00:00I can't sit here and tell you that I think that the reaction that we've seen
00:03from it is that everybody agrees.
00:05I certainly can't tell you that the reaction we've seen from it is that
00:07everybody disagrees either.
00:09I think you have a mixed bag in a really quiet locker room right now,
00:12which by the way, props to them.
00:13That's probably how it should be, right?
00:14You get into a quarterback competition.
00:16I don't think I really want, especially one is a tumultuous as this to sit up
00:21there and Denzel Boston, come out to the media and be like, thank God I,
00:24we needed to land here.
00:26And then, you know, whatever, two, six weeks into the season,
00:28all of a sudden it's your door and we now have been fighting inside the locker room.
00:32Guys should be quiet, right?
00:34Organizationally, that's what you would like.
00:35I'm not saying you have to be, obviously guys can speak their own opinion,
00:38but as an organization is a business, you would like people to be quiet
00:42about a decision like that.
00:43Same way that if there's a promotion made in your average day, nine to five,
00:48you probably don't want people going on social media and talking to the local
00:51news outlets and being like, wow, that guy was way unqualified to get that position.
00:55That's disastrous.
00:56Like you're probably not going to have a job.
00:58And obviously in the NFL, it's a little bit different of a story.
01:00Nobody's getting cut over their opinion on the quarterback,
01:03at least not your top players, the guys who are actually going to be on the field.
01:06But you're just not going to hear decisions being made like that,
01:09especially with, you know, cut day right around the corner.
01:12Certainly guys are not going to be on the fringe of the roster,
01:15making comments and remarks like that.
01:17I just don't think you can draw about a conclusion.
01:20I think we'd all like to think that Todd is giving us trustworthy information.
01:23He's right.
01:24We really don't have much to go off of to believe of anything different,
01:28but at the exact same time, Todd going up there and saying, yeah,
01:32we all pretty much reached a decision that Deshaun's going to be the guy.
01:35Todd will also sit there and tell you that that's his decision at the end of the day.
01:37He'll tell you organizationally, ownership, the front office, Andrew Barry,
01:42all involved in making that decision.
01:44Do I really think that the coaching staff came to a complete agreement that, yeah,
01:49Deshaun's going to be or he should be the guy?
01:52It depends on the coaching staff.
01:54And this is a team who, again, does not have, as you pointed out,
01:57really the ground to stand on to go up there as players or coaches at this point
02:01and be like, you know what?
02:01No, I don't stand for that.
02:03I don't agree with this decision.
02:05You don't have that luxury.
02:06Again, if this is a very veteran-laden team that you got guys all over,
02:11guys whose contracts are fully guaranteed,
02:13if you got Miles Garrett on this team, if you wanted to,
02:16you could go out there and be like, nope, don't agree with that one,
02:18and Miles might have been the guy that actually would have told you it.
02:22But I don't know where you're really moving forward with that.
02:26If you're a guy like even Jared Verse, you're still playing on a rookie deal.
02:31You're still trying to make sure you get paid at the end of the day,
02:33and I am sure you'd like to stay in one spot.
02:35Maybe you wouldn't.
02:36I don't know.
02:36I'm not Jared Verse.
02:39But all of these guys who are trying to play for something,
02:41and you're right, they have something else to worry about.
02:43Most of these guys have to erase the losing that was here.
02:45Guys like Denzel, guys like Grant Delpit who have been here
02:49have to erase the losing that have been the last two seasons.
02:52The younger guys, again, don't have much of a ground to stand on.
02:55I just don't know that you can get that answer.
02:57And I think for a lot of the coaches, it's a similar spot.
03:00If you're Travis Switzer, are you really coming out and being like,
03:03nope, absolutely not.
03:04Not offensive coordinator, don't agree with that decision.
03:07Like, you're probably going to be replaced as the offensive coordinator.
03:09Your job can be cut and replaced.
03:10And that's not really your decision to speak on.
03:13You're not the guy making it.
03:14So I just don't think that you get all that agreement.
03:17I do think it's interesting, right?
03:18This is supposed to be a Todd decision.
03:20Todd came out and on the coach's show yesterday that played right before overtime.
03:25He talked about the quarterback competition and how they ultimately landed on the decision of Deshaun Watson.
03:30You could see early on in the offseason that Shador was getting better.
03:35And that's when the decision was made.
03:37Okay, let's open this up.
03:38Had we made that decision earlier in camp, Deshaun is so much further ahead.
03:42Just in terms of being around a number of offenses, in order to get Shador up to speed, we divide
03:47it, we turn it into a competition.
03:48And he takes advantage of it and really does continue to improve, continue to, each week, get better with his
03:54command, the operation, everything about the offense.
03:57And so we come back for training camp, keep the same thing going.
04:00But we needed Shador to really beat out Deshaun with being the first game, being on the road, being in
04:05Jacksonville, and then Tampa, without throwing him out there to start the season from an operation standpoint, being on the
04:11road.
04:12Even though last weekend didn't go Deshaun's way, the full body of work said at this time, he gives us
04:17the best chance to win.
04:18I think the coaches believe that, our players on offense believe that, and that's the direction we went.
04:24So, I think it's really easy to be in Todd's position, Todd from Ward 1, that is our caller, not
04:30Todd Munkin in this case, but in saying that, hey, I believe in Todd Munkin right now.
04:34He gave me no reason to not believe that he's giving me the entirety of the truth.
