00:00So we just had Coach Lance on, and I ask about the thing.
00:03We've got to be very careful, because I think people are being
00:06way too overreactionary to either thing that's said.
00:09You lose Myles Garrett.
00:11You lose 23 sacks.
00:12That's a lot.
00:13Jared Verse ain't no slouch.
00:15On the other side of that, I don't want to ask too much of Jared Verse,
00:19and I also don't want to overblow the leadership factor.
00:25Because speeches don't win a lot of games.
00:27I know that they're a nice story.
00:30Just win and won for the Gipper.
00:32Speeches don't win a lot of games.
00:34Do you really remember the speech in the third quarter?
00:37I don't know if they do.
00:39But it's an everyday thing.
00:41It's not just a speech before a game.
00:43It's not just what we see.
00:45It's an everyday way of carrying yourself.
00:48It's an everyday standard.
00:49That's why they call it that.
00:51And when Myles Garrett is so good, but he's not really with that program,
00:57so to speak, it makes it harder to draw everybody in.
01:00Whether it's fair or not, and you could always say, well, that's Myles Garrett.
01:03You are not Myles Garrett.
01:04You need to go, hey, man, I can say it until I want.
01:07He was here nine years.
01:08Very few people followed the program.
01:09Am I wrong or am I wrong?
01:10I'm right.
01:11I know I'm right.
01:13And Carson Swessinger being a second-year guy, he's part of that future.
01:17He's part of the team.
01:18He's part of the guys that have to take over leadership and hold each other to a standard
01:21if they're going to be able to do anything, especially this year,
01:24because you don't have leadership coming out of the natural position
01:27where it's supposed to come from.
01:28Because if you don't know who your starting quarterback is,
01:31how is that person supposed to lead?
01:33Until they know exactly who they've got to throw their weight behind,
01:36it's just mixed messaging, is it not?
01:38And then to a certain degree, while it's not something they're going out of their way to do,
01:43but to a certain degree, you are making yourself try to look better
01:48compared to the person you're competing against.
01:50So that can be confusing.
01:53Carson Swessinger isn't competing with anybody on the Cleveland Browns.
01:56Jared Verse, I think, can make his job easier.
01:58Yeah, here's the danger, I think, what people are doing.
02:01And I said last week, I thought that some were doing a disservice to Jared Verse
02:05because what are we doing immediately?
02:08All right, what was Miles not great at?
02:10Leadership.
02:10Ah, versus a better leader.
02:11All right, what was Miles not great at defensively at times?
02:15Stopping the run.
02:16Stopping the run.
02:16Oh, we got this guy who actually stops the run.
02:18Even though the numbers point to Garrett last year being elite against the run,
02:24but that doesn't get brought up.
02:25Elite's elite.
02:26So already we're looking to find things that he's doing better than Miles
02:30when we know for a fact he's not going to rush the passer better than Miles.
02:33And he's probably not going to get close to doing that at the same rate.
02:36And he's also not going to cave in the entire defense the way that Miles Garrett did,
02:42which made life easier on everybody else, including your corners.
02:46So, you know, we just got to be careful.
02:48Like, let's let him continue to get better.
02:50Well, when Barnwell says 14 and a half sacks,
02:53didn't he say 14 and a half last year he was predicting?
02:55I go, man, if Jared Verse had 14 and a half sacks,
02:58I'd be shouting from the mountaintops about Jared Verse.
03:02I mean, you go from seven and a half, I think, the most he's had in his two-year career.
03:06It's very short.
03:07I mean, if you get 14 and a half sacks, that's pretty outrageous.
03:11Yeah, yeah.
03:11But the only reason I say all this is because it was tougher to do so.
03:16And so I think because Miles is gone, while you lose so much production,
03:22I do think you can set some of the building blocks for success.
03:25I don't intend on them.
03:27I don't intend to say that I think they're going to be very competitive this year.
03:31I don't.
03:31I think there's still things that they need to address.
03:34I'm holding my breath on the offensive line.
03:36I know some people have got in and said, Kenny, you're crazy.
03:38I go, man, that ain't Caleb Williams back there.
03:41That offensive line in Chicago, I know there were some things that looked good.
03:44I thought Caleb Williams made them look better.
03:47And I can't just take Chicago's example and say, it's going to work for us.
03:50Like, you got to make all that work.
03:53And so I don't think that this year is going to be very conducive to a lot of output in
03:58terms of wins.
03:59But what I think it can do is you can lay the building blocks there for leadership.
04:04I think you can lay the building blocks there for creating a standard for your football team
04:07with all these crazy things that end up happening around your football team.
04:11Because I'm not going to sit there and talk about the end of Todd Munkin's career before he even starts.
04:17But we could get to the end of the season.
04:19We don't know what's going to happen with all this.
04:21We claim to and we don't.
04:22I want what's best for Todd Munkin.
04:24I want what's best for Andrew Barry.
04:25I hope they're both successful.
04:27And I hope they stay for a long time as successful people in this.
04:31But those guys could always go.
04:34Carson Swester ain't going anywhere.
04:36Jared Verse ain't going anywhere.
04:37You can get a new GM in here.
04:39That same guy is going to sign Jared Verse.
04:41It's going to happen.
04:42And more than likely, Carson Swester, I think, is just about a done deal.
04:45I know he's got two more years before he can sign some.
04:46But that's just about a done deal there.
04:48So, well, you might only have one year because it's four years.
