00:00I love one comment that he made where he mentioned Todd Munkin said,
00:04you know, he's, this is his shot, right?
00:08And Deshaun said, this is my shot.
00:10I've been at it 10 years.
00:11It's my chance to show I can still play in this league.
00:14He knows this isn't just a, hey, I'm the starting quarterback again.
00:19He knows there's a lot of doubt.
00:20He knows he needs to go out and play well.
00:23To be honest, Andy, I was glad to hear that.
00:25I mean, it seems to me then he's put a little urgency around what he has to do this year.
00:30And he should.
00:31So I'm glad he did.
00:33And we'll see if he can play in this league.
00:36Andy, he's the quarterback of our football team.
00:38I hope he can play in this league.
00:39I hope he's dang good.
00:43He did seem like there was a sense of relief to be able to just even get back on the
00:48field.
00:48Yeah, he sounded like.
00:49And he looked at, too, because I was watching it as we were playing, too.
00:52Didn't it sound like this is normal for me?
00:53I'm the starting quarterback of the football team, and here I go.
00:55I feel like I'm back to where I belong and where I should be.
00:58But now he's got to stay there.
00:59Yeah, I just don't want to.
01:01I'm hesitant to drink the Kool-Aid because, I mean, today was one of those days where you're like,
01:05okay, I can feel okay about him starting.
01:10It is a long, long road.
01:12And, like, I was thinking about the big picture for him.
01:14And, you know, no matter what went sideways in his life and his career and where he's at right now,
01:20he has come back from a rupture and a re-rupture of an Achilles tendon.
01:26Not to mention the shoulder.
01:27Yeah, not to mention his shoulder, right.
01:29And so, I mean, he's an all-star at university hospitals right now.
01:37You know what I'm saying?
01:38Not in the NFL because he's been able to overcome these injuries to even get back on the field,
01:43whether you see productivity or not.
01:47And so, I do have, I mean, there is a part of me that would like to say, okay, hey,
01:54man,
01:54this guy came back from two Achilles ruptures and a shoulder fracture.
01:58You know, that's not, it's not an easy task.
02:01It puts the odds against him.
02:03And then you add everything else that people, you know, talk about or think about with Deshaun.
02:08And then also add in the fact that you have a very popular backup quarterback, Inchidore Sanders.
02:15And, you know, is he set up for success?
02:17Man, his road to success has had a ton of potholes in it.
02:22Too many to count.
02:25And I don't know that this year is going to be smooth sailing down the road or smooth driving down
02:29the road for him.
02:30But, you know, it is, it's there.
02:32It's there for him to change everyone's mind on everything that's happened to him over the last couple years.
02:38And the ball's his.
02:39I think that's hard to do.
02:41To change people's minds?
02:41Yeah, I don't think, I don't think you'll do that.
02:43But I think he can go out and play.
02:46I hope he can go out and play.
02:48To be honest, I don't know if he can or not.
02:50You don't have to love him, but I think you'll like him if he can get the team in the
02:53inside.
02:54He needs to go out and play competent quarterback for this football team and give his team a chance to
02:58win.
02:58I think the other part of this, too, Jeff, is when he did have success in the preseason, from what
03:03we saw.
03:04Okay, and so I'll preface it with what we saw on television while we were watching the preseason games.
03:10I thought it was interesting that he had success not with the starters, but with that second team.
03:17And I wonder what he's going to look like with the starters.
03:20Because, again, the preseason showed us nothing.
03:22You're looking up against guys who weren't starters.
03:24True.
03:24So, I mean, Andy, I'm not looking at anything in the preseason and drawing any conclusions.
03:30I just don't think you can do that.
03:32I agree with you.
03:33I agree.
03:34But I think we tend to do that with success more than we do with failure.
03:40Like, if you have success in the preseason, be like, oh, it's a preseason.
03:44But when you fail in the preseason or it doesn't look right in the preseason, I think that weighs heavy
03:51on the way people evaluate you and think of you as a quarterback.
03:55You can blame that on supporting cast just as much as you can say, well, he was going against second
04:00and third stringers.
04:01That's why I'm not putting any credibility into anything we saw in the preseason.
04:05The only thing I saw in the preseason that I liked from Deshaun was that he was out there, was
04:10able to play, and looked like he could move and didn't get hurt.
04:15Now we'll see if he can be the starting quarterback.
