00:00the fans go to the wise heart right we make it right call kyle wright hotline she joins us each
00:05and every week tuesdays at 11 o'clock you can always watch her on the orange and brown talk
00:12podcast check that out it's all the cleveland.com and it's always a pleasure to have mary kay
00:17cabot on with us to talk a little browns hi mary kay how are you hello mary kay i'm doing
00:22great
00:22guys how you doing good it feels like the water's a little calm this week knowing who the starting
00:28quarterback is going to be and knowing that he had a win last week going into a game where it
00:35did
00:35seem like it was going to be very interesting for the first home game uh the season for deshaun
00:40watson based on the second preseason game in the postgame press conference there so um is the water
00:45calm right now a little bit well i think that performance by deshaun watson really changed
00:53the trajectory of the season or the philosophy of the season at this point i truly believe
01:00wrote this and i believe this uh that if he had struggled or lost that game or both that he
01:07was
01:07going to lose his job and they were going to install shador sanders as the starter because if you fall
01:12to
01:12oh and two there's a darn good chance you're not making the playoffs and it's time to see what you
01:17have
01:19and kind of turn it over to the youth movement and build on it as much as you possibly can
01:24so i think
01:26deshaun watson stopped that plan dead in its tracks went out there earned himself the start for this
01:33game and it just can't be this game it's got to also be for the steelers game because that's four
01:37days later on thursday night football right so i think it just changed everything for right now i think
01:43that we would be having a completely different conversation about the season and this game if he
01:50had not done well 12 of teams that start off going to make the playoffs 12 yeah yeah and i
01:56think that um
01:57i think it's a little bit different for teams that are winning teams and established teams i think the
02:02percentage is a little bit higher um but certainly the browns are not in that category so they probably
02:08would have been in that 12 and at that point you really have to question where are we going with
02:13this what are we doing and how are we approaching our season right now mary k would it have been
02:18a
02:18knee-jerk reaction to benjamin after two games even if it didn't go well because for some reason you
02:24named him the starting quarterback i i would have thought that would have been a really quick flip
02:28on the part of todd bunkum well i i actually think that they would have done it because of the
02:37things
02:37that we're talking about to know that if deshaun was struggling in his first two games that maybe
02:42he wasn't what they thought he could be which was a quarterback who could win some games for them
02:47this season now with what they saw uh down in tampa now they know that that he is that quarterback
02:53that they thought he could be todd monk and spoke very very highly of him yesterday this was exactly
02:59the kind of thing they thought they could get out of deshaun watson this season that kind of
03:03performance so i i do think that there would have been a case to be made for turning it over
03:11to shagur and just saying okay now let's see what we have for the future let's see what we have
03:15in
03:16shagur to see if he can be the guy and make our plans going forward do you think the light
03:21just went
03:21off on sunday or the game plan was better or the receivers were able to help him offensive line but
03:27what happened why did he why was he able to change the opinions of everyone and help this team get
03:33a win
03:34well first of all i think that uh i think the first game i think he had to knock off
03:39his physical
03:40and emotional rust it was the first time he had played in 22 months he didn't know if he was
03:45going
03:46to be able to absorb a hit and get back up he didn't know if he was going to make
03:50some kind of a
03:50move and his achilles was going to pop you have to get over the you know the mental hurdle of
03:56coming
03:57back from two surgeries like that and i think people underestimated that with him so i think
04:03he you know he got that out of the way he got that out of his system and he realized
04:07hey i can
04:08do this and then the other part of it is i think uh that he developed one more week of
04:13chemistry with
04:14a guy like denzel boston and some of the other guys on the team he knew a little bit more
04:19about what the
04:19blockers were going to do in front of him uh he knew that uh his arm was going to respond
04:24a certain
04:25type of way and that his body was going to respond a certain kind of way if he got very
04:31mobile so i
04:32just think he needed to get that first dog out of the way to try to get back to himself
04:38todd made a mention about the the competition helping shadour and hurting to sean
