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00:00It's the best I've felt about Deshaun as the Browns quarterback, bar none.
00:04I have said a lot about Deshaun Watson in the previous five, six months,
00:08and in particular, I don't know, I guess I'd say the past month or so.
00:11This is somebody that's let us down a lot throughout his Browns tenure here.
00:14And last night, there were chances it felt like he was going to let us down again.
00:19Interception, two fumbles, one which he recovered.
00:22But Nick, you got to tip your cap and you got to give him credit.
00:25He's played a level of football I didn't think was possible for Deshaun Watson at this point.
00:29On these last drives, he is finding magic.
00:32And, you know, we're asking the question right now at 216-474-0092,
00:36as Deshaun Watson started to win you over, as I'm hearing the chants,
00:42let's go Watson, let's go Watson inside Huntington Bank Field in the late fourth quarter yesterday,
00:48I'm like, yeah, this is a guy that's winning a lot of people over, at least inside that stadium,
00:54because I think Browns fans kind of felt the way that you and I felt, Jonathan,
00:59as they get the ball back with about 90 seconds to go with an opportunity to win that game.
01:04You're thinking to yourself, well, here we go again.
01:06This is a guy that's just done this these last two weeks.
01:10Of course, he's going to go do this again.
01:12So much confidence that he could do that.
01:12So much confidence.
01:14Even though TJ Watt kind of made him look like a toddler in the third quarter.
01:17It's amazing, though.
01:18And we talk about feelings and where we're at during the game.
01:21In the second quarter, and yes, he went 11 to 12, 153 yards, three touchdowns,
01:25was basically as awesome as you could be, okay?
01:28But in the second quarter, as he's going through and making some of those passes,
01:33my thought wasn't, how is he going to blow this?
01:35My thought was, he's going to get this done.
01:38He's going to continue to complete these passes.
01:40He knows how to find the open receiver.
01:42He knows how to get everyone in play.
01:44He knows how to do this.
01:45And that is a thought I have not had with Deshaun Watson in years, if ever,
01:51as a member of the Cleveland Browns.
01:53Never.
01:53Never for me in a Browns uniform.
01:55Seriously.
01:56Just because I think back to when he came back the first year,
01:59when he was knocking off the rust with Jacoby Brissett.
02:02The very first game, he's in Houston, right?
02:04And he's throwing balls in the dirt.
02:05That was our introduction to him in a Browns uniform.
02:08It wasn't inspiring.
02:09And then we did a couple of weeks and even months of like,
02:13well, he's got to knock off the rust.
02:14And how long does that take, you know,
02:16for somebody to knock off rust after the suspension and the voluntary year off?
02:20How do we do this?
02:21How long is this going to take for Deshaun Watson?
02:23And then all of the injuries happen.
02:26And then he's finally healthy again in 2024.
02:28And he's not just bad.
02:30He's laughably bad.
02:31He's like the worst player in the National Football League bad.
02:34And you think to yourself, uh-oh,
02:36we still got two more years of paying this guy.
02:39The disastrous $230 million five-year contract that the Browns gave him.
02:43Last year is an absolute nothing burger because he's hurt and he's recovering
02:47from the twice-ruptured Achilles.
02:49Out of the gate this year, it looked laughably bad again against Jacksonville.
02:54It was much of the same.
02:56First drive, interception.
02:58Second drive of that game, he almost threw another one.
03:00And the Browns get absolutely boat raced in the opener to start the Todd Munkin era.
03:04A lot of people saying, well, why'd we do this?
03:07What was there to gain from this?
03:09I mean, there's a reason why he almost got benched.
03:10I remember everybody was saying, like, we knew it was going to go this way.
03:15And then now three weeks later, everybody's saying, well, nobody expected it to go this way
03:21where it looked like it was going to be a catastrophic dead season in Jacksonville.
03:28They've responded in a massive way.
03:29And I do think Watson does deserve a lot of credit for it.
03:32He deserves a lot of credit.
03:33No other way to look at it.
03:35It's the first time since he's been here that I wanted the ball in his hands when the Browns
03:38needed an answer.
03:39And it takes three weeks of him delivering the game-winning drives, again, in three straight
03:43weeks in order to get me there.
03:45But he did.
03:46He got me to a spot.
03:47I've been waiting years for him to give me a reason to trust him when the Browns absolutely
03:52needed him.
03:53And in that spot last night, again, in the second half, where that was not a good second
03:57half of football for him in many, many respects.
03:58But I knew he was going to get the job done.