04:39I think this is where we start to get into a really dangerous hole of, maybe not a fair one,
04:44but if we go out there and watch Deshaun play for whatever it ends up being, two, four, six, eight
04:49weeks,
04:50and we watched that product not be very good, and Deshaun was supposed to give you the best chance to
04:56win.
04:56He said it right there, Deshaun ahead in the operation.
04:58That's a lot of the reason why he's getting this nod.
05:00The full body of work was better.
05:02He trusts him to go on the road and operate this offense the way that it needs to be operated.
05:07Okay, so if I go out there and I watch Deshaun Watson struggle through operation for multiple weeks,
05:11if I go out there and watch him struggle to quarterback the Cleveland Browns,
05:14and all of a sudden, Shador steps in, and I'm not saying he turns into God's gift of football,
05:19but if he starts operating that offense, especially in the things that we're talking about,
05:24the operation side of things, if he looks a lot better than Deshaun when we get to that point,
05:29what is that supposed to mean for Todd Munkin?
05:33He's basically going to turn everybody to say, look at Todd and be like,
05:35really, Deshaun was the one giving us a better operation?
05:38That guy was giving us a better chance to win.
05:40And that's ultimately what led to the firing of Kevin Stefanski last year,
05:43among another multitude of things in several losing seasons.
05:47But the nail in the coffin was the fact that he said,
05:50Joe and the veteran is the right way to start this.
05:52Dylan should get the start before Shador Sanders.
05:55And then we watched through that.
05:56We had to get to the final seven weeks of the season before all of us just got to sit
05:59there and go,
06:00no, Shador was the best quarterback that you had potentially on the roster.
06:03He gave you the best chance to win.
06:05Certainly gave you a better chance to win than Dylan Gabriel did.
06:07Like you evaluated it wrong.
06:09And I think if we have to sit here again and watch several games of Deshaun
06:12and then watch Shador be better than him, you're going to get a similar result.
06:17And I'm not talking firing, but a similar fan base feeling
06:19when you turn around and look at Todd Munkin.
06:22It's like the immediate question gets popped into everybody's head of,
06:25do you know what you're looking at?
06:28Like, clearly you just told me that one guy was better.
06:30And I have just watched with my own two eyes.
06:34That be a false statement.
06:35Either you don't know what you're looking at,
06:37or you are blatantly lying to me right out of the gate.
06:40And you either don't care about winning the way that you say you do,
06:43which I believe that Todd does.
06:44It feels like he's operating in a way that he wants us to be a winning team.
06:48Or again, if you don't know what you're looking at when it comes to quarterbacks,
06:51and you don't know what was best for this team,
06:53you didn't know what was best for you to win week one.
06:55And I don't think that leads to good things between Todd Munkin and the fan base.
06:58That's going to lead to resentment.
07:00That's going to lead to a lot of anger and fans questioning whether or not they can once again believe
07:04a Browns regime,
07:05because you knew you couldn't do it before.
07:08It's not a spot that you want to be in.
07:10And I understand Todd trying to line this thing up.
07:13And we want to win in week one.
07:15Again, if you feel like the decision is Deshaun gives you that opportunity,
07:18he gives you the best shot to go out there and win in week one, so be it.
07:22Right?
07:23Like, I've always sat back and said, you know, again,
07:26Deshaun in the competition, he can win the competition.
07:28You have to be okay with that.
07:30But for you to ignore everything that happened in the postgame,
07:32for you to ignore what you just saw on the field,
07:35and say, yeah, Deshaun's still going to give us the best operation on the road,
07:38weeks one, week two, likely when you get to week three,
07:42I better not see the opposite when it comes through.
07:44And I bring that up as potentially being, you know,
07:47a little bit unfair to Todd,
07:48because Shador does get multiple weeks to try and figure it out,
07:51to work on the things that he needs to improve.
07:52That's great.
07:55But I don't know that I can turn around unless we're talking about Deshaun
07:58getting 10 weeks worth of football and give Todd Munkin a pass.
08:02Like, Shador's operation would not have just changed.
08:04His ability to play quarterback and help the Browns win
08:06is not going to change through two, three, four weeks of the season.
08:09You get through half the year, maybe you have an argument.
08:11And I'm sure Todd will bring that argument to the table.
08:15But it happens immediately on the turnaround.
08:17Again, all we're left with is questions and doubt.
08:19And I think that's where you start losing that faith in Todd Munkin.
08:23That's where you start, stop believing in him as a head coach,
08:26which, by the way, really is not where you want to find yourself as a head coach
08:29in the opening weeks, in the opening, you know,
08:32a couple of games that you are operating the team in.
08:35That's not where you want to be.
08:37You don't want to have the fan base doubting whether or not you can do your job.
08:40For, I would say, a majority of this time, it has been honeymoon.
08:44It should still be honeymoon in ideal, you know, mindset.
08:47But once you go Deshaun, after what we saw play out, okay,
08:51I said that I didn't think the honeymoon could end
08:54before you actually got a game and Todd Munkin had suffered a loss.
08:57I think the honeymoon has ended.
08:59Fans are no longer just thinking Todd is a great head coach.
09:02It is now, in a lot of ways, put up or shut up time with the quarterback spot.
09:06You better be right on the decision, because if not, again,
09:10it's not just toying with the Browns in 2026, although it absolutely is,
09:15but you're talking about potentially toying with the future of this franchise,
09:18toying with what you have to do in next year's draft,
09:20and this team's ability to get back on track.
09:22Fans are not going to take that lightly, and fans shouldn't take that lightly.
