00:00We are joined by esteemed Mary Kay Cabot, Browns Beat Reporter extraordinaire,
00:07Bill Nunn Award winner on the Wise Heart Right. We Make It Right. Call Cow Right Hotline. Mary Kay,
00:12how are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing? All right. How much football did you watch last
00:16night? I fell asleep by the end of the first quarter. I watched some football. I had the
00:22game on, but I was also working on Jared Verse take out a long, long sort of feature that posted
00:28this morning, and I had to get it done. I had to get it posted by 5 a.m., so
00:34I was up very late
00:34working on that. All right. Well, we did see there was a little bit of news yesterday with the Browns
00:39offensive guard Tevin Jenkins having to leave the field, and what does that mean for this offensive
00:46line? Well, he ended up being limited with a back injury, and we don't know what it means yet. It
00:52could mean that Austin Barber starts in place of him at right guard, so that's something to keep an
00:58eye on. If he's not back in practice today, then I think you have to assume that perhaps
01:03there will be two rookies starting on the offensive line. Tall order against the Jaguars.
01:10Mary Kay Cabot joining us here on the Wise Heart Right. We Make It Right. Call Kyle Right
01:14Hotline. All right. I said that I think we could win on Sunday. Excuse me. I picked us to win
01:21on Sunday. A lot of people asking why, and I gave my reasons why. Big part of it is that
01:26week one
01:26tends to be sloppy. I think it was even proven last night with 17 penalties between the two and 150
01:31yards. Mary Kay, what do you think about that? Well, I certainly think it's possible. We have no
01:38idea yet what this offense is going to look like. We don't know how it's going to come together.
01:42We don't know how Deshaun Watson is going to perform. We don't know how this new offensive line
01:47is going to work and function together, and now, as I mentioned, there might be two rookies on it, so
01:51I think it will be tough. I think it'll be very, very tough to win this football game against a
01:56team that went 13-4 last year, but once again, anything can happen on game day, and it's the
02:02first week of the season, and if you catch a team in a weak moment, maybe you can go out
02:07there and
02:07steal one. Well, I agree with you on that. You know, the offensive line, obviously, that's going to be
02:13a concern. It's not because, you know, it was not great last year, but you got five new guys there.
02:19You got to get them all moving in the same direction. I think it's going to be a little
02:22bit difficult there, so George Warhop has his work cut out for him, so until they go out there
02:27and they move better, I can't say they haven't improved the offensive line, but I also think
02:32about the other parts where, you know, there's talent there, but they are just so thin, and
02:36it's why, you know, a lot of people, they think eight wins, nine wins, ten, and I'm like,
02:42I'd take them for five wins, but I think that they can still be a team that, at the end
02:46of the season, has a bright future because of the talent that they do have.
02:52I think there's a range. I think there's a range of games that they can win this year,
02:57and I think it's probably somewhere in between six and nine is basically the way that I'm
03:02seeing it now, and in a perfect world, in a perfect world, if they get better quarterback
03:07play than most of us believe they're going to get this season, then maybe they could even
03:11stretch that a little bit, but I think it's somewhere in between there, depending on how
03:15things go. They do have plenty of talent on this football team on both sides of the ball,
03:20and really on the offensive side, it's just a matter of, can Deshaun or can Shadour pull
03:26it all together?
03:26It does seem right now, Mary Kay, in talking to anybody within Northeast Ohio, that the
03:33approval rating of the Deshaun Watson experience so far through camp and getting named the starter,
03:38not very high. And obviously we know about the things that he said and seemed like he was
03:45going at it with the fans and whether there was an apology. Putting all that aside, do
03:51you see any kind of pathway to where Deshaun Watson kicks off the season and plays good
03:57football, good quarterback play, that we actually see that out of him in this offense?
04:03Well, I do think there is a way that that can happen, but I think it's going to probably
04:09look maybe a little bit ragged in the beginning. These guys haven't worked together enough.