04:01And I knew that he was going to get the Browns in the right position in order to give Schmidt
04:06a chance to win the game.
04:07And he did just that.
04:09He delivered.
04:09And he's delivered time and time again now.
04:11Dude, traditionally, because let's think about some of what went bad.
04:15During that fourth quarter, he had the ball taken away by TJ Watt with the run option,
04:23the read option.
04:24Munkin said today that that's his fault.
04:26He's like, I don't know why I called that against TJ Watt, who's been doing this to me
04:30for seven years.
04:31He's like, there's got to be a better call that goes in there.
04:34I'd also argue, okay, Watson could probably read that a little bit better.
04:38TJ Watt is coming right at you unblocked.
04:41And he's going to take the football away.
04:43You've got to protect the ball, especially against Pittsburgh.
04:46Then later, that next drive, another mistake happens when Jack Sawyer hits him.
04:53And the ball gets intercepted.
04:55The interception, yeah.
04:56And then he loses two fumbles.
04:58And I'm thinking, uh-oh, this really could be all the way bad.
05:02But he gets that one last opportunity with 90 seconds.
05:06And it's like, well, the last two weeks he made magic happen.
05:08When things weren't going his way leading up to those last minutes of the game.
05:13And he was able to get a Browns win.
05:15I'm thinking to myself, he's going to find a way here to lead us down to field goal range.
05:19Even though it felt like the Steelers had really stolen momentum.
05:23And that's maybe what makes Watson's game-winning drive last night even more impressive.
05:27It felt like when Pittsburgh was able to score and tie the game, it was like, uh, is this the
05:33other shoe dropping here?
05:34Is this maybe where the magic runs out?
05:36But it didn't.
05:37That's why I think there's so much to talk about from last night.
05:40You know, we're not being shy about giving him his flowers.
05:42And we're ready to do that.
05:43It just, it kind of felt to me like a really awesome job interview where you're just killing it.
05:48You're making great, you know, like everyone's vibing.
05:51They're like, they're loving my resume.
05:53I'm answering these questions great.
05:54And then you accidentally just swear in the middle of it.
05:57You know, and it's like, from a hiring perspective, you're like, I really like this guy.
06:01But we're not just going to let that go.
06:03They just cursed in the middle of this whole entire interview, are we?
06:06We got to bring that up.
06:07We got to discuss that.
06:08That's kind of how I felt about Deshaun in that game.
06:10It was like, there were so many great things about that game.
06:13And there's so many things that made me trust him and start to believe in him.
06:17And then there are the things that we have to bring up.
06:19There's cursing in the middle of the interview.
06:20There is that, like, hey, that interception wasn't great.
06:25Those two fumbles weren't great.
06:26The fumble, so the first fumble he fell on.
06:29And then the second one that went backwards that Shook said was almost really, really bad that KC fell on.
06:34I mean, that one would have ended the game if KC didn't fall on that.
06:37Like, that would have been, we would have lost.
06:39I mean, there was so many.
06:40Yeah, because that was going the other direction for a touchdown.
06:44That could have been a scoop and score.
06:46But you see where my head's at here?
06:47Like, I'm really trying to be cognizant of the idea that I could not have been more wrong on Deshaun
06:52Watson in this entire process, okay?
06:54I never thought he would play as good as he's played right now.
06:58And so I want to be very, very well aware of that, while also kind of paying attention to the
07:02people that have commented to us all day long that don't want to give him any sort of credit, that
07:07don't want to, and are saying it's just the defense, guys.
07:09We could have won with a lot of different quarterbacks here.
07:11And so there's a fine line that I want to draw here, and I find it interesting.
07:152-1-6-4-7-4-2-0-92.
07:17Has Deshaun Watson won you over?
07:18I also find it interesting that we've had full phone lines the entire three hours now that we've been on
07:23the air, three and a half hours that we've been on the air.
07:25And the moment we are trying to get people to admit that they were wrong about Deshaun Watson or at
07:30least take a step forward into starting to like Deshaun Watson and publicly state that they like Deshaun Watson, it
07:36has gone crickets on the phone lines, at least relative to what it was for the first three and a
07:41half hours when it was full.
07:44Yeah.
07:45You couldn't get in.
07:46It makes you wonder.
07:47So does that make you wonder if there's skepticism in the streets?
07:49Well, it's one of two things.
07:51Either they don't have the microphone and they don't have people with five months of receipts of saying Deshaun Watson
07:57isn't good at football, where they then have to sit in my position and your position and say, yeah, we
08:01were wrong.
08:02And so they're not.
