00:00I actually am excited about the quarterback battle.
00:02Oddly enough, I think it's going to be, it sounds weird to say, everyone loves the games.
00:06The games are the most important and fun thing.
00:07I get that.
00:08But I think we're going to have just as much fun with the practices and with this preseason
00:12in particular as you will when you go, hey, it's week one against Jacksonville.
00:17Yeah, and it's weird.
00:21Usually, I am over the Browns nonsense, and I'm a little annoyed.
00:26It's really been the last two years.
00:28There was a time where I was more on the rosy, kind of sunshiny side of the Browns kind of
00:34conversation, and the last two years have happened, and the way there's been what I felt have been
00:40some disingenuous or just the failure to meet expectations and goofy moves and bad moves
00:47and some questionable drafting earlier in this tenure, all those things have come to a head.
00:53But as I start to look at this team now, I am a little bit, it's weird because Deshaun still
01:00could
01:00end up being a starting quarterback.
01:01I kind of think we're back to a point where there's a lot of guys here I'm going to be
01:04rooting for this year, and then I'm hoping that we can kind of upset the apple cart in the NFL.
01:10So if it was Shador starting, I think a lot of people would be where you're at, where you're
01:13just trying to watch a lot of fun players.
01:14You're watching them develop.
01:15There's not too much pressure, all things considered.
01:17It's the NFL, so there's always pressure.
01:19There's not too much attached to it, and you kind of just get to see what happiness brings
01:24you each week, right?
01:25But with Deshaun starting, I do think there's a sense of there's pieces to enjoy, but as
01:30a whole, I'm not necessarily sure they're the most rootable group.
01:33Yeah, it's going to be interesting.
01:35I'm not sure what's going to give out.
01:36If the team is succeeding, Deshaun is playing poorly, but like Swessinger and Mason Graham and
01:43EMW, as we've called him, and Denzel Boston.
01:46If these guys are kind of showing not just to be good football players, but the same
01:51guys that we see them be off the field, it's going to be really interesting to see the push
01:55and pull of this, because again, the quarterback is the most visible part of this thing, and
02:02if people just don't like Deshaun, I don't know what's going to change there, other than
02:05again, an extreme amount of winning.
02:07But it's weird.
02:08I think between Munkin and the other guys, I do think they're easy to root for.
02:15And I think you said expectations.
02:17I think expectations are a big thing.
02:19No one has any expectations for this team.
02:23I'm looked at as a homer, because I've said they might be able to win eight games this year.
02:27Vegas has them at five and a half wins.
02:29Mack had them at 12.
02:30Mack had them at 12.
02:31Although I don't know if he's gone back on that or not.
02:33Have you gone back on that, Mack?
02:35I mean, I think after the mile was straight, I said that they would go down a couple of
02:38wins, so I think I said 10.
02:39I don't remember that.
02:41Yeah, I don't remember that either.
02:42But again, we say a lot of stuff.
02:44He's at 10, though.
02:4510's still pretty high.
02:46That's all right.
02:47Now, this is good, because he can be the upper limit, and then I'll look reasonable at eight.
02:51Is that right?
02:51Yeah.
02:52I'm not being a bronze homer.
02:53I would never say 10 wins.
02:55Yeah, yeah.
02:56I don't know.
02:57I'm fascinated where people go with this team and what they do, but there is that tug and pull
03:01attached to it all.
03:02If Deshaun starts week one, how much excitement is it?
03:05You can't just only root when the defense is on the field.
03:08I want to root for Denzel Boston.
03:10I want to root for all these wide receivers, and part of why if Deshaun starts to look good,
03:14it'll be because I think these wide receivers, and Harold Fannin will continue his good play,
03:18and Judkins will continue what he did off of year one.
03:20All this goes into the pot.
03:23It's just fascinating that it's like watching the Guardians and being like, I hate that starting
03:26pitcher, but I'm going to root for the team.
03:28It doesn't make sense.
03:29I mean, we did with Trevor Bauer for about five years.
03:32I liked Trevor Bauer, though.
03:33I knew what a pain in the ass he was.
03:35I liked Trevor Bauer.
03:37Then when he went to the other teams is when he started to really showcase himself as...
03:40I mean, he always showcased himself as a goober.
03:43No one's getting around that.
03:46The allegations didn't come until after he went to different teams.
03:49Listen, it's really tough when your teammates hate you.
03:51It's just tough.
03:52It really is.
03:52That might be the best example we got, though.
03:54Yeah.
03:55How did you watch Guardians games when Trevor Bauer was on the mound?
03:57Uh, I rooted for the whole.
03:59I rooted for the everybody else to succeed.
04:04And if Trevor also happened to succeed, that's okay.
04:08I would ask some Cavs fans, not yourself, but some Cavs fans, how did you root for the
04:12Cavs if you hated the Harden trade and didn't like James Harden?
04:14That's still my team.
04:16Yes, but every time James Harden got the ball in his hands, there were Cavs fans that were
04:20rooting for him to basically fall down and hurt himself.
