00:00We have all these question marks at quarterback, right?
00:02We talk about the thin depth on the defensive line and with the DBs.
00:07But the special teams unit that flew up under the radar this entire offseason,
00:12like that unit was not just as bad or probably worse than the offense last year.
00:16And so there is so much meat on that bone that we got to tear apart and dig into
00:20and just, you know, get a true assessment of what our football team will look like.
00:26Of course, you know, we're not going to kind of like glance over it.
00:29But there is a quarterback competition.
00:31There are quarterbacks that's going out there.
00:33And, you know, whether you have expectations or just things that you are looking for,
00:37which are two different things to me, everybody has a vested interest in this game
00:42when it comes to the quarterbacks, when it comes to the offensive line,
00:45when it comes to certain units on his team.
00:47And so when we get ready to take these calls, I'd be interested to see what people think.
00:52You know, let's start with Deshaun Watson here because Deshaun Watson did get the nod.
00:57He did get is was named the starter for week one against the Bears.
01:01And when I think about things that I'm looking for from Deshaun Watson, you know,
01:06I want to see if this young man still has to feel for the game.
01:09I want to see if the timing of the game has not passed him by.
01:14Those are the things that I'm truly looking for.
01:16The reality of the situation is if Deshaun Watson, for whatever reason,
01:19was to be named the starter for the Cleveland Browns,
01:21he would be coming off two stints of 700 plus days since he has played football.
01:26Right.
01:26And so for me, I always think about the timing of things.
01:30I think about the speed of the game.
01:32And I can go all the way back to when he made his first ever Cleveland Browns debut
01:36against the Houston Texans to where injuries wasn't even an issue.
01:41But you can tell the muscle memory had taken a toll.
01:44You can tell that it was rust there because he hadn't played football for two seasons.
01:50And so if you look at the situation now, he's had a few more injuries
01:55and he's been off for a long period of time.
01:59We've seen during different moments throughout practice
02:02where the speed of the game was probably a little bit too much.
02:05We talked last week about it's much different when you start playing these games.
02:09The atmosphere is different.
02:10You got the national anthem.
02:12You got the flyover.
02:13You got all of the glitz and glamour that comes with the NFL game,
02:16even in a preseason.
02:17And so when those lights are on, when it's time to go out there
02:21and really see what you still have left, I'm interested to see if he has the feel
02:26for this game.
02:26I'm interested to see if the speed of the game for him is still there.
02:32All the quarterbacks have dealt with some type of pre-stap procedural issues.
02:38But when Todd Munkin talked about what he needed both of his quarterbacks to work on,
02:42he made sure he highlighted for Deshaun Watson,
02:44what I need from you is to stop turning the football over, play a little bit more on time,
02:49learn to let the ball go.
02:50And so to me, all that came back to, okay, Deshaun Watson is struggling with the speed
02:56of the game some, right?
02:57Things is moving a little bit faster than what he's accustomed to,
03:00and quite naturally so because he hasn't been out there in a while.
03:03Yeah, I think that's probably the biggest concern with Deshaun in general.
03:07I mean, well, maybe the biggest concern is like, is he even going to stay healthy
03:11for a whole season or can he make it through five games or whatever?
03:15Because obviously when he was injured in 2023 and then ruptures his Achilles in 2024
03:22and then misses all last season, like people don't – and that's on top of some of the
03:27injuries he dealt with in Houston, right?
03:29Like he tore his ACL at one point.
03:30So there's all this kind of lingering injury history that people – it's got to be part
03:39of the conversation with him.
03:40And so maybe that's the biggest concern if you're somebody who is hoping that he can
03:45recapture some version of his old self and play quality football again.
03:50But yeah, I mean, I always say the same thing you say.
03:54Like it's been six years since this dude's performed at a level where he was one of the
04:00best quarterbacks in football.
04:02And the fastest way to flame out in the NFL is to not keep up with the changing tides
04:08of the league.
04:08Like this league changes fast.
04:10You know, there's – that's why like Mike Vick being able to pull off what he pulled
04:16off after he went to prison for the handful of years he went to prison and then he came
04:19back and he found a way to still be a productive player and become a starting quarterback again
04:26in the NFL.
04:26Like that's pretty damn remarkable.
04:28You know what I mean?
04:29Like – and obviously it's different for Deshaun.
04:33Like he didn't go to prison.
