00:00Brown starters though. Brown starters won. 34 unanswered, right? Like it was 10-0. Yeah,
00:06here's the score you need. The Browns won 10-0 yesterday. How about that? Let's go positive
00:11on a Sunday morning. The Browns won 10-0 yesterday, the Brown starters that is. And
00:17you know, the practice squad, the taxi squad, they lost 34-0. You know, I love the Daryl
00:24Ryder optimism, positivity this morning. Hey, Nick, how many more of these do I have
00:31to go? 19. Well, two more in the preseason and then 17 in the regular season, which
00:37will give you 19 more of these four quarters to go. I'm pretty confident there's
00:42going to be plenty of Sundays for me, day after games, I should say. Most likely
00:50with Ken and Anthony in the morning, on Monday morning. There's going to be
00:56plenty of time for me to be negative. This isn't it. This isn't the time to get
00:59negative. This is the, I mean, nothing's really decided. Yes, it matters as far as,
01:07you know, evaluation goes. But yesterday, in the grand scheme of things, yesterday
01:12didn't matter. What mattered yesterday was Deshaun Watson was able to go on the
01:16field. He was able to function. He led a couple of scoring drives. He made a couple
01:22of nice throws. You know, he got out of there unharmed, took a couple of hits, which
01:29he hadn't done in, in what, 22 months or so. That mattered yesterday. What mattered
01:34was Shador Sanders went and just made an absolute beautiful throw to Floria. I think
01:41it was 35 yards or so there in the third quarter. Okay, yeah, he airmailed an
01:46interception. Yes, Deshaun Watson got strip sacked. But like, in the grand scheme of
01:51things, what mattered was the Cason Concepcion looked electric on special teams as well as
01:56catching the football. Denzel Boston looked like he's the real deal. Dylan Sampson looked
02:02great. Quinshawn Junkins got a couple of pops right out of the gate and boom.
02:07Three in a row. Todd Munkin showed he's going to run the football. Three straight Quinshawn
02:12runs to open the game. And I think that what people need to understand when you're looking
02:16at what happened yesterday, you have to look at it through this lens. And again, I just,
02:20I'm trying to, I'm not trying to sell you anything. I just, I'm trying to be realistic
02:27and explain why now is probably not the time to lose your collective you know what over
02:35what you saw as far as a final score goes. Yeah, they lost by 24 points in the preseason
02:41opener. That stinks. Okay. And it, and, and I understand why. And we've had a couple
02:46of callers this morning. You can hop into 216-474-0092. Like I get why some fans are
02:52already like, I'm bailing on the season. I can't watch this. This is just going to be
02:56untenable and unwatchable. And I'm here to tell you, they have some good young players
03:01to really embrace and get excited about. And, and, and, and that's not a sales pitch from
03:07me. The quarterbacks are what the quarterbacks are. We can't change that now. Okay. It is
03:12August 16th. There's nothing we can do about the quarterback situation. I have said on just
03:20about every show that I've been on, I wouldn't start any of these guys. I wouldn't start Deshaun
03:25Watson. I wouldn't start Shadur Sanders. That's not a great solution though. Like what's the
03:29solution then? Quinchon in the wildcat? Well, hang on. Here's the point that I'm trying to
03:34make. Like Shadur, I think just needs some more time to develop. Okay. He's a
03:39young player that is doing things he's never been asked to do and he's getting
03:45better at it. There's, there is tangible progress there, but I, you know, the lesser
03:51of two evils right now, from my standpoint is put Shadur out there. There's more upside
03:55there. There's, there's, there's the, uh, the, the jackpot is bigger there if it works
04:03out. Okay. But like, he's, he's not there yet. He's not the developed at the
04:08level for him to be successful on the scale that Browns fans are hoping for to
04:16where he can win 10, 11, 12 games in a season, maybe win a playoff game or two
04:20or three or hopefully four someday. Right. But like, and I, that's not me tearing
04:26down Shadur. That's not me hating on Shadur. That's me setting a reasonable level
04:32of expectation for this guy. I am not caught up in the Shadur fandom and the
04:41social media lightning rod that he is both positively and negatively. I'm not getting
04:46caught up in that. I'm evaluating him strictly as the professional NFL quarterback
04:53that he is because that's the lens with which I look at Shadur Sanders. I don't look at him
04:58like he's a celebrity. I don't look at him as, as you know, he's just this, this, uh, uh,
05:07boisterous magnetic positive ball of energy. Okay. I'm not looking at him. I'm, I'm strictly
05:15looking at him through the lens of he's a professional quarterback competing for a job
05:20on the Cleveland Browns to be a starter. That's how I look at him. Do I think he's there yet?
05:26No, I absolutely don't. Do I think he can get there? Sure. He's shown me that he can by the
05:36differences that I see from last year when he wasn't getting a lot of opportunities
05:41versus what I saw in the spring from him versus what I've seen in this training camp and how this
05:47camp has evolved for him. He's getting better and better and better and better, but I still think
05:54there's a ways for him to go. I'd still rather start him though over to Sean, but if, if it
06:00were
06:00me, I wouldn't start any of these guys if I could help it, but can't help it. Yeah. This is
06:07the room.