04:15If Todd Munkin can devise a game plan where Deshaun Watson can feel confident, can feel
04:20comfortable, can find some early completions, they can utilize his legs, rely some on the
04:25running game, although this is the number one ranked run defense from last season, that's
04:29going to be hard to run the ball on these guys. But if they can get some things going early
04:33on, if that first script goes pretty well and Deshaun can kind of get into the zone and
04:40you can see that and you can feel that with him, we haven't seen it very much since he's
04:44been in Cleveland. But if he can get into that kind of place, then perhaps things can go
04:51better than people expect in the first two games of the season. And then maybe he does
04:55have a chance to come back here and try to continue to build on that. But it's got to go
05:01pretty well in these first two weeks. And I think it's going to be difficult.
05:06So what you're kind of saying, maybe you agree with me because I think Brown's fans actually do
05:11hold a lot of power in whether or not he plays in week three. Because I mean, he's already admitted
05:16that the fans are in his head. And if he doesn't play well in the first two games, I don't
05:20think you
05:21can bring him back because then I can't make an argument that he's going to be the best option
05:25for my 53 man roster. If he's preoccupied with the fans, I think he'll get in his own head and
05:30then cost himself and cost us. Well, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious that that the fans
05:37got in his head the last time out, that the fans are definitely a factor in his mind. Now,
05:44in Todd's mind, no, Todd doesn't believe that that he should let the fans dictate what happens
05:51even in week three. But it really is up to Deshaun. He's got to go out there and there's
05:54in those first two weeks and he just has to play well himself. Now, he can't control what
06:00everybody around him is going to be doing to a certain extent. The rookies are going to have
06:04to come up the learning curve. If you have two rookies on the offensive line, they're going to
06:08have to have their growing pains. So I think for any quarterback that would be thrown in there in
06:13these first two weeks on the road with silent counts, with all the new pieces and parts working
06:18together with new terminology, I think there will be growing pains. I think it would have been that way
06:22for Shador. I think it will be that way for Deshaun. I always felt, and I said it way back,
06:29I thought that starting 11 should be working together from the start of OTAs, whether if they
06:34felt that Shador was ahead, roll with him. If they felt Deshaun was ahead, roll with him. And it just
06:41didn't work out that way. And I just have to wonder how it's going to look in these first few
06:44weeks.
06:45Yeah, it's been four years, Mary Kay, that you've been covering Deshaun Watson. And we know for the
06:51first two and a half, three, really up until recently, weren't a lot of availabilities other
06:56than, you know, when he played through the week of and post-game press conferences. Do you think
07:01he's the same person? We talked so much about whether Baker Mayfield has matured over time over
07:06there. What about what you've seen since he's been here, Deshaun Watson?
07:11Well, generally, it's like that with most quarterbacks that you just have them on Wednesday
07:17and then you have them again on game day. And unless it was Tim Couch back in the day,
07:22most of the time you don't get those quarterbacks many other times. So that is
07:26not unusual whatsoever. They protect those guys, in my opinion, too much just from talking to the
07:34media and having conversations where you can actually develop some kind of rapport with them.
07:38But I do think that that he's been, of course, very, you know, very bothered by just the whole
07:47reaction to him and the vitriol and all that it gets to him. Now, Baker Mayfield, he's different.
07:54Baker would, you know, sort of stick the proverbial middle finger up and just move forward and use it
08:00as fuel and all those kind of things. I think the fan reaction to Deshaun Watson has been a huge
08:07factor
08:08in, you know, in his development and in his play. And it's something he's going to have to be able
08:14to deal with on September 27th. Are we past, I don't know if we are, but I got to ask,
08:20are we past
08:21comparing Spencer Fauno or any left tackle to Joe Thomas? Has it been long enough?
08:27No, I don't think so because they haven't been able to find a suitable replacement for him since then.
08:32And so, no, we're not past that point. And especially because, you know, Joe still comes
08:36around. He still helps these guys. And, you know, he is he is the standard. And I know that the
08:43bar is
08:44very, very high for anybody coming after him. But when you've had someone like Joe, then you will
08:50always compare the rest to him.
08:53All right, Mary Kay, we had that story come out. Tom Pellisaro reference that the Buffalo Bills had made
08:59a call on Miles Garrett. Right now, is that all we really know is that the Rams, Bills, and what
09:05did
09:05you make of that coming out right before the season started?