04:34Whether you think he maybe could have been – some of these things he was accused of
04:39could have happened or not, that's not what happened.
04:41But he's been essentially unable to play a full season in this league for the better part
04:47of six years now.
04:48And you don't really know what you're going to get.
04:51So I think the number one hurdle he has to clear, Earl, is what you allude to.
04:56The number one hurdle he has to clear is can you keep up with the speed of the game?
05:01Can you adapt to what's changed in the six years since you were at the peak of your powers?
05:06Like that's the thing that he's trying to prove.
05:08And some of that's going to be with his athleticism, which you know is always a key part of his
05:12game.
05:12Some of that's going to be with throwing the football.
05:14I don't have much confidence that he's going to throw the football confidently in those settings
05:18because the last several times we'd seen him in those settings, it was ball in the dirt,
05:23ball too far out of reach.
05:25And I get it.
05:26Like at training camp, this is what I would say is like early on in training camp,
05:30we were seeing a lot more of those tendencies.
05:32And then lately he's kind of come back to he's been throwing the football with a little bit more confidence.
05:38But there's still like for every one or two good throws,
05:40there's still some of these throws that are just wildly off target.
05:44And I do think that goes back to the speed of the game piece.
05:47So, yeah, we got to see what this looks like with him.
05:50Listen, there's no position that this preseason is going to matter more for than the quarterbacks.
05:56We know that because they're using these games as a massive tool.
06:01That's why Top Monkey is starting one this week, why he's starting one next week,
06:05because he views these as important to the entire puzzle that is figuring out who his starting quarterback is going
06:11to be.
06:11So, this game is going to matter for Deshaun today in a major way.
06:15And in terms of how he performs, it's going to play into the end decision of who's my starting quarterback.
06:22And if he plays well, maybe it sets the stage for him to continue maybe having the momentum in his
06:28favor.
06:28If he plays poorly, all of a sudden the door is going to be wide open for Shador Sanders to
06:33do what we've talked about,
06:35which is like, hey, if it's close at the end of this thing, maybe you just go with Shador because
06:39he's got more upside.
06:41You know, for me, I heard Jonathan Peterlin the other day say he felt like Deshaun Watson is going to
06:45go out there and embarrass himself.
06:47He said, you know, you don't have much confidence that he's going to throw the football well.
06:50I'll be real.
06:51I don't really know where I am on a confidence meter when it comes to how he will perform mechanically.
06:57I just know the few things that I'm really looking for based on a situation.
07:01If anything, I have a realistic expectation that he will be rusty.
07:06There will be some kinks that he has to work out.
07:09But if you're slated to play two quarters, how long does it take you to get those kinks worked out
07:16before we see you get into a groove?
07:18And then what you look like to me, if he was to go out there and embarrass himself, I think
07:23that would be an indictment on the coaching staff.
07:24That's saying that the coaches is not putting him in the best situation to have success.
07:29That's saying that the development and the system around him is not putting him in a situation to where he
07:35can go out here and exploit what he do well.
07:37Now, part of that is player.
07:39But to use the term embarrass himself, if he was to embarrass himself, I think that would be a collective
07:45effort, not just on Deshaun Watson.
07:48Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
07:49I push back on that a little bit because I think your point, Earl, is more relevant to Shador.
07:56I think it's relevant to all of them.
07:59I think it's more relevant to Shador because he's the guy who's in year two who last year we saw
08:04some of what he could do.
08:07But we know there's still room to grow there.
08:09And so when you have a young player like that, like you're counting on the coaching staff helping him find
08:15that next level and find where his game can be better and improve himself.
08:18And he's put in the effort to improve himself.
08:20But what's so different?
08:21What will be so different between him and Deshaun Watson when it comes to that?
08:25Because the coaching staff's job is to make sure that each quarterback is put in a situation to improve themselves
08:31and to grow.
08:31Because Deshaun just might not be good anymore.
08:33He very well might not be.
08:35But that's why I'm not putting that on Todd if he's not good anymore.
08:38Like they could put him in the perfect situation.
08:41Well, maybe I'm just hung up on the word embarrass himself because when you say he embarrasses himself, to me,
08:47that level of horrific play means he wasn't ready to play on top of him like not being good.
08:54I just think that's a collective.
08:56But we'll see.
08:57And that's why I said expect the rust.
08:59You know, I just want to see the timing of it.