04:45and mirake i i know you and i were in agreement on this like can you name somebody as soon
04:50as
04:51possible please because this offense needs to to gel a little bit do you think todd might regret
04:56the fact that that went so long with the competition or was it legit enough that it's
05:00like okay he had to do that i don't think todd regrets it i don't think he regrets it i
05:06think
05:06he's just acknowledging that it really didn't do deshaun watson any favors but at the time when he
05:12felt he had to do it like that he really wasn't 100 sure that deshaun was going to be his
05:17starter
05:18and they wanted to give shadour sanders a bona fide chance to win the job so i don't think he
05:23has any regrets about it but i think he is recognizing and acknowledging that it wasn't
05:29the best situation for his starting quarterback what do you think reaction will be like uh when
05:35he steps on the field on sunday my my theory on this is one you introduce the defense and don't
05:40have to worry about getting booed when you're coming out of the tunnel and then two uh when the
05:45browns take the field for the first time it'd be a good time for the scoreboard to find some
05:48famous alumni like joe thomas or um or josh cribs or somebody like that and show them on the scoreboard
05:56while the browns are walking out on the field saying hey we'd like to bring back nick job and
06:00then you know next thing you know it's hike and you're playing ball so it wouldn't allow the fans
06:05the time to boo i just what do you think the fans are going to be like well i think
06:09it needs to be a
06:10comprehensive strategy as you're mentioning i think that they need to do whatever they can
06:14uh to try to deal with this situation and i think that uh deshaun should take some measures
06:20this week to see if there's anything that he can do to deal with the booze whether it be talking
06:25to
06:25a sports psychologist uh whether it be uh making sure that he's got a couple of guys that he can
06:30go talk to on the sidelines uh whatever it is they they have to deal with it but my feeling
06:36about the
06:37fans is if you hated deshaun watson because of football just for purely football reasons then
06:45maybe it's time to be a little open-minded and give him a chance and see what he's got because
06:50even todd said yesterday that he's got plenty of good football left in him and maybe he does so if
06:57you were in the football camp uh i would maybe climb on board a little bit and see what he
07:02can do
07:03now if you're in the off the field transgressions camp and you dislike him for those reasons then
07:11you're still going to dislike him for those reasons and you just need to feel the way that you feel
07:16about
07:16that um but the football people i think uh might want to just give him an opportunity uh to go
07:23out
07:23there to support him you know maybe to cheer for him a little bit and to see if their starting
07:28quarterback uh of the cleveland browns might not just be able to play some decent football
07:34why did the defense look improved and invigorated mary k what was the difference between game one and game two
07:43well once again the first game is always weird because people don't necessarily have their act
07:49together yet and in the case of the cleveland browns they had brand new offense brand new defense
07:54defensive coordinator life without miles garrett for the very first time so everything was new
07:59mike rutenberg didn't know how his guys were going to react in the heat of the moment it's different
08:04when you're out there and the fur is actually flying and the lights are on you see how a guy
08:09responds
08:09so mike rutenberg he didn't know all of these things about his team yet and as he goes along
08:14i still think that he's probably going to have to make some adjustments in personnel uh they have to
08:20still get better at tackling i'm seeing way too many missed tackles still uh jared verse is going to
08:26have to continue to adjust uh to his new role his new team his new kind of defensive style uh
08:33so these
08:33are some of the things and i think once again on both sides of the ball they got some of
08:37those issues
08:38out of the way in the first game um i didn't know what to expect out of the offensive line
08:43especially for the first two weeks and i you know as far as passing game was concerned it was great
08:48on sunday but the running game still needs to find itself so uh two-part question then one take a
08:54look
08:55at that offensive line what do you think of them through two weeks and two how does the running game
08:59improve well as you mentioned past blocking has been very good uh spencer fano and austin barber
09:05have been done have been doing a really really nice job austin barber is grading out extraordinarily
09:11well uh he's drawing rave reviews from uh the evaluators on social media so good for the cleveland
09:19browns for drafting him finding him in that third round and then turning him into a guard so that's been