08:03They're sitting there and they're grabbing their steering wheel in their car and they're just saying, you know what?
08:09I don't have to admit anything I don't want to admit right now.
08:12Or they're just doing the thing that you suggested, which is they are waiting for the other shoe to drop
08:18and they're being really cautious about giving Deshaun Watson.
08:21A lot of credit because they don't know that this is going to be sustainable with Deshaun and they don't
08:26know that the second quarter that we saw is going to start to become a second quarter, a third quarter
08:30and a fourth quarter.
08:32And they're just confused and they're left wondering, what do we do here?
08:36Well, I said going into Thursday Night Football that that like to get me back on Watson's side, I needed
08:43to see a complete game.
08:44OK, I didn't get that.
08:45There was no complete game to be had.
08:48I do think that the way that we're talking about this Deshaun Watson thing is a little bit funny to
08:53me because I do want to push back against the notion that this is some great like comeback story in
09:00sports going on right now.
09:02No, I said yesterday, Tamar Hamlin dying on the field and coming back is a great comeback story.
09:06Joe Flacco being irrelevant for almost a decade and coming off of his couch to lead the Browns to the
09:12playoffs.
09:12That's a great comeback story.
09:14Deshaun Watson, what he's doing right now, it's not really a comeback story as much as it is a guy
09:19saving his career, a guy completely saving his own backside because he was about a half of football away from
09:26probably never playing in the National Football League ever again.
09:30Well, that thin line is the part that I find interesting and I find fascinating, like how he really took
09:35it to the extremes.
09:35He was a bad quarter away in that Tampa Bay game from just not not being a football player anymore
09:41in the NFL.
09:42Like it's insane.
09:43And if he plays for another 10 years in the NFL, I just think that's such a wild set of
09:49circumstances.
09:50It really is a lot about the Deshaun Watson story that will just be mind blowing to a lot of
09:55people.
09:55That is one little nugget in all of it.
09:57He said this week when they were asking him about Aaron Rodgers just playing into his 40s, they were like,
10:03Deshaun, that's 12 more years from you.
10:05Do you still want to be doing it in 12 years?
10:07And he said, that's the goal.
10:09And I had that same thought.
10:11I was like, man, that's crazy to think that he believes that he could play another dozen years in the
10:16National Football League when three weeks ago he was a half away from being benched and he would have been
10:21out of the league.
10:22And probably like if he genuinely wanted to keep being a quarterback, the Columbus Aviators were probably going to be
10:28his most realistic option.
10:30The UFL, the CFL, like I don't think there was an NFL team that would have brought Deshaun in after
10:36week one went as bad as week one went.
10:38Yeah, his fourth quarter passing line, 7 of 11, 71 yards, his lowest passer rating of the quarter by quarter
10:45by quarter.
10:45It's 45.3.
10:47He did deliver the game winning possession though.
10:48And that's what we got to focus in on.
10:50It's just the stark contrast between the first half numbers where he's 14 of 17 for 181, had the touchdown
10:56throw, 82% completion percentage.
10:58And then the second half, 10 of 16 for 87 yards, no touchdowns, one interception.
11:03Like it really was, it was a night and day performance in many respects.
11:06But the important takeaway for myself was he had that great second quarter.
11:10And then when it came down to the fourth quarter, both you and I had the same thought of he's
11:14going to get the job done.
11:15And I've just, I've never felt that way with Deshaun Watson before.
11:18And that's where trust is starting to be built between myself and Deshaun.
11:22Well, especially they're called game winning drives where we, like he has won the last three games for the football
11:28team.
11:29And right now that's why he's purchased a lot of goodwill.
11:32You got to keep this up though.
11:33And that's why I'm not willing to say that this is some great comeback story in the history of sports.
11:39No, right now, this is still a guy trying to save his own ass.
11:42Has Deshaun won you over?
11:432-1-6-4-7-4-0-0-92.
11:45Chris and Willowick up next on the Fan.
11:47Hello, Chris.
11:49Hey guys, thanks for taking my call.
11:51Thanks for making it.
11:52Whatever you guys are smoking, you either need to stop or start sharing with the rest of us.
11:58Understand that.
12:00That play we got out of Deshaun was barely competent.
12:05Yes, he made a few throws.
12:07Yes, there was some completions.
12:09But instead of him elevating the players around him, the players around him are covering his butt.
12:16But that play that was like, it was like four and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter where
12:22I believe he did like a naked bootleg to the left and he threw across his body to a wide
12:27open somebody that was in the left flat that didn't have anyone around him for like 10 yards.