09:01I just want to see if he's still got the feel of it all.
09:03You know, the procedural issues was there with him as well, not just with Shador Sanders.
09:08And I want to see if those things is checked.
09:09To those issues, by the way, I told you that I had, you know, watched a lot of, you know,
09:14around the NFL with training camp and read some articles.
09:17Man, I wonder if we put a hyper focus on Shador Sanders being a young quarterback with all these pre
09:23-snap issues and all that different stuff to where he's not the only one.
09:27I was watching NFL Live the other day, and they were talking about the number one overall pick, Fernando Mendoza.
09:32Of course, out there in Vegas, they're saying Kirk Cousins is going to be your week one starter.
09:38Mendoza performed pretty good in this preseason game.
09:40But guess what Mendoza is having issues with?
09:43Getting in and out of the huddle.
09:45Relaying the information to the offensive lineman.
09:47Getting to the line, making the proper checks, and then getting the snap off in time and going.
09:52His coaching staff needs him to play faster than what he's playing.
09:55Again, they need him to work on kind of like the language of it and getting in and out of
09:59the huddle.
10:00And that's the number one overall pick.
10:02I read an article about Jackson Dart and how the offensive coordinator said, you know, Jackson got a lot of
10:07talent, and there's a lot of upside there.
10:09But he needs to learn how to read defenses.
10:11He needs to learn to look at what he's seeing.
10:14You know, Daniel Oufusi did a great job of highlighting the article with veteran two-time MVP, Lamar Jackson, who's
10:20in a new system.
10:21Had a practice to where he had like eight false stars or eight pre-stabbed penalties, etc.
10:26You know, when we talk about this when it comes to our quarterbacks, sometimes we paint the picture like they're
10:32just not picking up what the coach is putting down.
10:35Or, you know, they just can't figure it out to where at this point across the NFL, it is several
10:41quarterbacks that's dealing with the same thing.
10:43And it takes me back to what I said a couple weeks ago.
10:46We just don't know sometimes what's going on, what they're working on, why things are what they are.
10:51There have been coaches who have had players go out there and line up incorrectly on purpose just to see
10:58if the quarterback will put them where they need to be.
11:00And so, like, when we talk about these things, we can't make it seem like that Shador Sanders and Deshaun
11:06Watson are the only two players that's dealing with stuff like this.
11:09No, they're definitely not the only two.
11:11I mean, I would say, like, it's a league-wide thing for sure.
11:16Like, all quarterbacks are dealing with that type of stuff this time of year, especially when you have new players
11:19in there.
11:20And in the Browns case, like, it's an entirely new offensive line.
11:23So, you know, you're going to have some of those growing pains that come with it because you don't have
11:28the chemistry with some of these guys.
11:29So, it's not that it's not normal.
11:31I do think, though, like, there's the pre-snap stuff.
11:36There's the cadences.
11:37There's the reading of defense.
11:39There's, like, what are you seeing?
11:40There's being able to diagnose the coverages.
11:42There's a lot that goes into that.
11:44And my main point with Shador all along has been that it's not – it shouldn't be surprising to anybody
11:50that he might be a little bit – I don't even want to say behind, but that he might not
11:56be as advanced in seeing those things yet.
11:58I just – I think there's truth in that.
12:02I think that that's a problem for him right now.
12:03But I also think that that's very normal.
12:07That's pretty much what I just said.
12:09That's normal.
12:09Because of what you said, like, it's a new season and you're making adjustments, but also because he is a
12:14young player.
12:15I think that that does play into it that he's younger because, first of all, he had to learn a
12:19certain offense last year, and he was already drinking water out of a fire hose trying to play catch-up
12:23because he was so far down the depth chart.
12:25This year now he's competing for the starting job, but he still is learning a new offense, a new playbook,
12:30all these things, like what Todd Munkin wants to do, and he's getting acclimated to players.
12:35So for a veteran like Deshaun, it's probably a little bit easier – it can probably move a little bit
12:40quicker for him to get to that because he's played with other players before.
12:43He's been at other teams.
12:44He's seen different offenses and different terminology.
12:46So, again, my main point in all that is I think there's definitely truth to the fact that he's a
12:52little bit – he's still not quite as advanced on that part of it, but I also think that, like,
12:57that's totally normal, and based on these preseason games, if he goes and balls out, like, that's going to speak
13:02for itself above anything else that's going on.
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