09:09You know, I didn't make too, too much of it. I can't imagine that that there are any teams that
09:16wouldn't want to have Miles Garrett and a lot more phone calls get made and a lot more inquiries get
09:23made than than we know about. Even around, you know, cut down day this year there, I'm sure
09:29there were some calls made on different players and whatnot. So it doesn't surprise me. It's
09:35Miles Garrett. You just have to have the money and the draft capital. And if you feel like you can
09:39come up with something like that, then, of course, you would toss your hat into that ring.
09:44So, well, then do you think they should have been more considerate of other offers then? Is that the case?
09:53Well, in this situation, they had been working on it for a long time, and they were aiming and
10:01gearing towards getting Jared Burst back. And so unless you have something like that to offer,
10:06you're not necessarily really going to be in the game. And so far, as you can probably,
10:12if you read the story that I wrote this morning, a little plug there, then you can kind of see
10:17the
10:17wisdom in bringing Jared Burst onto this football team. And I don't know if there's anybody else in
10:23the NFL that would have been able to knit together this defense in the aftermath of the loss of
10:27Miles Garrett and Jim Schwartz the way that he has.
10:30What is going to be his challenge for the season? I mean, I know you gave kind of a
10:35wide range of outcomes that they could have, but I'm picking five, Lima's picking four.
10:41That means that there's going to be significant challenges as the season goes on to keep people
10:45bought in. What's that challenge for Jared Burst?
10:49Well, I do think it will be hard for someone coming from a team like the Rams and then all
10:55of
10:55the sudden experiencing a team that might not win very many games. But I do think that the defense is
11:03going to play well. And that's why when I look at four, that seems low to me. I mean, that
11:08seems low.
11:08This is just, it's the easiest schedule in the NFL going by records from last season. I just don't see
11:16four. I think that's pretty low. I think they're going to win more games than that.
11:21I would bet the over, which again, I think is still 5.5. But I think it's going to be
11:27tough on
11:28these guys and it's going to take a lot of leadership to get them through the tough times.
11:31And they're going to all have to remember that this is arguably, I think it is numerically the
11:36youngest team in the NFL. The future I think is bright, but this might just not be the year where
11:43they're contending for the Super Bowl. Part of the formula, Mary Kay, that I came up with
11:47in having such a low total of wins before the season is that they're missing two of the most
11:52valuable guys that they had last year, which was Jim Schwartz and Miles Garrett. How do you think
11:56that defense is going to look? And do you think it's going to take some time, even though schematically
12:02they've talked about how the front will kind of be the same, what they do with them, that it could
12:07take some time for them to play in a new system?
12:11Yeah, I think it will take a little bit of time, but they're using the same terminology.
12:15They have the same position coaches and they have the same attack minded philosophy. So
12:20they didn't reinvent the wheel here. What they're challenged by is the fact that once again,
12:25they lost 23 sacks from Miles Garrett. They lost another five from Alex Wright. So your top
12:31two edge rushers are not here. And it was hard to fill those positions. Jared Burst, I think,
12:37you know, he's got some growing and learning to do to get to the point where he can end up
12:42with
12:42double digit sacks consistently. So I think there will be some challenges there, but Rudy's just
12:48going to have to be really creative to find those sacks elsewhere. They can get them from the interior.
12:53I still think it's going to be a very, very good defense. And the place where they can make their
12:57hay, in my opinion, is in takeaways. It's a great equalizer. And if they start off with those,
13:02they will be fine. Have you ever been to Australia, Mary Kay? I have not been to Australia.
13:08You're a world traveler. I'm actually surprised. I thought you were going to get us into a story
13:12about the time you did go to Australia. That's interesting to me. Sorry.
13:16I figured we'd ask. Yeah. Do you think people, do you think people will tune in just to see
13:23the curiosity of a game being played in Australia? Do you think that that's part of the reason people
13:28will tune in? That might be part of it, but I'm not really sure about that because you don't get
13:34much of the culture of the country or the city, you know, necessarily during the game itself. So I
13:41think it's really more about football at that point, but certainly there's a lot of pageantry and
13:47whatnot going on around the game, but I don't think that translates necessarily to the broadcast.
13:52Mary Kay, I am bested. I thank you for your time.
13:58Sounds good. Take care, guys.
13:59Mary Kay Cabot.