04:22Yeah, I don't know that there were...
04:24So, I know the morning show has said something about that because I didn't like the Harden
04:28trade.
04:28I was rooting for the Cavs to fail, which I think is just hack.
04:33Like, I think that's...
04:33Not only is that unfair, like, I think the James Harden trade was a bad trade.
04:37I still don't think it's a great trade.
04:39Yeah, but the game three, when he scored the final three possessions of the game at the
04:44seven points in the final two minutes for the Cavs to win that game, there were people
04:47that were like, if only it would have happened to anybody but Harden, which I thought was
04:50lunacy because your team, the Cavs won that game because of Harden's antics at the end.
04:55Here's what he was able to do.
04:57The difference with Harden, though, is that's a guy that you just didn't like.
05:00You didn't like it because of what his legacy, maybe his legacy, what his reputation is and
05:05because of who they traded for him.
05:07With Deshaun, it's just, it's four years of failure.
05:09There's just so much baggage there.
05:12You know, like, even Bauer, things didn't really go off the rail for him until he started,
05:17like, throwing the ball out into center field and Terry Francona had to say what the bleep
05:20is wrong with you.
05:21That's when he was done with him, yeah.
05:22But, like, there was enough good there.
05:24We've just never experienced the good of Deshaun.
05:27Like, he's never played good enough football consistently.
05:30He's never been healthy.
05:32He's never really been available in any real way to Cleveland.
05:37But again, I'm saying, like, I don't know what it's going to take for me to root for Deshaun.
05:44I'm very much against the allegations and the lawsuits of how he treated women.
05:49Very much against that.
05:50That hasn't really changed.
05:52I'm also incredibly annoyed at that trade and what it did to that era of Browns football,
05:57which was just taking off.
05:59Yeah, for me.
05:59When it was crashing to the side of the...
06:01All you need is football reasons to go ahead and not like Deshaun Watson.
06:05Yeah, but you don't even need the other stuff.
06:06You can dislike him for more than that.
06:07You can, but you don't even need the other stuff is what I'm saying.
06:09Like, for myself...
06:10But why spare it?
06:11Well, I...
06:12Because I've told you before, I don't care what happens off the field.
06:15I'm just not that type of person.
06:16But I do care about what you do on the field.
06:19And I do care about what Deshaun Watson hasn't been able to pull off.
06:22And how the last five years of our lives, watching Browns football has been miserable.
06:26And the number one reason why is because of the Deshaun Watson deal in that trade.
06:30But I do think I can...
06:31I think the Browns can be much easier to root for right now, even if Deshaun is...
06:37Because here's the thing.
06:38The same thing you said about Deshaun, which is for you, if Deshaun's out there,
06:43it's still a hard watch, a hard relate, whatever.
06:46I think there are people who say the same thing about Deshaun.
06:49There are people who say, if Deshaun's a quarterback, this is a much easier team to root for.
06:53But if it's that Deshaun kid...
06:55Now, I think that's asinine.
06:56I think trying to treat those two gentlemen the same way is ridiculous to me.
07:01I think there are Deshaun supporters listening right now that are going to ask themselves,
07:04how does Lima watch these games if Deshaun is starting to look good?
07:07Yeah, many people are saying...
07:08Where's his tug and pull?
07:08That if Shador's the starter week one, Lima's rooting for them to lose.
07:13Many people are saying that.
07:16Corners of the internet.
07:17Yeah.
07:17But it's just an interesting...
07:19And me, Nick Wilson.
07:19It's just an interesting...
07:21How do you do this?
07:22How do you go through this when you have so much football disdain built in for one person already,
07:28but you want to see the team thrive?
07:30You want to see the team, obviously, play good football.
07:32Do we just push that aside?
07:33Is that all...
07:34We're just going to get to a spot where we just have to push that aside?
07:36I think...
07:37I just think at some point, if the Browns...
07:40If we're seeing Carson Swessinger and Emmanuel McNeil-Warren and Jared Verse and on the offense,
07:46Denzel and Casey Neuricepcion-Concepcion and Fannin and that offensive line's playing well,
07:53I hope this is the kind of year where...
07:56Again, I understand whatever cynicism you have about either quarterback,
08:00but I hope you can look at this and go,
08:02all right, we might not be where we want to be,
08:04but man, can you see where this is going?
08:06Yeah, and that's got to be a big part of it, right?
08:08We're playing for 2027, and we're playing for 2028 and 2029.
08:12That's the big goal.
08:13But you might end up being playing for 2026.
08:15But there still are a lot of people that are playing for 2026 in the process.
08:18There's a lot of jobs in the line.
08:19There's just a lot of talent here outside of the quarterback spot,
08:23but there's a lot of talent here.
08:25And so it is, again, I think it's this weird catch-22 of,
08:29man, Shador's the starting quarterback.
08:30You're going to have an underdog feel to it.
08:32This feels like the kind of team Cleveland's gotten behind before
08:36and kind of gotten behind the idea of,
08:38well, nobody nationally thinks anything of you.
08:40Well, bleep those people.
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