise-caliber quarterback.
02:59There were massive struggles, and I know that there's a lot of, you know, look, Shador Sanders as a rookie,
03:08playing with these weapons, playing with this team, you're not going to get a lot and say,
03:14oh, my God, we've got to trash this kid.
03:16There's nothing he can do moving forward to be any bit better.
03:20He can't possibly be a franchise-caliber quarterback because of what we saw last year.
03:24I'm not necessarily going to say that, but what I am going to share is that out of 45 qualifying
03:30quarterbacks,
03:31he ranked 45th in completion rate, 43rd in EPA per dropback.
03:35And I could go through all these other statistics that I have, touched on an interception ratio,
03:39which ranked 44th out of 45.
03:42He caused 29% of his own pressures, which was 44th out of 45 quarterbacks.
03:48We know quarterbacks do factor into the pressures that they bring upon themselves.
03:56He allowed, with his offensive line playing a role here, too, an NFL-high 51% pressure rate.
04:02So, obviously, that was the worst in the NFL.
04:06But I just don't – what I saw on film, what I saw on tape,
04:10I just did not think that Shador Sanders could be a franchise-caliber quarterback moving forward.
04:16There were some high points.
04:18There were some special moments.
04:19But if you are allowing a high level of pressure and you're creating it yourself
04:24and you are very poor in a completion rate perspective,
04:28those are some of the things that are hard to fix very quickly in the NFL.
04:33And it doesn't take very long for you to get washed out of the league
04:37or washed out of being the potential franchise quarterback if those things are occurring
04:42because your team is not going to win games.
04:44Sacks are drive killers.
04:47Turnovers and interceptions are game killers.
04:50And when you rank second to worst in touchdown-interception ratio
04:55and you rank as having the most pressure allowed in the NFL of any quarterback last year,
05:02you're not going to win with those two things.
05:05I don't care what else you're doing.
05:06And so that is something that they're going to have to fix this year.
05:09But I agree, for me, the eye is on the future.
05:13You know, the eye is on the 2027 draft and what this team can be with the weapons
05:19and the arsenal of draft capital that they're going to have.
05:22Warren, I would think Shador Sanders fans would come back and argue with you and go,
05:26look, the offensive line was horrible, so bad that everyone that was on the offensive line is now gone.
05:32They have an entirely new offensive line and the wide receiving core left a lot to be desired
05:37and they went out and tried to address that by bringing in at least two rookie wide receivers
05:42when you look at that.
05:43Is that a fair retort to the numbers that you just put out about Sanders,
05:49that he didn't have the offensive line and he didn't have receivers?
05:52Those are both valid excuses, in my opinion.
05:57If you look at the offensive line first, take a look at just Quinshawn Judkins.
06:02That running back, second-round rookie out of Ohio State, among 49 running backs last year,
06:08he ranked dead last in yards before contact per rush, but 16th in yards after contact per rush.
06:1549 running backs.
06:17So we're talking about an offensive line that was not creating any holes, any openings,
06:24anything at all for the running backs on the team.
06:28And I've got the stats of the five worst offenses and where the Browns actually ranked,
06:33and let me just give this whole history lesson here.
06:37If you look at yards before contact per running back run since 2012,
06:41there's 14 seasons of data.
06:43Across those 14 seasons, there are 448 teams that played a season.
06:49The Browns ranked 448 out of 448 in yards before contact per running back rush.
06:59They gained just 0.38 yards before contact per running back rush.
07:05The next closest teams were the 2017 Dolphins at 0.60 and the Raiders at 0.61 and the Raiders
07:14again in 2025 at 0.63 and the Jets in 2019 at 0.66.
07:20Those next four teams, teams number 2, 3, 4, and 5 worst, were 0.6 or better.
07:28The Browns were at 0.38, just a huge gap from even the worst teams in the league over the
07:36last 14 seasons.
07:38That is an offensive line stat.
