00:00I don't even know where to begin this morning, Nick.
00:04I don't even know what to do with that yesterday.
00:08I don't think the Browns know what to do with that yesterday.
00:15We do have a lot of ground to cover.
00:20And a broad conversation to be had.
00:24Not just about this whole Deshaun debacle, and that's what it's been.
00:27From day one.
00:31But Shador Sanders, once again, lecturing the media about respect and how they should be treated.
00:42And I do think that Shador has a point, and I do want to talk about that this morning as
00:48well.
00:49Some stuff happened with me on Friday on social media that got started by people that are associated with Shador
00:56Sanders.
00:59And so I would say the call's coming from inside the house, Shador, before you start lecturing the media about
01:05respect.
01:07Because it's our job to inform the fans about your performance, express our opinion about your performance.
01:17And I got news for you.
01:19You have a severe misunderstanding of the media's role in things.
01:25It's not our job to cheerlead for you.
01:27It's also not our job to root against you, and we don't.
01:31But you're stuck in this mindset that that's all we do is root against you.
01:35And same with Deshaun.
01:45The boos were unmistakable yesterday.
01:48I don't know if they were deserved or not.
01:52But I think Nick Deshaun confirmed for us everything that I have been talking about, and that is the dude
01:58is washed.
01:59He looked that bad, and this is no disrespect to the players that were on the field for the Buffalo
02:08Bills.
02:09But let's just say that was not the best the Buffalo Bills had to offer from a roster standpoint.
02:16And Deshaun Watson looked that unplayable.
02:20Darryl, you probably came into yesterday hoping to see a couple things, and one of those things that you were
02:28probably hoping to see was the expected quarterback, week one starting quarterback, for the Cleveland Browns, go out there and
02:37play well against Buffalo's third and fourth stringers in the third quarter.
02:41That didn't happen.
02:43He had a 14 quarterback rating coming out of that game.
02:47And that's not even the headline this morning, Darryl Ryder.
02:50The headline this morning is about what happened after the game, where he all but admitted his disdain for this
03:00fan base that clearly has that same feeling towards him based on the reception that he got yesterday when he
03:07came out to play the third quarter and then during the monstrosity that he put on display on the field.
03:13It feels right now to me as we sit here at 8.05 in the morning on a Sunday that
03:22the train is off the tracks again and it's week two of the preseason.
03:27It is literally preseason week number two.
03:30The calendar has not flipped to September.
03:32And I know we were all supposed to trust in Todd this year and pull out our brown and orange
03:40colored pom-poms this year and really get behind this new chapter of Browns football.
03:46But very quickly, we were reminded how difficult that's going to be because they refuse to move past the worst
03:55trade in the history of professional sports.
03:58So I honestly don't know where they go from here.
04:02I don't know where they should go from here.
04:04If you're a Browns fan this morning and you're feeling anything on the gauntlet of emotions this morning, you're allowed
04:10to feel that way.
04:11I don't know where they go from here, Daryl, but I do know for sure they've done this to themselves.
04:17They've made this bed and boy, are they laying in it.
04:22Like you have the players against the fans right now is really what it is because I do think there
04:28are a lot of guys in the locker room right or wrong that have Deshaun Watson's back.
04:33So we are at a juncture right now because the organization wouldn't move on from that wildly unlikable figure this
04:41offseason and they actually tried soft launching him back to the fan base.
04:47It has backfired in epic proportions.
04:50This was a plan months in the working.
04:53They've tried priming Browns fans for this since February and it's been rejected in a way that I've never seen
05:00a project be rejected before.
05:03The Browns continue to be the gift that gives nothing to their fans and that's a problem and they are
05:11an ownership group and a franchise that continues to ask for more and more and more from their fans while
05:22giving nothing back.
05:31They asked Browns fans to set aside their morality to support this man, to be the face of this franchise
05:44and the last five years have been a train wreck.
05:53And I was convinced going into that game, Deshaun was QB1.
06:00Todd Munkin was going to name him either this afternoon on Zoom.
06:05By the way, Todd Munkin is going to talk on Zoom at 3.30.
06:08I'll be posting highlights accordingly.
06:15Or he was going to do it Monday, going into the Thursday night Patriots game.
06:23But now, and I got to tell you, I have been part of way too many of these cluster messes
06:35that the Browns often find themselves in when it comes to press conferences.
06:41Whether it's Carmen Policy and Al Lerner talking about bottles not packing much of a wallop raining down from the
06:48upper deck.