12:33It was fanning.
12:34And he sailed it.
12:35He sailed it past him.
12:37Yeah, that was awful.
12:37That any high school quarterback can make.
12:39That was awful.
12:40He's got to make that throw.
12:41100%.
12:41And to take a sack on the final drive was completely stupid.
12:49Now, that's something that a quarterback of his supposed used to be caliber and that whether it's physical or not,
12:58mentally, he's got to know he cannot take a sack in that spot.
13:03So, yes, I will give him some credit.
13:06He did make some throws, but a lot of his throws that he is making to our wide receivers and
13:11tight ends, our guys are making plays yards after the catch and making fantastic moves and making him look better
13:18than he actually is.
13:19We beat a bad Pittsburgh Steelers team last night.
13:25Their defense is passable, but their offensive line is atrocious.
13:30And the Browns boat raced out all night long last night and was chilling for Aaron Rodgers.
13:37So, I'll take the win, but I will temper it with that the Browns right now are winning games in
13:44spite of Deshaun Watson instead of because of him.
13:49Thanks for taking my call, guys.
13:50Have a great night.
13:51Thank you, Chris.
13:51Nicely put.
13:52I would say some of the things I can't defend, obviously.
13:55I can't defend the throw to Harold Fannin.
13:57That obviously wasn't great.
13:58That was really bad.
14:00The second half, I want to say outside of the game-winning drive, but when I sound it out, just
14:06say that out loud for yourself.
14:07The game-winning drive is what takes over the conversation.
14:11It's the headline.
14:12When the writers are working on their stories up in the press box, they're not writing about the sack that
14:17he took that almost knocked him out of field goal range.
14:20They're talking about the fact that it was a game-winning drive and that the Browns won the game and
14:24the final score had the Browns with more points than the Steelers did.
14:27Some of the throws to Jerry Judy on that final drive.
14:30Jerry Judy, he's been dead on arrival for weeks, and he finds Jerry Judy to have a pulse like it's
14:35insane.
14:35And then, even like some of the ones, again, that second quarter was incredible.
14:40Denzel Boston on the sideline.
14:42Casey Concepcion, where Concepcion did a lot of the work after the catch.
14:45Yes, he's going to have some of that.
14:47He's going to have some of these wide receivers doing some of the heavy lifting.
14:50I would say that just as much as he's having people help him out, he's done it with no run
14:56game and a brand-new offensive line.
14:59Like, Quinchan has been doing some stuff as far as the passing game is concerned.
15:03He did nothing on the ground yesterday.
15:06And you have a brand-new offensive line that is looking really good, I think, because, in part, Deshaun is
15:11able to get the ball out quick and make them look good.
15:13Like, I don't know.
15:14I'm the first one to want to rag on the guy.
15:16I really am.
15:16I can't do it today.
15:18I can't do it.
15:19He did a lot into making me feel that's the best I've felt about Deshaun Watson as a Browns quarterback
15:23in the time he's been here.
15:24And I tip the cap where I can.
15:27Got to keep it going, though, because some of these things that we're hearing on the phones, it's true.
15:33You don't want to have a game where, okay, those two fumbles that he lost in the fourth quarter, that
15:41could have been it if the Steelers recovered those.
15:43And there will come a game at some point this year, if he plays all 17, where he's directly the
15:47reason why,
15:48because of an interception, because of a fumble, because of something that happens.
15:51And the question will be, did he build up enough goodwill off of three game-winning drives to offset that?
15:56And as of right now, I don't know anybody that would say that he has.
15:59Which is why we need these good vibes to keep rolling on.
16:03Because I want to keep buying up as much goodwill as humanly possible so that when another shoe drops, it's
16:10not threat-level bid-die.
16:12Yeah, and we should make it abundantly clear, too.
16:14Just because he goes 3-1 doesn't mean it erases the previous four years, either.
16:17I want to make that abundantly clear to a lot of people.
16:19And it doesn't mean I'm all of a sudden rooting for Deshaun Watson as if he's the greatest thing since
16:23quarterbacking play was existent.
16:25I can't sit here and tell you guys that what I saw last night was awful quarterback play or bad
16:31quarterback play.
16:32No, no, no.
16:33It's 3-1.
16:34Browns have been playing great football.
16:36And this Browns team has been playing great football.
16:39And Deshaun Watson's a part of that team.
16:40And he deserves some flowers for it.
16:41Dude, I didn't even think Deshaun could be a game manager.
16:44So if that's supposed to be the slight on Deshaun Watson right now, I can't even partake in that.