07:40You talk about, you know, allowing pressures and taking sacks can be a quarterback stat,
07:45and it is viewed now more as a quarterback stat than it once was.
07:49But I won't argue with you whatsoever that the offensive line was a big-time problem,
07:54and they went out and addressed that with the ninth overall pick and some of the other moves that they
08:00made, as you alluded to.
08:01The receiving core was a problem, and they addressed that with the 24th and 39th picks in terms of Denzel
08:08Boston and Casey Concepcion.
08:09So they went out and addressed that as well.
08:11So I think that they are making moves to address the weaknesses on the roster.
08:17The big question is just what does that mean for Sanders at quarterback?
08:22How much will he improve with the better offensive line and the better receiving core?
08:28There's going to be a level of improvement there.
08:30Will it be enough to, you know, this is just in a nutshell what it means for Sanders personally.
08:35Will his improvement be enough to prevent the Cleveland Browns from using a top pick on his replacement next season?
08:43And that's what he's got to go out and do on a personal level this year is to prove to
08:48the team
08:48that they don't need to take that dice roll on a quarterback, that they can trust him in the future.
08:55I don't know that he's going to have success in doing that.
08:58I'll never root against players.
08:59I hope that he is able to have success this season.
09:02But the Browns have a lot of upside and we've already seen their willingness to go out there
09:08and draft quarterbacks and take those swings.
09:10I would envision them, even if, unless Shador Sanders has like the best year two bounce back
09:16of any quarterback in history, I think they're probably going to still take a swing on a quarterback next season.
09:22With the goals in mind, that quarterback would be replacing Shador.
09:27Warren Sharp joining us from Sharp Football Analysis.
09:30This is 2026 football preview out right now, and it's extensive and it's really good stuff.
09:35We haven't mentioned the name Deshaun Watson.
09:38Where does he fit into this for you?
09:43Look, I mean, right now it seems like Munkin has a better, you guys have the information better than I
09:50do,
09:50but I was seeing that there's better connection with Watson than there was with Sanders as it relates to Munkin.
09:58And Munkin is not going to want to come in here and start a quarterback who is, in his opinion,
10:05the second best quarterback on the roster.
10:07He's going to want to come in here and start the best quarterback on the roster with whatever he's got.
10:13And so that very well might be Deshaun Watson, but I've got big-time questions about Deshaun Watson as well
10:20and what he's going to be able to do for this offense and, you know, what he was doing when
10:26he was last playing,
10:27which was not very good.
10:30In seven seasons since 2019, he has never won more than five games in any season.
10:37His rank among 59 qualifying quarterbacks over the last five years is 59th in EPA per play,
10:4659th in sacks taken per pressure, the same exact bugaboo that is bothering Shador Sanders to a degree.
10:52That's Deshaun Watson.
10:5356th in success rate and in interception plus sack rate, also 56th,
10:58and 52nd in yards per attempt, 52nd in completion rate.
11:06So I don't think you can rely on anything from a film perspective as it relates to what are the
11:13Cleveland Browns going to do
11:14from a quarterback perspective in 2026.
11:17They're going to let that play out during camp and in the preseason games,
11:23and then they're just going to pick whichever guy is picking up the offense better moving forward,
11:28because I don't think you can look at the statistics here for Watson or Sanders and say either of these
11:34guys is better than the other one at this stage in time.
11:37That's something crazy to say when you see Shador Sanders and his play last season,
11:44and then you see the contract that they paid for Deshaun Watson and say that Deshaun Watson is not head
11:50and shoulders better than Shador Sanders off of a year that Sanders just had.
11:54But Watson has played 19 total games since 2020.
11:5919.
12:00That's like the equivalent of one season he has played since 2020,
12:04and he's been a disaster, as I mentioned, when he's been on the field over the last five years.
12:09So I don't think I have a lot of confidence in Deshaun Watson if he's starting,
12:15unless something massive has changed, which we'll soon find out in training camp and in the preseason.
