00:00You know, it's weird, because I had no problem giving Deshaun Watson his flowers yesterday.
00:05Deshaun had, by everybody that was out there, the best practice he's had, at the very least,
00:12since going back to minicamps.
00:13I had one person tell me, best practice is a Cleveland Brown, and I kind of wanted to
00:19wait and see.
00:20All right, what's the narrative out there?
00:22Because again, the last time, and I don't know how you feel about this, the last time
00:26we had talked about the quarterback spot before yesterday, it was, man, Shador is really
00:31taking advantage of this.
00:32Right.
00:32He had been the only quarterback to that point that had gone against the ones and had the
00:37better day, and it happened in the last two practices.
00:40So I was kind of keeping a watchful eye on this, and so I thought it was interesting.
00:43Mike Garofalo was on SportsCenter today and gave his thought on who will start week one.
00:49I've been on this since February.
00:52I was in the scouting combine.
00:53I had people telling me, Deshaun Watson's going to be the starter for the Browns.
00:56Like, that's the worst-kept secret in the NFL back in February, and then all of a sudden
01:01you started to see the way they played out in the spring and some of the answers that
01:03you got from the coaching staff and others there.
01:06It's going to be Watson, which is amazing because owner Jimmy Haslam had said before
01:11that they, quote, took a swing and a miss with Deshaun Watson.
01:15Made it seem like it was over, and now all of a sudden here's Watson coming back here.
01:18He's still got to fend off Shador, and he's still got to practice well and play well
01:21in the preseason, but my educated guess is going to be Deshaun Watson.
01:26All right, so nothing that Mike Garofalo said there felt new.
01:30It felt like he was reflexively going back to his take before training camp started.
01:36So then I turned on the Morning Boys today.
01:39Good show today.
01:39Didn't hear enough shots about me, but that's okay.
01:41That's their show.
01:42It's not always about me, but it's nicer when it is.
01:44Mary Kay Cabot joined the Morning Boys today, and basically threw out this line
01:50about who, if the season started tomorrow, she believes would be the starting quarterback.
01:54If the season started tomorrow, I think it would be Deshaun.
01:58Again, I could be wrong about that.
01:59I still think it is a competition.
02:01I don't think Todd is going to call it yet, but I think he's been dropping some breadcrumbs
02:06along the way here and there.
02:07He talks about you have to be elite at cadence if you want to be an elite offense, and which
02:13of those two guys is more elite at cadence?
02:16Deshaun showed yesterday in drawing Jared Burst off sides twice on fourth down that he's
02:21elite at cadence.
02:22He used six of them, I'm told, to do that.
02:25So there are certain things that he is ready to do right now that I think Shador is still
02:30learning.
02:31All right.
02:32I'm just going to say this.
02:33I'm not trying to be tinfoil hat guy.
02:35I don't think it's a coincidence that Deshaun Watson had his best set of practices in the
02:42entire camp on pretty soft 11 on 11s, by the way, and seven on sevens, and all of a sudden
02:48we've had this renewed push for Deshaun Watson.
02:51I don't think this was an accident.
02:53I've heard this, you know, what, about seven times in the last 12 hours or so.
02:58Okay, so I'm not trying to put on my tinfoil cap here either, but are you kind of implying
03:02that maybe this is a fake fight?
03:04Maybe this is a fake competition, and that's been my fear with this from Jump Street, is
03:08that this is not a real competition.
03:10We had those reports before minicamp even opened up in the spring that Watson was the
03:16leader in the clubhouse.
03:17You heard Todd say, of course I'm open for a clean slate for Deshaun and all my players,
03:23and it definitely feels like the more the days go on, we're getting primed for Deshaun
03:29Watson.
03:30So here's the thing, if you want to put on, if your spidey senses are telling you put
03:35on the tinfoil hat, I'm not going to talk you off the ledge because the burden is on
03:40the proof of a new head coach and this organization to prove the machinations with which they ran
03:47last year's quarterback competition, and I'm going to say that in quotations, that those
03:53are a thing of Kevin Stefanski and not of Todd Munkin.