09:25really a great thing for them as far as the run blocking is concerned they really have to go back
09:29to the drawing board on this running game and try to find out what they can possibly do to get
09:34it
09:34cranked up there's no way uh that you can go out there and play really good football without any
09:39semblance of a running game for two weeks in a row deshaun watson has been their leading rusher that's not
09:45okay and they have to figure it out i don't know whether it's more jumbo i don't know whether it's
09:50putting
09:50someone else in there and you know to block as you know as a run blocker i don't know exactly
09:55what
09:56the answers are going to be uh but they definitely have to pivot and adjust in some ways and get
10:02that
10:02running game cranked up mary k cabot joining us from the plane dealer in cleveland.com and of course
10:07you can hear her on the orange and brown talk podcast with that offensive line mary k we saw
10:13titus howard have a couple of rough moments the other day how how locked in do you think the browns
10:18are
10:19on the guy five guys who are starting right now and along with the titus howard thought
10:23about the rookies austin barber and spencer fano well as i mentioned those guys did a really really
10:31nice job in you know in the first two games and they're drawing just wonderful reviews and they're
10:37only going to get better those were the only their first two games so those guys are tremendous and
10:42then as far as titus howard is concerned i had said this from the very beginning i wasn't sure
10:47that the line that appeared in the first week was going to be the line that appeared in the third
10:51week or the fourth week and if they go back and they look at the film and they see some
10:55things that
10:56have them at all concerned or they think they can upgrade in some kind of a way uh then they
11:01will do
11:01it and and titus is a player that he's struggled out of the gate a little bit i don't know
11:06if they
11:06would do anything about that but that's an area to maybe look at and just see how they can shore
11:12it up
11:12how can they support him a little bit more how can they help him so uh these are some of
11:17the things
11:17but certainly the run blocking has to get better all right let me uh this is my last question what
11:22do you think the browns are more like the team we saw on sunday or eventually more like the team
11:26we saw against jacksonville well they have things to build on and i think that one thing to remember
11:33the tampa bay buccaneers i thought baker really looked horrible and so you want to take everything with
11:39a little bit of a grain of salt because if baker uh had been completing some of his passes including
11:45the pass in the end zone that ted hurst dropped on that final drive then maybe we wouldn't be
11:52having the kinds of conversations that we're having right now about these cleveland browns
11:56everything looks different when you win everything looks different when you win so i still think that
12:02they have a lot of things to clean up a lot of things to work on i think there are
12:06still some
12:06issues in the back end that they have to get resolved defensively i think there are tackling
12:11issues that they have to resolve and fix uh but that's you know that's what you have to do you
12:17have
12:17to go back into that film room take an unflinching look at your mistakes and don't think as todd munkin
12:23said don't think you've arrived anywhere just because you won a game because they still have a lot a lot
12:28of work to do on both sides of the ball all right mary kay uh just final thoughts
12:34how do they approach this week's game then and then and can they win this week's game because
12:38they're playing a tough team well they are playing a tough team and i do think they can win i
12:44think
12:44once again miles harden getting that takeaway was huge i think i've seen other guys coming close he
12:50almost had another one uh so these guys that have a nose for the ball uh they have to go
12:55out and they've
12:55got to make those plays and take the ball away that's going to be the key right now when some
13:00other
13:01aspects of your team are still finding their way so i absolutely think uh that they they're going to
13:07have to emphasize punching it out uh grabbing interceptions and then uh deshaun watson has to
13:13continue to play clean ball that was a nice clean game by him and he has to continue to develop
13:18more
13:19timing and rhythm with guys like harold fanon maybe try to get jerry judy involved a little bit
13:25and uh keep building on what he has with casey and denzel mary kay as always thank you we appreciate
13:30your knowledge and information when it comes to the browns and we will read you every day in the
13:35plain dealer cleveland.com and watch you on the orange and brown talk podcast thanks mary k
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