00:00There's a lot of things happening.
00:01I feel like obviously leading into week one,
00:04everybody's sitting here and it's a lot of conversation about,
00:07oh, Deshaun going down onto the field,
00:09how bad the offense is going to look.
00:10I feel like we get into this point where it's really hard to nail down.
00:15And maybe this will be the week where everyone kind of locks in
00:17and gets ready for Jacksonville.
00:19I've heard such seldom actual evaluation of what people think
00:23Deshaun's going to look like this week.
00:24It's just, he's bad, he's going to stink, it doesn't matter.
00:28Where are we sitting on the idea of Deshaun sitting here,
00:31he's going to go into this game.
00:32They clearly named the starter and we're being fair in the preseason.
00:36Listen, I don't want to see Deshaun start.
00:38I don't think many people do, but he stunk in game two and game one.
00:42Like if he comes out there and looks like he did against the bears
00:45in the preseason, maybe things aren't God awful.
00:49Like you might be able to actually run an offense.
00:51It might be a boring offense, but they'll move the ball.
00:54I think that's what's, I think that's what it's going to look like.
00:56Like, or at least that's what they're going to try to do out of the gate
00:59is I do think there's going to be a little bit of natural handholding
01:03with Deshaun Watson because they want him to look good.
01:05Like, like don't get lost in this just because as Browns fans,
01:09we all feel some sort of way about Deshaun Watson.
01:11Like the organization really feels the complete opposite.
01:14So they're going to try to do everything in their power
01:16to make him look good.
01:18They're going to try to get the ball out of his hand quickly.
01:20They're going to try to, you know, get the run game working
01:22with Judkins and Samson.
01:24And it might not be the prettiest thing on earth,
01:25but they are going to try to move the football and get first downs.
01:28When we zoom out though, I don't know how long you can survive like that.
01:33Like, I don't know how long you can survive with the dink and dunk,
01:37have Deshaun do what he did against the Chicago Bears in the preseason.
01:41Because Jake, we've seen this before because we've both lived through
01:44so many inept quarterbacks that defenses figure that out.
01:48You start moving linebackers and safeties up near that line of scrimmage.
01:52It becomes a lot harder to run the football.
01:54They start loading that box.
01:55It becomes a lot harder to do the dink and dunk, tight end screen,
01:59RB screen type of things.
02:01And then you're screwed because you have a limited quarterback.
02:04And that's when the rest of it all really falls apart.
02:06So I'm expecting that it's not going to go great.
02:10Like my realistic expectations for Deshaun Watson is that there will be
02:14some handholding.
02:15I'm hoping that it looks okay for as long as it possibly can.
02:18That's my realistic expectation.
02:19Like, I hope it's not just completely awful from jump street.
02:23Yeah.
02:23So this is the interesting part is I would say for like at your average,
02:27you know, Joe and Westlake who isn't dialed in.
02:30He's not going to tell you about the schematics of the Browns offense.
02:33I think the hope is that this kind of looks like Kevin's to fancy his offense
02:37from last year, except actually successful, right?
02:39Like it's supposed to be the, Hey, we're going to use a lot of motion.
02:43We're going to do a lot of things to try and confuse the defense to get us
02:46going to misdirection.
02:47We're going to allow the quarterback to take off a little bit here and there,
02:49which we didn't see in the preseason.
02:51But yeah, I mean, we're not going to ask Deshaun often to look downfield and
02:55try to chuck it 40 yards.
02:57It's going to be make the easy completion, put the ball in the hands of a
03:00playmaker, let that guy go make something happen.
03:03And like for what it's worth, it's kind of what the entire West coast style is
03:07built off of, right?
03:08It is this dink and dunk.
03:09We've seen San Fran do this for like the last decade plus that they've been
03:14running with Shanahan.
03:15And even before that, so you stare at it and it's like, there is a world where
03:18that type of offense is successful.
03:20You just have to run it at a really high level.
03:22That's maybe where it doesn't go for Deshaun where you don't get the very high
03:26level operating.
03:27I can't trust Deshaun that, you know, every third throw isn't just going to
03:30be at my receiver's ankles.