03:56So even though I'm a big fan of Munkin the Maximizer, the Browns themselves have been
04:00so steadfast in Deshaun Watson, Deshaun Watson, Deshaun Watson, that at some point you have
04:06to prove to me that this is just merely a coincidence, that this is more of a media thing
04:11the last 12 hours and less a Browns thing.
04:15I don't know that it is just a media thing though, because where are these media people
04:19getting this from?
04:20You know, where is Garofalo getting this from in Indianapolis?
04:23Where did Mary Kay hear that?
04:26Obviously here yesterday and then on the air with Ken and Lima this morning.
04:30Like, where is this stuff coming from?
04:32It could be them just heading back to their, I think Mary Kay expected Deshaun to be the
04:37starter.
04:37Garofalo has been on the record.
04:39Right.
04:39There's a chance that there's just the first time they were able to be able to reaffirm the
04:44thing that they've thought, you know, for the first time in about a week we've been
04:47able to say this.
04:48But is it that right now a good Deshaun Watson day means more to the Browns than a good Shador
04:54Sanders day does?
04:55Because that's kind of how I read this, where Watson has one good day of six so far and everybody's
05:02ready to anoint him the starting quarterback, whereas the five days prior it was, well, neither
05:07of these quarterbacks have looked stellar and nobody's pulled away.
05:09I think there's an obvious thing here that we don't have to put the old tinfoil hat on.
05:13Part of why I think Deshaun has been put in this power position here, the pull position
05:19for the quarterback is, I do think that they want to use Deshaun to push Shador as far as
05:26Shador will go.
05:27Sure.
05:28And so trying to give him no quarter, and I think anybody who was out here until yesterday
05:32would say, Shador has looked solid and consistently solid.
05:36So it looked like Shador was running away from this thing.
05:40So I could also frame any of what we heard today after one good practice from Deshaun as
05:47damage control from the Browns who want to, again, continue to have this thing pumping
05:50in and churning as to continue to keep Shador on whatever righteous path they think they
05:57need to keep him on.
05:58Because it was loud yesterday, wasn't it?
06:00There were so many people.
06:02It felt like everybody that you could read, listen to, follow on social media was just
06:07talking about what a great day it was for Deshaun Watson.
06:10And it's like, well, let's also not forget that defense was without four or five starters
06:15that were injured.
06:16It was a little bit of a softer 7-on-7, 11-on-11.
06:19I don't know.
06:20It just felt like everybody was kind of going out of their way to really prop up Deshaun
06:25Watson coming into today's practice.
06:28So I don't know what it means, Nick, but it definitely makes me nervous.
06:32I will say that.
06:33I think the most likely thing is they felt the narrative about the quarterback position
06:37getting out of control.
06:38They're not ready to make that decision, and they wanted to pull it even optically.
06:44I still think a lot of what we've heard in the last 12 hours is a lot of, again, just
06:51trying to corral that narrative.
06:52Like, level the playing field, because there's been so much Shador.
06:55There's been a lot of the fact that just these quarterbacks aren't great.
06:59Like, that's really been the overarching sentiment until yesterday, where you hear that, okay,
07:04it was really Watson's day.
07:06There were no interceptions.
07:07That's been an issue for him throughout camp so far.
07:10So, yeah, maybe they did just want to level the playing field going into today, which
07:14is the final day of installs, by the way.
07:16So now maybe some of the excuses for both of these guys fade a little bit, because everything's
07:21going to be installed after today.
07:22I know Deshaun fans get very reflexive here when you start talking about the Browns trying
07:27to rig this for Deshaun.
07:28I still think the most likely thing here is the Browns are trying to use the history of
07:34Deshaun and the, meaning like the Houston side of things, and the contract is a way to
07:39keep him, to keep pushing Shador to see if they can keep him growing at the accelerated
07:44pace that they've had this summer.
07:47So I look at it as they want to make sure in that locker room people know that Shador
07:52earned it when they do turn the keys over to him.
07:54But you can't deny there's been a renewed push for this idea of Deshaun as a starter,
07:59and you just can't ignore, it can't be coincidental it happened after one good practice from Deshaun.
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