00:00talk to lindsey rhodes of sumer sports on the wise heart right we make it right call
00:04kyle wright hotline lindsey welcome to the show hey happy to be with you guys well it's great to
00:11have you here so uh the browns defense has had some good moments their offenses had lesser good
00:17moments but still some and they are now five and four on a two-game losing streak here we're
00:23thinking a lot about the offense here i guess we'll start with the deshaun side of things it
00:27appears the browns are week to week with deshaun coming off what shador did against the saints
00:33deshaun missing that game with a concussion should the browns be week to week with deshaun
00:39i think it um i i'm i'm curious about okay where do i start here i think that the offense
00:49in general
00:50is is it it obviously there have been more wins than losses this year and so there have been
00:57there's been reason for i think browns fans to enjoy their sundays more than they have in years
01:02past but from a data standpoint looking at um the the data points that tell us whether or not they're
01:11actually good on the offensive side of the ball and will likely continue to win in ways that are
01:17anything other than fluky um i'm not particularly optimistic the offense is bottom third in just about
01:24every category that we think is important um and both of these quarterbacks shador and deshaun
01:31watson take sacks at an insanely high rate which is um in many ways a quarterback stat i know a
01:37lot of
01:37people think that that's about the o-line but there's a lot of evidence that that stat and that
01:42rate travels with quarterbacks when they go from team to team and is more a story about how they handle
01:47pressure as opposed to um just whether or not the pressure is there in the first place so i think
01:54where i would go with the shador deshaun conversation is i mean does anyone think that deshaun is going to
02:01be back next year and i think the answer is probably no because he's owed so much money if he's
02:07on the
02:07roster in march like 200 million dollars or something kicks in and so if he's not going to be there
02:13next
02:14year and you're going to try and draft a quarterback and change then the other question becomes do you
02:19think you're going to make a run this year and i think that then the conversation becomes a little
02:25bit like what the vikings were looking at this past week which is that they have an all-world defense
02:30very good special teams but an offense that was not up to par and i think if you look in
02:35the mirror
02:35there in cleveland you'll see a similar situation offensively speaking and so if you are not going to
02:42make the playoffs or go on a run in the playoffs then what's more important in terms of the long
02:47term and at what point do you pivot to that type of a conversation which takes me to shador sanders
02:54and whether or not you have any interest in in considering him to be your quarterback next year
02:59or whether that's a foregone conclusion that you think he's not the guy in which case play whoever for
03:04the rest of the season and just you know go find a quarterback in the offseason yeah lindsey what's
03:09interesting is we've talked a lot about the data points that you're talking about and discussing
03:12and in the the bottom third part of the nfl that this offense lives in and that's even being generous
03:17at times uh but there is a human element to this that and i i'm the data guy on the
03:21show so i mean
03:22it's funny that i'm acknowledging the human element but like five and at five and four let's say
03:26uh is still just way too early in my opinion to wave the white flag and say no but everything
03:31says we
03:32shouldn't be good point differential says we're not good every offensive metric you can find says we're not
03:37good and so like there's a there's a weird divide happening between how do you treat a team with a
03:41good win loss record versus how do you treat a team with a good win loss record that you know
03:47maybe doesn't have the best on the horizon coming yeah i i totally agree that that's a tricky that's
03:53a tricky proposition for everybody in the browns front office and um because on the surface i mean
04:00frankly like if you're a football fan you just want to go to the game and watch your team win
04:04right like you don't want to get into the weeds about the numbers but it is someone's job there
04:09in cleveland to be in the weeds about the numbers and to know what is something that is a pattern
04:15that is likely to repeat itself and i would argue that the data suggests that those wins were more
04:22lucky than good lucky sometimes being that you played a particular opponent on that day the offense
04:28has scored 161 points on the season only the chargers dolphins and titans have scored fewer
04:34points than them in the afc the entire afc so you've got a five and four record but you're scoring
04:41fewer points than everyone except for the unarguable worst teams in the afc if you expand it to the entire
04:48nfl the only other two teams that have scored fewer points are the vikings and the eagles and the vikings
04:53just made a major move to try and fix that flaw on their offense um and the eagles are obviously