04:50Either way, you have two guys there that can help lead your football team forward.
04:56And I think that it makes their job a little bit easier.
04:58So, someday you do intend on having that quarterback.
05:01And when you do have that quarterback, it makes him easier to come into the fold and lead.
05:05Because these guys are going to probably take them under their wing.
05:08That's what I'm hoping for.
05:09It's way easier said than done.
05:11We've all had these great best laid plans.
05:13But when we talk about leadership, leadership is not just some rah-rah speech before you head on out there
05:17in the field.
05:18It's not.
05:18Here's the other factor that's going to be really interesting to monitor.
05:23Jim Schwartz was an elite defensive coordinator.
05:27I think everybody had said that before he came in.
05:30Then we saw what the Browns were able to do.
05:33They went to another level.
05:34And Miles' game also went to another level.
05:37Now, would that have happened without Schwartz?
05:38Is that just the natural evolution of an elite player's game?
05:42Didn't he play for Joe Woods?
05:44Miles?
05:44Oh, yeah.
05:45All right.
05:45Well, I mean, he's always had good output, but never that.
05:50Sure.
05:50Go ahead.
05:50Right.
05:51And, you know, it's tough to say what would Miles have done without Jim Schwartz.
05:55But clearly, it worked.
05:57Like, over time, they clearly made it work to where they were a dominating defensive elite unit.
06:02Over the course of a few years.
06:04Which is saying something.
06:05It's tough because a lot of teams go up and down.
06:07And, you know, you saw that with the Ravens.
06:09The Ravens were a top five defense.
06:10That's true.
06:10And they were a bottom five defense.
06:12Yes.
06:12Okay.
06:12I mean, what materially changed there?
06:15You know, they've had coordinator changes too.
06:17But I think in this case, it's going to be tough.
06:20Like, if the defense, if you expect the defense to just take a step back just because Miles isn't there.
06:27It's going to be tough to isolate the variable on that.
06:28I don't think it can help but take it.
06:30Because, especially at the beginning of it, I've been so used to talking about Miles Garrett being the centerpiece of
06:37the game plan.
06:38How are teams going to treat the Browns at the beginning of the season with Jared Versa and not Miles
06:44Garrett?
06:45Like, what does it make?
06:46Like, Denzel being back there.
06:48That's why it's...
06:48I don't want to be in such a hurry.
06:50And I understand guys who are not in a hurry about trading Denzel Ward.
06:54I think it could possibly happen.
06:55I'm not going to be stupid about it during training camp.
06:57I think it could happen.
06:59But I can understand why every single coach would go, no, no, no, no, no, no.
07:02Because Denzel Ward, Miles Garrett made Denzel Ward's job easier.
07:06Denzel Ward made Miles Garrett's job easier.
07:08Well, he can still make Jared Versa's job easier.
07:10Okay?
07:10Because you could take away half the field when you have that guy.
07:12And hopefully you'll have a good year with Tyson Campbell there as well.
07:15I didn't mean to cut you off, but these are some of the things that I think about all the
07:19time when it comes to what type of defense we're going to have.
07:21Because you lose Jim Schwartz.
07:23I say the same thing about Jim Schwartz that I said about Bill Callahan.
07:28And some people took that the wrong way.
07:30You always have to talk about what you're going to do if you lose an assistant.
07:36People took that the wrong way and thought that Bill Callahan wasn't that important.
07:39No, Bill Callahan was extremely important.
07:41But what you do to replace a guy who was definitely always going to try to go coach with his
07:46son, what you do to replace a guy is almost as important as that guy being there.
07:52And they hired the worst possible replacement they could after Bill Callahan was here.
07:57That's what was the problem.
07:59So what do you do?
08:00Now that Jim Schwartz is not on the sideline for you anymore.
08:03He's not even in football because he's got to wait out the rest of his contract.
08:06What are you doing?
08:08Because this year, you lose miles.
08:11You lose a lot.
08:12But I don't think that that's just a giveaway and a big fat excuse for the entire year for Mike
08:18Rutenberg.
08:19So there's an immense amount of pressure on both sides of the football there.
08:22Offensive line is very important.
08:23And your entire defense, which the fan base has hung their hat on here over the last few years,
08:27where they've been decent, bad, bad.
08:30They've still had a good defense altogether.
08:33This is going to be a big test for them because Mike Rutenberg says a lot of fun things.
08:38I don't know what he's going to do as far as a defensive coordinator there.
08:41We've seen a lot of guys come in here and struggle.
08:43Yeah.
08:44And what will be the identity of the defense that doesn't have miles?
08:47Miles was the identity.
08:49And it all started with miles.
08:50And then it became this suffocating defense where because of the attention that miles was able to draw,
08:58it made life so much easier on everybody else.
09:01And so what is that going to be versus a really good pass rusher?
09:04He's just not.
09:05Is he going to be at the level this year where everything revolves around him?
09:10Can he be that effective?
09:12And will they be able to leverage that, you know, in a meaningful way on that defense?
09:182-1-6-4-7-4-0-92.
09:20Now we've got James Jackson joining us coming up at 9.
09:22We'll ask him about whether or not Miami thinks that they're in the lead.
09:25It seems that for a lot of cities, depending on where you're at,
09:27and I know that there was the local TV guy who said that the Cavaliers don't have a chance now
09:31and that they were out of the running for LeBron in Philadelphia.
09:36Someone should tell Kenny Atkinson that before he gets on the mic at Summer League.
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