06:07It's the bed that they, it's the bed that they made when they made the worst trade in the history
06:12of pro sports in 2022. And the sad reality is that they're getting ready to lay in it, you know,
06:16and it is just one week of the preseason, but man, my, my curiosity does just wonder when I watch
06:23some of these other games and I see Drew Aller give, you know, the Steelers competent quarterback
06:28play in his preseason debut. I saw Ty Simpson with the Los Angeles Rams, no starters, you know,
06:34no Puka Nakua out there for the Rams. Ty Simpson was dealing, you know, and those were names that were
06:40out there in the draft and Kyler Murray, you know, are already named their starting quarterbacks for
06:47the respective teams. It's just like you had an opportunity this past off season to address the
06:53most important position in sports and they neglected it. So for people like Cheryl on the phones that
06:58want to call in and be upset about the state of the quarterback room, like I think you do have
07:03the
07:03right to be upset about it too, because you, you don't have to just accept the mediocrity that they
07:08signed up for. Well, I thought yesterday you did get competent quarterback play. You didn't get,
07:16um, you didn't get excellent elite quarterback. Yeah. In the first quarter, it was competent.
07:22Like I thought Shador Sanders was competent. I know he airmailed the interception and I know we
07:27can't be dismissive of it. We've seen it in practice. Like I understand that, but again, I just,
07:33I'm trying to be fair to Shador. I'm trying to be fair and not get caught up in, in the
07:40final score
07:41and get caught up in all these things. I thought Shador Sanders looked competent yesterday. I thought
07:46Deshaun Watson looked competent yesterday. Competent is only going to get you so far. And in my view,
07:53competent gets them six to eight wins this year. Okay. That's where they are. If they had elite
08:00quarterback play to your point, okay, or all right, I'll, I'll meet you halfway. If they had
08:06something better than competent, how about average, you know, it would probably be a step above competent.
08:12They might be able to challenge four, nine, 10 wins and a potential wild card spot because I love this
08:21young core so much. Yeah. I can't remember the last time I have been this excited about a young,
08:30core of the Browns, maybe going back to miles Garrett and Nick Chubb and, and those guys Baker,
08:38like probably then I was pretty excited about that group of guys. Um, difference here is, well,
08:45there was an actual quarterback in there that was available to play right in, in Baker. Now,
08:50unfortunately his time here, it fell apart toward the end. It got real ugly. You know, he tried
08:57playing through injuries. He did not play well through those injuries, uh, did not have a good
09:02attitude, uh, on the field or behind the scenes. Didn't get along with a lot of folks was difficult
09:08to work with and we don't need to rehash the Baker thing, but you don't have a quarterback. And, and
09:14I
09:15know I'm right. And I stand by it when the obituary is written on the 2026 Cleveland Browns is going
09:25to
09:25be, if they only had a quarterback, they could have made the playoffs because I do believe this team is
09:31good enough outside of the quarterback, but the room is the room. We can't change it. Okay.
09:39Can't change it. Stetson Bennett, get the Rams on the phone. I mean, Anthony Richardson, get the Colts
09:45on the phone. Like I, I, I, I almost wondered, do you need to try something else? Like, like
09:50developing Casey Concepcio to Denzel Boston, like somebody should put that on a plaque inside
09:56Berea because that's what matters this year. And I hope that come regular season when, you know, it is
10:01live defenses that are actually trying to, you know, get after Deshaun Watson, not Chicago's backup
10:07defensive line. I wonder how it's going to look. And I just want to make sure that they can properly
10:13develop all of this really good offensive young talent that you're talking about. Cause I, cause I
10:18don't know come week five or six or seven of an NFL season when adversity strikes, if we're going to
10:25be able to have this like glass half full outlook, the honest to goodness, look at this room, right?
10:34You can't get rid of Deshaun Watson. You are stuck with them or with him. Okay.
10:40Shador Sanders is too young to give up on. I've bailed on Dylan Gabriel, but they, they love his
10:46football acumen and they love his, his professionalism and, and his presence. And,
10:53and I respect that. Okay. But he's not an NFL quarterback, but I do respect the traits
11:00that the Browns like in Dylan Gabriel and they see in him. Well, you also can't ignore. They
11:06like it. So, so if they like it, that means that they might not get rid of him. Right, right,
11:10right.
11:10And then Taylor green, he is just a young raw, uh, red shirt developmental prospect that
11:18maybe sometime two, three years down the road, something develops there. Right. Um,
11:25this, this is what they have chosen. Okay. This is what the Browns have chosen.
11:31One of it, even the Sean's in their control. Cause they're the ones that made the trade to begin
11:36with. Obviously they didn't have a crystal ball. And I I'm sure if you gave them some truth serum,
11:41they would not make that trade today, but it is what it, they can't get rid of them. They would,
11:46if they could, they can't. Okay. Uh, Shador, I would say on the trade market,
11:54could bring you the most. I just don't think people would like what the most is because I
12:00think the most is probably a sixth or a seventh round pick. And you have to include it. Like
12:05you, you would probably have to include a pick. So if you want a sixth round pick for Shador
12:09Sanders, you got to throw in a future. Yeah. If you want a fifth round pick for Shador Sanders,
12:13you're going to have to throw in a future. What's the point? Right. So like the, uh, again,
12:19I'm, I'm giving you the reality. I like Shador Sanders. That's their
12:23current reality. Like they, they didn't have to do this though. Right. They chose this. The NFL
12:27does not like Shador Sanders. The rest of the national football league, I don't believe likes
12:31Shador Sanders. And if you believe all the, I do have a problem with the anonymous stuff
12:36because to me, if you're going to be ripping a guy, put your name on it. Is this young core
12:41enough to get you through this season and allow you to just cope with getting through
12:49what they have at quarterback?
12:52We're back.
12:52We're back.
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