03:33But I think if he comes out and has a decent game, right?
03:37Like the arm looks like where it's supposed to be and you just complete the
03:39short stuff.
03:40I'm not saying they're going to walk away with a win in week one, but for
03:43Deshaun, yeah, you can come out of these games looking okay.
03:46And it is going to be handholding.
03:47It is going to be, Hey, let's make this look easy.
03:49But I think to some degree, that was what was built into the offense.
03:53That is somewhat of a Todd Munkin offense.
03:55Hey, if the naysayers, you know, if, if what they're saying after week one is, well, they
03:59didn't ask Deshaun to do a bunch.
04:01So of course he looked okay.
04:03Like that's good.
04:04That's a win for the Browns.
04:05Like you, you, you want to, I want to be careful with how I phrase this, Jake, but like, I
04:11almost
04:11want to get fooled in a way.
04:12Like, I almost want to believe that there could be something here, even though in the back
04:16of my mind, I know that this isn't going to work in the longterm.
04:19And I do know that the other shoe will drop for Deshaun Watson.
04:23I do think there's value in starting the season off looking really good and starting the season
04:28off accomplishing what you set out to accomplish offensively with doing exactly what you're
04:33talking about.
04:33The motions, the easy completions, taking what the defense gives you, just moving the sticks.
04:37All of that stuff sounds great in principle.
04:39I would love to see it.
04:41Even if I know in the back of my mind, Hey, this Deshaun thing is not going to work out
04:45in the longterm.
04:45You could only get away with this for so long.
04:48Like I'm cool with them making life easy on him right out of the gate.
04:52Now there's also another side of my brain though, Jake, that, that says Munkin was the
04:57OC with Jameis that threw 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions.
05:01He was here in Cleveland in 2019.
05:03That wasn't Baker's best year, but he had two receivers go over a thousand yard receiving,
05:07which showed just how much the Browns were chucking the ball downfield in 19.
05:13If he starts asking Deshaun to do that week one, I think that's where that's your like
05:18recipe for disaster scenario is if he just has a higher belief of what Deshaun can be
05:24than what's physically really in there.
05:26Yeah.
05:27And listen, there's going to be a point where the style of offense we're talking about out
05:32of the gate, great in practice.
05:33Uh, when you get punched in the mouth and you go down 21 to nothing, you can't exactly,
05:37you know, take 11 minute drives and go out there and, you know, chunk away 75 yards and
05:41punch it into the end zone every single time.
05:43Like you got to blow the top off a little bit.
05:45So I think that's where you talk about being in trouble.
05:48It's nice that you're paired with what I think is still a really good defense, right?
05:52They're not what they were last year, but they're still going to be good.
05:54I think there's still a top half of the league defense.
05:56So you get into this awkward middle ground.
05:59I think when you have a quarterback room, like you have right now, and you start Deshaun
06:04Watson, if we walked away from the first two weeks being like, I mean, I'm not impressed,
06:08but he didn't look horrible.
06:10Like that's a win.
06:11That feels like a win, doesn't it?
06:13For most of these in that puts you in the position that most teams find themselves when
06:16they're like, do I need to go to the backup?
06:18It's not, this guy has stunk so utterly bad that it doesn't look like he's capable of playing
06:23football anymore.
06:24It's okay.
06:26Well, the offense isn't working because we're not doing enough, right?
06:28He ate kind of like it was with Dylan Gabriel last year.
06:30We talk about the stats between him and Shador.
06:33Okay.
06:33Now there were moments where Dylan looked like he's bad, did not deserve to be on a football
06:37field, but a lot of those moments are, okay, Dylan's not taking the shots down the field.
06:41He's taking the easy stuff.
06:42He's making completions, right?
06:44And in terms of stats, he didn't look that bad.
06:46It was better than Shador, but we all saw with our own two eyes, there was no impact.
06:50Like that might be the reason that Deshaun ends up getting benched because we're not winning
06:54enough games because the offense isn't impactful.
06:56And we know you put Shador on the field.
06:59Okay.