04:18Andy, he's the guy, so I hope he can.
04:21Yeah, I do, too.
04:22I hope he can.
04:23I do, too.
04:24I just don't.
04:24The optimism meter on Watson is not.
04:27It's about as low as we've had for any quarterbacks since Steve came back.
04:30But let me argue with that.
04:33Everybody loves Shadour.
04:35I personally, if it was close, I would have started Shadour.
04:39I know Dan feels the same way.
04:40I think you feel the same way.
04:43It must not have been close.
04:44I'm going to be honest with you.
04:46I know I've sat here for two years and said, if Deshaun's healthy, he's your starting quarterback.
04:51So I wasn't putting him over Shadour.
04:54Sorry.
04:55Sorry to be that guy.
04:56I was hoping Shadour would beat him out.
04:59He didn't.
04:59He didn't.
05:00He didn't.
05:01So I do think that there, and again, I'm living way in the past hoping that he can do something.
05:08I just felt like if I was, first of all, if I'm the organization, I want some sort of return
05:14on investment on everything that I've spent.
05:16Whether the money's spent or not, whether there's no new, you know, it doesn't matter.
05:21Because I know you'll, we've had this conversation before, you're like, well, that money's already spent, so it doesn't really
05:26matter.
05:26Is it?
05:27Because you want that return on, and as a, if you were part of the ownership group, you want to
05:32see some sort of return on investments.
05:35Although, when you listen to the press conference today, I mean, I've never heard anything more sound like a one
05:41-year lease than what I heard today.
05:44This is it.
05:45Well, he said, my contract's up.
05:47I mean, he laid it all out.
05:49Yeah.
05:49My contract's up.
05:50I got to go show I can still play in the league.
05:52Yeah.
05:52So it's a one-year.
05:53Good for him.
05:53He's well aware.
05:54Yeah.
05:55And that his next stop is probably not here next year.
05:57A year from now, he's probably not standing in Cleveland.
06:00In fact.
06:00I would be stunned.
06:01I think we all would kind of be stunned.
06:03But you never know.
06:04I mean, if they have a successful season, all of a sudden you're like, oh, well, all that stuff that
06:09went sideways, I don't know, but they made the playoff.
06:12You know, I'm not, again, you got to see how it plays out.
06:15And, you know, some of it sounds like, you know, the total optimist is, you almost sound like you're intoxicated.
06:24But if you think, well, they're going to the playoffs or if you think they're going to the AFC championship
06:28or you think they can make it to the Super Bowl.
06:30I mean, that, it just doesn't sound, it doesn't sound logical.
06:35I thought Spencer German had a really good question because he's right.
06:38Like, what is the identity of the offense?
06:41Is it, okay, we're going to be able to throw to some really good young wide receivers?
06:44We're going to be high flying or we're going to run the ball because we think we have two running
06:48backs that we definitely can rely on to get us a couple yards?
06:52Do you have an offensive line to get black for them?
06:54I don't know, Jeff.
06:56That's why I don't know if that's how they're defined.
06:59And he came back and he just said multiple.
07:02He also made it sound like, you know, what you've seen earlier is not what you're going to see during
07:07the regular season.
07:08You know, and then when he was asked about that, it was like, well, I can't really, you know, I'm
07:15not going to tell you what we're going to do on Sunday,
07:17but I can tell you that I'm excited to be a part of this.
07:19Of course he's not going to.
07:23I just, I love the fact, Andy, that sounds like he knows that it's time to produce, you know, sense
07:32of urgency here.
07:33I think that's outstanding.
07:34He mentioned it's the last year of his contract.
07:37He mentioned that he needs to show he can keep playing, you know, in the NFL, wants to keep playing
07:42in the NFL 10 years in.
07:45Um, there are no excuses anymore.
07:47You're, you're healed.
07:49You're healthy.
07:51Your legal issues to whatever extent you want to talk about them are behind you.
07:57And you're the starting quarterback of the football team.
08:00All right.
08:01What's standing in his way?
08:02And they've given him a lot of weapons on offense.
08:07Um, let's see it.
08:09How's the time?
08:10An experienced by year offensive line, but an inexperienced together.
08:16Yeah, I get, I get that.
08:18Most offensive lines aren't, you know, primo around the NFL.
08:22He's going to have to make do with what they've given him.
08:24He's going to have to make do with what they've given him.
