00:00I think it's interesting, like, you know, we had our run in with Ken yesterday, I think it was me,
00:04where I was like, I just don't want to hear the word playoff.
00:07And Ken's assertion, and I actually thought about this afterwards, Ken's assertion was, I just asked a question to Jason,
00:13which if that's all it was, would, would I would maybe empathize more with his whole justification on why the
00:20Jets game is more important than the Ravens game is, he's thinking about the playoffs.
00:25And right now, the Jets are the next step to get into the playoffs, not the Ravens.
00:31Yeah, well, he's taking a coach mentality of it, right?
00:33And our buddy Coach Riz did not predict it, word for word, what he would tell us the philosophy and
00:37the thought process was.
00:38Oh, about style points?
00:40No, no, no, no, no.
00:41He's very on it about style points today.
00:44That was just to me?
00:45Just to you.
00:46No, just to you.
00:47No, no, no.
00:47We only argue about Deshaun Watson.
00:49That's fair.
00:49But, no, no, no, that idea that your only game you're worried about is the next game.
00:54That's the mentality.
00:55You don't worry about the next game.
00:56It's all you can control.
00:57It's all you should think about.
00:58You should never be thinking two weeks ahead.
01:00So, Daryl was on, speaking of coach mentality, Daryl was on with the Morning Boys today ahead of this game
01:07and was asked about raising expectations for the Browns.
01:11It's okay to raise the bar of expectation, even if you went into the season with low expectations.
01:18They're 3-1.
01:19I feel, personally, they should come home 4-1, which then sets up a big showdown with the Baltimore Ravens
01:25next weekend here in Cleveland.
01:26It's okay to change your expectation.
01:28If you're a Browns fan, you should expect that this team continues to play the way they have and stack
01:35some wins here.
01:36Now, I'm not going to sit here and say, hey, start buying playoff tickets, get ready to book hotels in
01:42Englewood, California.
01:44Look, I'm not going to get that carried away over a 3-1 start.
01:47But, at the same time, I'm going to be fair about it and give them their credit.
01:52Todd Munkin, Deshaun Watson, Mike Rutenberg.
01:55I'm going to give all these guys, and obviously the locker room, all these guys credit for what's been a
02:00very positive first month of the season.
02:02Now, let's see if they can kind of keep this thing going.
02:04Yeah, in terms of that last little bit, you can give them credit without changing your expectations.
02:09So, that's a goofy way to end that clip.
02:11I don't know if that's a cut thing or whether that's just how Daryl ended the answer.
02:15Didn't sound cut.
02:16Yeah, you can give them credit without being like, and that's why they're going to the Super Bowl.
02:22Specific to this idea, though, I do think, like, this is not a we can't move the goalpost eventually.
02:29It is when can we change the expectations.
02:33I do think it's funny, though, that they asked the ultimate flip-flopper in Cleveland sports,
02:38can you change your expectations on the Browns?
02:41Because Daryl will change it on any given day.
02:43Those are the things you can say that I can't say.
02:45Well, because Daryl and I are personal friends, and that's how I deal with my personal friends.
02:49Okay, good.
02:49I'm glad you guys haven't understood this.
02:51You know this from dealing with me?
02:52I'm glad you guys haven't understood this.
02:53I just insult you right to your face.
02:55I don't do it like some people do behind your back.
02:57I go right at that face.
02:59Daryl's not in the room.
03:00Yep.
03:00Well, he'll hear it.
03:02Anyways, but it's a win for me.
03:04And three and one.
03:05So, when is it then?
03:06It's not now.
03:07Like, my buddy Roger with Summit Sound over there, he texted me after hearing your tease,
03:11and he's like, it's week eight.
03:12NFL works in quarter polls.
03:14Week eight is when you get to go ahead and start to change your expectations and have different conversations.
03:19So, yes.
03:21I do think week eight is the earliest you can do it.
03:24As long as we can acknowledge that you can do it.
03:25The part I was getting frustrated with was the idea that you just never, you just like,
03:29the season expectations and what you come in with August is supposed to be the same thing you have in
03:34December,
03:35and I just flat out disagree with that.
03:37I just think, I think the first quarter of the season lies for a lot of people.
03:41And I'm not saying it's definitively lying for the Browns.
03:45Aaron Schatz thinks it's definitively lying.
03:47There's a lot of people that are making that suggestion that it is definitively lying.
03:49But, like, in the same point that I'm not going to be like, it's not real,
03:52I'm also not going to buy into the fact it's real.
03:55September football lies as much as anything.
03:59You went, what was it, 2-1 in 2021 and ended up 8-9, right?