06:59I mean, listen, you might get some ugly plays and things can go South quick, but if you're
07:04looking for impact, if he can do the little things, right, you know, he's going to take
07:07the opportunities downfield.
07:08So I would love if we got to that position that that is an ultimate win where the quarterback
07:13battle actually looks good.
07:14I can have more faith in Todd Monk and that he knows what he's doing with quarterbacks.
07:18It's just a moment of getting there.
07:20And I think that's the problem that I have is if I'm going to sit here and set my expectation.
07:26Okay.
07:26Yeah.
07:27It's go do the easy stuff.
07:29That's when things go right.
07:30Like your schedule at the beginning of the year right now is not exactly the whole schedule
07:34is kind of a cupcake schedule.
07:35The beginning of the schedule, like Jacksonville to Tampa and to Carolina, who is a playoff team
07:40and sitting around 500 last year, the Steelers are always going to give you a matchup, even
07:44though we've been winning the ones at home recently on Thursday night football.
07:48You're going to get punched in the mouth at some point.
07:49These are decent defenses in.
07:52We know what the reaction is going to be from the fans to Deshaun.
07:56If it's also a, Hey, we're down 20 to Sean's really got to let it loose.
08:00He's got to cut it loose.
08:00Like you better look good.
08:02You better find a way to then hit that spot of it.
08:04Or people are going to come knocking on the door a lot sooner than later.
08:08It's also big in just how it looks, Jake.
08:11Like you've got to make this look as possible as you possibly can if you're the Cleveland Browns.
08:16Cause look, dude, like I was furious when they named Deshaun the starter.
08:20Like I, you know, we were obviously being, we've been primed for that announcement over
08:25the last couple of months.
08:26So we kind of knew that it was going to go down that way.
08:29But, but when the reality hit, it's like, wow, they're really going to put that guy back
08:34on the field again.
08:35And I felt the way that a lot of Browns fans did just that you are supposed to be starting
08:40this new, exciting chapter of Browns football, but the cloud, the dark cloud following you
08:45from the last chapter of Browns football, the guy that sunk the franchise is going to be
08:49your week one starting quarterback.
08:51But now that I've kind of come out of, you know, that fury and that frustration, I now
08:56am kind of in a mode where I'm fearful for the Browns.
08:59Because like, if you come out with Deshaun at quarterback and get your doors blown off
09:05in these two games in Florida, the reaction week three is going to be crazy, but there's
09:11a real world.
09:12Even if you lose these two games in Florida, which is possible, but you could show some
09:17things.
09:18You could move the ball.
09:19You could get the young receivers, the football, Quinshawn's moving it.
09:22Todd looks competent as a coach, as an offense.
09:25Like there's a way that it looks okay enough to the fans, even if the results aren't showing
09:31up in the win loss column.
09:33Does that make sense?
09:34Yeah.
09:34Like in years previous, it's really difficult to do that because the defense was so good
09:37that if you would have just gotten competent offensive play, you felt like you're walking
09:40away on top of more games than not.
09:42Again, this is a year where the defense will look good, but I'm sure there'll be lapses.
09:45There'll be times where we can stare at a game that almost never happened last year where
09:49man, defense really cost us in that one, right?
09:51They didn't do what they needed to.
09:54There's a way where the offense does get to look passable.
09:56And again, that is the goal.
09:57I just don't know.
09:58Deshaun can hit it.
09:59Like, that's my problem is I think it's a really simple goal.
10:02I think he's set up in a position to succeed for the actual football side of this thing.
10:08Agreed.
10:08I think him or Shador would have been in a good position.
10:11That's why you go and get the weapons you have.
10:12Like you have a safety blanket with Harold fan and you have a guy that can actually make
10:16things happen when you put the ball in his hands in case he can set the own.
10:18You have basically a bailout option and Denzel Boston, everything is there for you.
10:23It's just, can you actually execute?
10:25And that's the problem with Deshaun is sometimes the hard stuff looks okay.
10:29Like he does okay when he has to push the ball down the field.
10:32It's when you just have to sit there and be a competent quarterback, when you have to
10:35execute the minimal everyday things.
10:39I'm not saying it's all bad, but it's been inconsistent.