06:49Whether it's Mike Holmgren stealing $40 million and telling us how it's not business as usual and don't go calling
06:58him for the playoff tickets that we never needed when he was here.
07:04Whether it was the complete and utter disaster of Johnny Manziel and the complete lack of respect that that train
07:13wreck had.
07:15Whether it was the monster of Baker Mayfield that they created because they refused to tell their players no to
07:23anything.
07:23They refused to continue, or they continue to refuse to set boundaries for their players.
07:30So you don't get to cry about the monsters that you create by, as an employer, not setting boundaries for
07:39your players.
07:41You're not setting boundaries for Shador Sanders right now.
07:45And you're in danger of creating another monster there.
07:49And you're going to suffer the consequences of that.
07:54But this Deshaun thing was on a whole other level.
08:00You know, the first conversation I ever had with Dee Haslam was after I shared my story of what happened
08:05to me as a child after they brought in Deshaun.
08:08Wow.
08:09Okay.
08:11They were here for 10 years.
08:13That was the first time Dee Haslam bothered to come up to talk to me.
08:18Because she wanted to kind of smooth things over with the whole Deshaun situation.
08:23That was the first time it took her 10 years to acknowledge my presence.
08:30In town.
08:34I didn't refer to Deshaun Watson as a predator or predatory behavior.
08:40That was Sue L. Robinson.
08:42The NFL's arbiter, investigator, whatever you want to call her.
08:47Okay.
08:48Those are her words, not mine.
08:51I don't know if Deshaun did what he was accused of doing.
08:55I have my own personal theories of what may or may not have transpired that led to those allegations.
09:02But I'm going to keep those to myself because it's not fair to Deshaun for me to project my opinion
09:09or my theory on something.
09:12The facts of the case are he settled with the NFL in a disciplinary settlement.
09:20Paid, I think it was a $5 million fine.
09:22Served an 11-game suspension.
09:25His first season here in Cleveland derailed.
09:28And it's not gotten on the track since.
09:31Unfortunately, he's gotten hurt twice.
09:33It has cost him more time.
09:37And so, you asked your fans to accept those accusations.
09:46Now, by the letter of the law, Deshaun was never charged with a crime.
09:49Want to make that very clear.
09:51He was never charged with a crime.
09:53Investigated, yes.
09:55Charged with no.
09:56There's a difference.
09:59And by the rules of our courts in our society, Deshaun has paid his debt to society.
10:07Because the accuser sued him.
10:11And he reached settlements with those that sued him.
10:20But at the same time, he got football questions all year from us since coming back from this injury and
10:28all that.
10:29It's been all football questions from us.
10:31Not one question about the settlements or the accusations.
10:36We, as folks that cover the team, in the rearview mirror.
10:42But I have to bring that back up because of what happened yesterday.
10:45Right.
10:46And I don't think Shador Sanders understands the gravity of the situation.
10:50And I understand where Shador is coming from.
10:53And we're going to talk about respect in sports this morning a little bit.
10:56Because I'll admit, there are times where I do, I come up short.
10:59But the one thing about me is I don't sit in my ivory tower and act like I know everything.
11:05If I'm wrong, I'm not afraid to say I'm wrong.
11:07If I mess up, I'm not afraid to say I mess up.
11:11And there have been times where I have come up short when it comes to some of my snarkiness and
11:18things that maybe I thought little funnier, intended to be funny, but not taken to be funny.
11:24And I will admit to that.
11:29But I don't think Shador Sanders understands why Browns fans feel the way they do about Deshaun Watson.
11:35I don't think Deshaun Watson fully understands the gravity of the situation as well.
11:41He's moved on.
11:42Once the settlements were done, he moved on.
11:44And I understand that.
11:46And he should move on.
11:47Okay?
11:48Because again, letter of the law, rules of our society, he paid his debt.
11:52Whatever that ended up being with the settlements.
11:55That's his business.
11:56And that is the accuser's business.
11:58But fans were asked to welcome this guy into this community, and the reality is, some through his own fault
12:10because of the suspension, and some through the fault of not him, the injuries, he failed to deliver.
12:21One of the largest trades in franchise history, and obviously one of the most obscene contracts in franchise history.
12:29And that led to the boos with every incompletion.
12:34And that reception.
12:38So, we're going to talk about that a lot this morning.
12:41The reception that he got.
12:45Is there any point of return from this?
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