04:59selling so i i am just trying to you know be realistic but but but to to the point that
05:07you
05:08said like what is the other option right like what are you going to do right now in terms of
05:12like is
05:12is sanders your guy are you thinking let's get him on the field let's get him some reps um and
05:18and let's
05:18see if he's the guy is anyone they're going to be okay with that at the end of the season
05:22if that's
05:23the answer does everyone just want to package those first and try to move up in the draft and
05:28get a quarterback and answer this question a different way moving forward in which case it
05:32almost doesn't matter which quarterback you put out on the field for the rest of the season and i
05:37will say this and sanders his sample size is so small we're looking at one one game one start and
05:43then some mop-up mop-up plays but his efficiency numbers are not better than watson's this season
05:49it's really hard to know you know i think the only reason you really go to sanders at this point
05:54is
05:54if you're like okay we're sort of throwing the white flag on this season which admittedly like
05:58you said is very tough to do at five and four in a market like cleveland that is like we're
06:03winning
06:03more than we have in the last few years why in the world would you do that but the only
06:08reason to do
06:09that is if you think okay we got to get him some reps so that we know what we're going
06:12to do in
06:12the off season i don't know how much of a priority that is for that front office frankly
06:17lindsey uh getting back to the offense here just kind of thinking this through uh it's tough to to
06:23have a good offense when your quarterback has his limitations and issues and the running game isn't
06:29very good and the offensive line is neither really that good at pass blocking or run blocking
06:33so i guess they do have some playmakers i do want to give them some some credit there
06:38but what's the first piece if there is a chance that this offensive offense can can find something
06:46more respectable in the second half of the season what's the first piece that has to fall in line
06:50for it to take a step forward over the final eight games of the season so i would i would
06:57push back just
06:58a little bit on the o-line point about the pass protection because we don't know that there's that
07:03much evidence that they are um like again pointing to the the sack rate i really do think that that
07:11is
07:11about the quarterbacks um the pressures uh so they rank last in sack rate but the pressure charge to a
07:19blocker is about league average you're at 16 oh so so we're looking at like half of where you rank
07:27is related to something else either the protection calls um because you have unblocked rushers in some
07:35case um or pressure not charged to any blocker which points at the quarterback there is one stat
07:41that i think um they could maybe work with a little bit that points to deshaun watson and that's the
07:47throwaway rate he has the lowest throwaway rate for a quarterback who has 250 plus dropbacks this year
07:54that there are 22 quarterbacks that fit into that category he's obviously taking the most sacks out
07:59of that group but he also has the lowest throwaway rate at like 1.6 so i think that there's
08:05something
08:06there that they could potentially coach up i would think that they would much rather see him throw the
08:11ball away than eat the sack and not live to play another down so that's one specific point that i
08:20would
08:20want to see him improve on um the the o-line i think does have some issues in terms of
08:25run blocking
08:27and uh the the lack of a run game this year i think is probably honestly more reflective of just
08:34the
08:34the quarterback play and the offense in general not being healthy though that's not an argument that the
08:39quarter that the running backs are particularly talented it's just that we see poor run games um
08:46around the league that are also attached to healthy offenses so it feels like um the uh the the run
09:00game can certainly get better um the interior blocking can get better from a run game standpoint
09:06those are the areas that i think have to improve the most the things i've been the most excited about
09:10with regards to the browns frankly i think that the moves that they've made the last couple of years
09:15have been really good and have paid off for them this year so those those young wide receivers are
09:21awesome and those young wide receivers with harold fanon are such an interesting combination of
09:27pass catchers that you can build around that you can look ahead to the future and say okay if we
09:32plug
09:32a quarterback in here next season like i think you have a lot to work with frankly yeah tell me
09:38what
09:38you see between concepcion and boston and and and even you throw fanon in there too if you want because
09:42what's interesting to me about fanon is that some of his separation numbers are off the charts and
09:47it feels like he should be getting more receptions and more catches and opportunities and in the last
09:52few weeks he has been but even in like the last week's game it took until late late in that