04:03I can't remember what you started the next year, which was a 7-10 season, but it might have been
04:093-1.
04:10And that doesn't mean you're destined for this.
04:12I think if Deshaun can stay healthy, and maybe you can stay healthy because right now they're bit by the
04:17injury bug,
04:18I think you have a chance to surprise people on an extended basis.
04:23But through four weeks, talking playoffs feels like we're setting ourselves up.
04:27And that's, maybe that's, it's, the players are big boys.
04:30Well, I can tell what you're doing.
04:30I know you're trying to protect, is it yourself or is it the team?
04:33I'm not entirely sure.
04:34It's Browns fans.
04:35Okay.
04:35And, like, this is the time where when we start talking playoffs after week four,
04:39very quickly we jump the gun on, no, that's now the expectation.
04:43And it's like, that's, like, because what's going to happen is we're going to turn on each other about this.
04:49If they go from 3-1 to 3-8, we're going to turn on Munkin, we're going to turn on...
04:53This is where Ken would say just be adults about it, right?
04:56Oh, yeah, but the point is, our job is to kind of have the conversation with our fellow Browns fans
05:02and kind of set everyone up for success, I don't think talking playoffs after a 3-1 start
05:08is setting Browns fans up for success because we are going to put the cart before the horse.
05:11I just don't think it's logical is the problem I have with it.
05:14It's not that it's, I don't care about setting people up for success or not.
05:16It's more about the idea that it just...
05:18I don't care about other people.
05:19Screw them.
05:20Yeah, they're adults.
05:21I think Ken is right about that.
05:22You can figure out your own emotions and just hear us for whatever our take on it is.
05:26But, like, you guys have brains.
05:27You can figure it out.
05:28We're not going to guide you one way or another.
05:30The point is, is that at 3-1, if you start talking playoffs
05:33and you start talking about it as if this team has arrived,
05:35it's just incredibly too early, and I do think it's disingenuous
05:39because this team isn't expected to be some sort of juggernaut,
05:42and 3-1 can be misleading in a sense.
05:44So I like Week 8.
05:48Week 8 just gives you more.
05:49It gives you more time, which I think we all need for this team,
05:52and it lets you answer a few more questions, which I feel like we do need.
05:55So what has to be the record to look at this and go,
06:00all right, this is the real deal?
06:02Because I actually know the record.
06:04As soon as you said Week 8, I knew the record that I needed to be like,
06:08all right, let's start.
06:09I mean, 5-3 are better.
06:10Also, that's – by the way, you know why for me?
06:13Because that's my exact answer, too.
06:14Okay.
06:15It's because you go 2-2 in the next four games.
06:17Yeah.
06:17And that's – at some point in the season, you have to kind of tread water.
06:22This would be – you've got the Ravens game.
06:24You've got a couple other games.
06:25They're not easy games.
06:26They're not hard games.
06:28But there's going to be some growing pains here somewhere.
06:31This is – October is the acceptable growing pains part of the season.
06:34If you go 500 there, you can prove a lot in that stretch.
06:38Maybe Chiefs fans and Bills fans don't even talk about the playoffs
06:41because they just have the assumption that they're going to get to the playoffs
06:44every year.
06:44But if you're one of these good teams, let's say you're the Bengals
06:47who haven't made the playoffs in three years now.
06:49Like, at what point do they start talking about the playoffs with Joe Burrow?
06:52I mean, I would imagine it's much later than four weeks in.
06:55I would imagine if they're trying to do a true autopsy for a team
06:58that has been snakebitten in the past couple seasons,
07:00I imagine they wait until at least week 8, week 9, week 10
07:03to start to have that discussion.
07:04Oh, I'd be surprised if Bengals fans didn't hop on the Super Bowl
07:07or bus train after the first two weeks.
07:09Joe looked healthy.
07:11The defense looked real.
07:12They have no run game right now, and Joe's throwing the ball 50 times a game.
07:14Yep, yep.
07:15But you know what?
07:15Joe's healthy, and the defense looks better.
07:18He's putting up wildly impressive individual numbers,
07:21and they're still not even convincing anyone that they're a real team.
07:24You're thinking too logically, and that's probably where we end up faltering
07:28in some of these conversations is half of being a fan
07:31is not always thinking clearly about these kind of things.
07:35I mean, they're 2-2.
07:35They've lost games of the Steelers and Jacksonville.
07:38Like, this is not...
07:39Those are not bad losses.
07:40Yeah, but if you're...
07:41You can defend at least the Jacksonville loss.
07:43I can defend the...
07:44I can defend...
07:45Yeah.
07:45Wow.