12:21Speaking of the quarterbacks here, do you think there is a market for Sanders or Gabriel to be traded?
12:28Man, that's something above my pay grade.
12:32I'm really not sure what their vibe is there in Cleveland.
12:35I don't see why they would want to keep three quarterbacks that they drafted and played like that.
12:45I don't see the need for doing that.
12:47We're still trying to figure out why they drafted two last year.
12:49So we're all on the same page, man.
12:52Yeah.
12:53I don't really see why you would be looking to – if you could move them, I would.
12:58Right?
12:58Like, if you could – if there was a market to do something with somebody, I would be looking to
13:03do that.
13:04I just don't know, based on what we saw out of those players last season,
13:08that somebody would be willing to part with anything to get them.
13:13And then earlier you talked about Todd Munkin and the Munkin factor into this, into the offense.
13:17What should the – like, what's the fear?
13:19What's the hesitation on Munkin as he gets to be a rookie head coach in the NFL?
13:29He's walking into a tough situation here, in my opinion.
13:35If you look at the team for the Baltimore Ravens last year, which is kind of like his last opportunity
13:41to show what he is capable of.
13:43Obviously, when he had Lamar Jackson year one and they made some changes to the offense, that offense had a
13:50lot of success, got back on track.
13:53But when we're looking at where he was able to take that team, I mean, the run game was not
13:58very good last season,
13:59barring a few explosive runs from Derrick Henry.
14:02They were terrible in short yardage situations.
14:05They had issues with the offensive line.
14:07It had some injuries on the interior offensive line.
14:10You could try to blame that.
14:12Lamar Jackson was not able to be kept healthy.
14:16I don't know how much of his – he showed up on the injury report, I want to say, like,
14:21every single game from, like, week two onward, week three onward.
14:24So I don't know how much of that was, like, the riff with the head coach versus him being not
14:31100%.
14:32But I just think that there are some aspects to Munkin from a strategic perspective that are solid.
14:39But I don't know if it's going to pair very well with the decline in quarterback play that he is
14:45going to get here.
14:46We know that Lamar Jackson has had much better seasons than he did in 2025.
14:50We know, like, the apex of where Lamar Jackson can be as a quarterback.
14:55Last season was certainly not his best season.
14:57And we saw the offense as a whole fall apart, and the Baltimore Ravens didn't even make the postseason.
15:04This is a team in Cleveland that does not have as much talent offensively as the Baltimore Ravens had.
15:11So, you know, maybe he sort of holds serve.
15:15But – and I guess you guys might disagree with me here.
15:18But I thought Kevin Stefanski was a better coach than what he looked at the end of his tenure in
15:25Cleveland.
15:25I thought – I thought Kevin Stefanski didn't have a lot of tools to work with in Cleveland.
15:32And I think that he has more upside from a coaching perspective than what he was able to display there.
15:38My fear is that Todd Monken walking into what he's going to be getting at a quarterback perspective in Cleveland
15:44is going to be – have his ceiling lowered dramatically by that.
15:49And I'm not sure if his schemes or anything else is going to be able to compensate for that.
15:55So I just think it's going to be a challenge, honestly.
15:57All right, Warren, thank you.
15:58I want to remind everybody, sharpfootballanalysis.com is where you can get the latest right.
16:03I just want to make sure I get this right.
16:04For the 2026 football preview, you can get a digital copy online.
16:08Right now it looks like you've got a little sale going on too, right?
16:11Yeah, if you enter the code BROWNS over at sharp.football, you get 50% off the PDF
16:15or you can find the printed book over on Amazon.
16:17See, there you go.
16:18The Browns can make you a winner, right?
16:20Yeah, at least 50%.
16:23Sounds good.
16:23Hey, we appreciate your time.
16:25Always great stuff.
16:26Great stuff last year, this year.
16:27Hopefully we'll talk to you throughout the season too.
16:29Warren, thank you.
16:30Thank you, Warren.
16:31Thanks, fellas.