09:57game
09:57before they finally got him involved because he had to do so much with trying to trying to make sure
10:01he did other parts of being a tight end um i i think it's the combination of skill the yards
10:08per
10:08route run numbers are not off the charts that's something we look at for wide receivers in addition
10:12to target share but in terms of the way that they complement each other with their styles
10:18and haven't seemingly done things that would point you to like oh they are the problem here you know
10:27you're looking to avoid um a lot of drops as a rookie wide receiver just i've seen a lot of
10:33signs of
10:34the fact that like casey concepcion is such an interesting versatility piece um and there were frankly a lot
10:40of those guys in the draft this year and i think that he has probably been the one who's really
10:46um popped most obviously he he is similar to makai lemon a little bit in terms of style but that
10:53hasn't
10:53panned out in philadelphia i think casey as that guy who can kind of um work the intermediate area of
11:00the field short to intermediate and also you can line him up from slot and wide and then you've got
11:06boston who can take the top off and you can hit him downfield i think this is a big week
11:11to keep
11:11an eye on him because the texans give up a lot of big plays through the air their secondary has
11:17been
11:17kind of boom or bust like the front four either gets home or they um sometimes are getting burned
11:23on the back end and so i think that this could be a big denzel boston game potentially um but
11:29i just
11:29like the way that their skill sets complement each other all right lindsey we are halfway through it
11:35here in the nfl uh the the updated super bowl odds i i was kind of shocked that the bangles
11:41weren't in
11:42the top five uh i was a little more surprised that the the chiefs are in the top five how
11:47many teams
11:48do you actually think can win the super bowl this year and now that we're about halfway through the
11:52season good question i think i think the bangles are a team that i'm considering but i think the reason
11:58that people probably are not looking at them has to do with their defense they're uh they're
12:03lopsided in the other way where their offense has been sort of all world particularly in the last
12:08three weeks joe burrow's been on a massive heater but the defense is not particularly as strong um the
12:17jaguars i think are are a team that's really emerged as a very interesting super bowl contender for me
12:24um the niners are a team that i've got my eye on you know it's sort of a little bit
12:29more like the
12:30the nfc north is an interesting one and then the niners the nfc west is also interesting in a bunch
12:37of different ways but the jaguars i think have emerged as a team that um some of the stats that
12:44we like the best in terms of team and quarterback is epa per play and uh success rate and scoring
12:51differential scoring differential which is a piece that kind of um works against the browns and they
12:57have this good record five and four but they've been outscored on the season by 35 points which
13:02ranks 23rd in the nfl but then you've got the jags who are six and two and have outscored their
13:08opponents by 108 points on the season the idea there being if you are a good team you are dominating
13:15the
13:16teams that you're supposed to dominate and also beating the team that uh where it's a toss-up going
13:21in so they're kind of accomplishing both of those things if you look at epa per play and success rate
13:26for offense and defense they might be the only team though the chiefs also might actually check
13:32this box to your point about the chiefs that are like top five top of the league in all four
13:38of those
13:38boxes offense defense epa per play and success rate epa per play and success rate by the way for
13:43your listeners the reason that we like those together is because epa per play measures the magnitude of
13:49each play like how efficient and explosive that makes an explosivity it's how valuable is what
13:56you're getting out of every single play and then success rate is just a binary yay nay did you have
14:03positive epa on this play yes then it was successful so then you come up with a percentage of plays
14:09and
14:10that tells you just how consistently you are moving the chains and staying on schedule so those two steps
14:17together show you that you can hit big plays and also come through when it's needed like on a third
14:23down you're going to convert that third in one or um but also the success rate means that you are
14:28consistently doing that so when you put those two together especially with that scoring differential
14:33you've got a really interesting picture and jacksonville is the team that emerges as the best
14:38team in all of those categories when you look at them in that way lindsey great stuff as always we
14:43appreciate you we'll bug you down the line thank you so much guys lindsey rhodes there uh analyst for
14:49sumer sports talking some uh some browns a little bit of nfl there on the wise heart right we make
14:53it
14:53right call kyle right hotline