07:46I mean, think about it.
07:47Who's done a 180 on Jacksonville more than you?
07:49Because I said you can defend the loss on Jacksonville?
07:53Yeah.
07:54You thought they were awful before week 1.
07:56I did scoff when Barnwell had Trevor Lawrence.
08:00Our buddy Ben Solek says they're the best team in the AFC right now.
08:02Yeah, that's...
08:04Right now.
08:04I'll accept right now.
08:05Yeah, yeah.
08:06I don't think they will be by the end of the season, but I'll accept right now.
08:10See, I can...
08:10I actually think that's being generous to Solek.
08:12I don't think he had the right now part of that on there, but that's neither here nor there.
08:15He's an aura farmer.
08:16He can get away with it.
08:17But yeah, like when Barnwell had Trevor Lawrence as his number two frontrunner for MVP,
08:23it was like, all right, what are we doing here?
08:252-1-6, 4-7-4, double-0-9-2.
08:27When can we change expectations for the Browns?
08:30I like week 8.
08:31But you also have to put the idea here of if you're 5-3 and better,
08:36you will have already met kind of the threshold of where Vegas had you.
08:40It is understandable that you should win at least three or four games in the second half
08:45of the season, and that sets you on pace for a 500-a-season, which would be right around
08:50the playoff mark.
08:51I really am trying to think about when you turn that on and when you start really just
08:55trying to figure out exactly what the record has to be and where that is.
08:58We just haven't done it enough in the recent decade in order for us, you know...
09:02Yeah, we're used to lowering our standards in the middle of the season.
09:04Think about it, like the Joe Flacco season, no one was thinking playoffs on our fifth quarterback
09:09and then to go get waxed by the Texans the way that went down, but nobody was thinking
09:13playoffs at that point.
09:14We lost the Rams game that year, right?
09:16Because the Rams game was, I think, his first game.
09:19It was on the road.
09:19Yeah, it was on the road.
09:20And I was trying to think of the one that came after that, because the second he won
09:23that game...
09:24It was Denver, I think, after that, right?
09:25It was Jacksonville.
09:26They beat the Jags.
09:27See?
09:27Still trash then, too.
09:29But that was the moment.
09:31And Joe Flacco had a couple really big throws in that game, and that was the first time
09:35I actually thought playoffs.
09:37And I think that was like maybe December 13th, somewhere in there.
09:42It was like early-ish, mid-December.
09:44I remember the...
09:46There was an interception he threw in the Rams game that Jason Boyd tried to defend on this
09:50radio station that nobody was buying.
09:52That was like one of my takeaways from that game.
09:54Yeah, I mean, that was the...
09:55It was Rams into then the four-game winning streak.
09:59Jacksonville, Chicago, Houston, and then the Jets.
10:01But like nobody was...
10:02At that point, you're 7-5 after that Rams game?
10:05I'm glad you brought up the Flacco part of this, because Deshaun is the biggest part of
10:10the why eight weeks.
10:12Deshaun getting to eight weeks would be something he hasn't done in the entirety of his time in
10:17Cleveland.
10:17So as much as like him getting to week eight means, and certainly beyond that, means that
10:24he's played well enough to continue being the Browns quarterback, it also means he's
10:28continued to be healthy.
10:29And if you're both things after half a season, that's when you can start to really go, I'm
10:36trusting this.
10:37This feels real.
10:39Let's...
10:39Okay, now we got November here.
10:41We're starting to inch towards the spot where Bill Belichick always said, I expect you to
10:46play your best football after Thanksgiving.
10:49And oh, by the way, young teams also tend to play better as the season goes on.
10:54Yeah.
10:55So if you front load a five and three record, and you're one of the three youngest teams
10:59in the NFL, and Brian Baldinger saying you're one of the best coach teams, or you're a very
11:04well coached team, those are the kind of things that can lead to a very successful second half.
11:08And maybe we won't have a million penalties too by that point as well.
11:10The Denver game was the week prior to the Rams game.
11:13So the Denver game, that was Dorian Thompson-Robinson, the Rams game was the first Flacco game.
11:17You were seven and three entering that Denver game.
11:20Yeah.
11:21And there was not a bunch of conversation about we're making the playoffs because we were
11:24on our...
11:25That was the fourth quarterback and it was DTR.
11:27And then you're expecting Flacco.
11:28The wheels were supposed to fall off the bus there.
11:30Not enough people are saying Deshaun started five and one that season.
11:33Not enough people.
11:34We can say that now.
11:35I think we had enough people.
11:35Because he's played four good games.
11:37Two and six.
11:38I think we had enough people talk about it.