16:53Because I didn't even think he was capable of being a game manager.
16:57I do, to an extent, think that right now we are getting souped-up Jimmy Garoppolo play out of Deshaun
17:06Watson right now.
17:06Garoppolo went to a Super Bowl.
17:07He did.
17:08He did.
17:08I didn't think that he had that in him.
17:12I didn't think that he had keep the car on the road in him.
17:16I didn't know we had this version of Deshaun Watson.
17:18That version we saw last night, that is the, you know, it's been three games in a row.
17:22But, like, that version that we saw last night, I didn't know that existed for him in a Browns uniform.
17:26And so, again, a lot of really encouraging things.
17:29A lot of really encouraging things.
17:30Now, is that just a great second quarter that's masking up a lot of mistakes that happened in the second
17:35half?
17:35Well, he did have the game-winning drive as well.
17:37But, yeah, the interception wasn't great.
17:39The two fumbles weren't great.
17:40No one's saying it's perfect.
17:42No.
17:42And please do not misinterpret this for us putting him in the Hall of Fame all of a sudden either.
17:46We're just two men sitting up here telling you guys we were wrong about where Deshaun Watson could be.
17:51And Todd Monken deserves a lot of credit for that.
17:52And Deshaun Watson deserves a lot of credit for that.
17:54It looks a lot better than unplayable, doesn't it?
17:56And that's where I thought it was.
17:58I thought it was at unplayable.
17:59I thought it was at untenable.
18:02I thought you were going to see a Deshaun Watson in 2026 that had looked worse in training camp than
18:08he ever looked in a Browns uniform.
18:10All right.
18:10We want to hear from you guys.
18:11Carl up next on the fan.
18:13Hello, Carl.
18:15Hey, guys.
18:15Thanks for taking the call.
18:16Thanks for making it.
18:17What's up, Carl?
18:18Well, obviously, the first game, I think the entire team looked bad.
18:22Like, nobody played well.
18:24The last two games, I wouldn't say he played.
18:28Well, the two games after that, I wouldn't say he played great.
18:31There was a lot of interceptions that were dropped.
18:32But this last game, as much as I'm not a fan of him, he played good football.
18:37My problem is, it's almost what we expected, right?
18:41Like, we made this bad trade.
18:43We didn't get nothing in return.
18:44We had four terrible years.
18:46And then the last year where he's up for a contract, all of a sudden, he's going to show up
18:50and start playing well.
18:51And it's making it hard for me to watch because I want my team to win.
18:54I want to root.
18:55But the better he does, the more it's almost like, of course, he'd do good finally when he's up for
19:01a contract.
19:02Yeah.
19:03You're right, Carl.
19:04There's a layer to that.
19:05I said earlier in the show, Jonathan, it's as if you've been in a long-term relationship.
19:10And you've been getting cheated on for the last four years.
19:13And you just had three weeks where the cheating finally stopped.
19:17Yeah.
19:18Yeah.
19:18They're like, oh, thank you.
19:19Thank you so much for not cheating on me for three weeks.
19:21Yeah.
19:21But I really can't forget about what you put me through for these last four years.
19:26I might never forget about it.
19:27It doesn't rebuild the years of trust in one afternoon, for instance, or in three weeks in your example there.
19:33But it's a step forward.
19:36All right?
19:37And if you're still in that relationship, even though she cheated on you for four years, okay, then maybe you're
19:42comfortable with how the whole thing was going down to begin with.
19:44All right?
19:44Maybe I do some soul search and attach to that cheating analogy.
19:47But, like, you're obviously comfortable to a degree, and you are willing to give that person another chance or another
19:52opportunity or another three chances or four chances or four years' worth of chances.
19:57But what we can deal with is in the past three weeks, many chances that you've given to Sean Watson
20:01or as the Browns have given to Sean Watson, for the past three weeks, he's paid them back.
20:06It's not $230 million of a payback.
20:08Nope.
20:08But it's three weeks and a three-in-one start to a payback, and it's started to at least have
20:13some belief that Todd Munkin not only knows what he's doing, but can be a head coach of this team
20:18for years to come.
20:18It's not worth the three first-round picks.
20:20It's not worth any of it.
20:22All of that could still be true, but what it's worth right now is over the last three weeks, he
20:27is leading the team to three winning drives, most importantly.
20:31But also, he's helping you develop some of these guys that we do all really like.
20:36When talking about Boston and Concepcion, I do think there is something to be said about having a veteran at
20:42the helm to make sure that these guys are developing the way that they need to be.
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