00:00You were telling me in the pre-show here that ESPN Analytics gave out the chances of all four
00:07AFC North teams to win the division, and they gave the Browns just 5%, which I find to be
00:15mildly disrespectful. Yeah, so the Bengals at the top, Bengals with three wins, the only three-win
00:20team in the AFC North, and then the Ravens at 40% as well. It's right there. And then the
00:25Steelers 15%, Browns at 5%. So the reason why I think it's disrespectful is you've already
00:31got two divisional wins. I can't recall how many times the Bengals, Steelers, and Ravens
00:36already played each other, but you've got two tiebreakers as of right now. That doesn't
00:41mean you're going to keep the tiebreakers. It doesn't mean you're going to win the other
00:45four games you play in the division, but I think two tiebreakers six weeks into the season
00:50and a 4-2 record should probably get you more than 5% chance. I can't tell if I'm more
00:55upset
00:55by the 5% chance or the idea that the Steelers have three times as a likelihood of a chance
01:00of winning the AFC North than the Browns do. You watched the Steelers game yesterday.
01:04Yeah. They're not that good. They're just not. They're not that bad. They're not that
01:08bad, but they're also not that good. They're not that good. That's an 8-win team, and I
01:13would be surprised if they end up even as a 9-win team instead, but they're somewhere between
01:188-9 wins. And the difference is, that's an old football team. Like, the Steelers' problem
01:23is they've got an aging roster, and they just haven't let nature take its course previously.
01:28So while they have a couple of young people, like, I can look at the Steelers and go,
01:32you might at 4-2. You might have played your best football this season.
01:36I don't think you can say that about the Browns. They're 4-2. They played a lot of crappy football,
01:41but they're so young. You know, health will end up being the ultimate thing here, but when you're
01:47this young, one of the second or third youngest team in the NFL, if you're already 4-2, that allows
01:53you a lot of wiggle room as the season goes on to, again, continue to play good football,
01:58and it's not like your face are in a murderous row either.
02:03No, you're not. Now, did you feel more or less disheartened about where we stand against the
02:07Ravens after yesterday's game? Because I know instinctively, I think people want to say more
02:10because we got the win, but that was still without Lamar Jackson.
02:13Yeah, but for us, it was still without Quinn, Sean. It was without Mason Graham. Not just that,
02:19Mike Hall. The Browns are also incredibly injured right now. What should make yesterday so impressive,
02:25even if the game film isn't impressive, even if everything else isn't impressive, is you're just
02:32as banged up as they are. Mind you, your starter started, but your starter's still Deshaun.
02:37And in the game, some of our best defensive players, like Delpit, for instance, kept going out,
02:41and there was all sorts of different injuries and things that popped up, and it didn't really
02:44seem to matter to this defense. They got better as the game moved on. After the first couple
02:48drives, it was nearly flawless. Yeah, at some point we do have to, and I'll ask Coach about
02:52this. I'll ask Nathan about this as well. At some point, we do have to talk about the first
02:55quarters. The Browns have been outscored 44-6 in the first quarter of their six games this year.
03:02That is an insanely bad start. And by the way, even if you take out the Jags game,
03:07it's still 30-6. So it's not like that game in and of itself has weighted it to such a
03:12direction. No, no, no, no. You still have just not shown up, including yesterday where
03:16you gave up 10 points.
03:18Well, so here's the, I think if we're trying to find maybe some things that are concerning
03:22or some things that are giving us some caution or like, hey, what's going on here? It is
03:27kind of confounding how, like the first 15 are supposed to be your best plays. You saw
03:31that with Baltimore easily. It was like Tyler Huntley knew what to do for the first 15, and
03:35then that was it. But why do you know what to do for the first 15? It's because
03:38that's what they practice. That's what they go over. Declan Doyle knows what he's
03:41doing. Our defense is miles ahead of where our offense is right now. And at some point,
03:46as much as I give Monk in credit for knowing how to win games and knowing how to get the
03:49job done, like he is an offensive head coach. Rutenberg shouldn't be the most inspiring
03:53part of this team right now.
03:54Yeah, I, my struggle is you're just not very functional on offense. Like even, even Kevin
04:01Stefanski, like there was a time where you could just pencil in seven or three points
04:06on the first drive. What came after that when Stefanski's pronounced, you never were quite
04:09sure.
04:10That is part of what made me so frustrated was the Stefanski time too, is how many times
04:14he looked around and said, wait, offensive minded head coach, but the defense is the
04:17one doing all the work.
04:18Well, but I think my point was like Stefanski would come out in the first drive and then
04:22you'd fall apart after. I think, I think, I think the age is a part of this. And again,
04:27I don't think Todd Munkin knows what strings to pull because I don't think there are strings
04:32to pull like, all right, we're going to plan it around the run game. All right. Well, the
04:36offensive line isn't going to block today. Oh, Hey, we're going to go ahead and dial up
04:40a deep shot. Uh, Oh, well now you're not going to get open. Like it just, it does feel like
04:44there's such a comedy of errors on offense early in games that I almost kind of have to throw
04:49out any, any idea of like, well, is he just not scheming it up? Right? Because I'll look
04:54at the actual performance out there. Well, what he said after the game was, uh, he was
04:58like, did, did we even practice all week? Yeah. You know, I thought it was honesty,
05:01but it was, it was pretty startling to hear a head coach talk about it that way of like,
05:05did we, I did, I didn't even know if we showed up this week to practice. Cause it was none
05:08of the, none of what we did obviously during the week was there. I also thought he was trying
05:12to go tongue in cheek. And I think if we've learned anything about Todd Munkin, he's not
05:17good at tongue in cheek. It doesn't come across very well. I'll tell you, like brutal sarcasm.
05:21Todd can pull off pretty well. I actually really enjoy when he goes really sarcastic,
05:25like over the top sarcastic or blunt. He's very good at blunt, but when he's like, I'm
05:30going to play coy, Todd, you can't play coy. That's not what that's not your, your, your
05:35wheelhouse there. I would just abandon coy. I mean, it felt like commentary that, uh, that
05:39like I would give at halftime of the game, not necessarily something the head coach should
05:42be saying. Obviously today, did they even show up after practice this week? I guess it's
05:47obvious like sports talk radio guy thing, not necessarily a head coach thing. What was interesting
05:51about that comment is I took that. I took a fair amount of that to be on like Deshaun
05:56too. I was interested in the browser four and two and Deshaun did come alive in the fourth
06:00quarter, but I, I kind of felt when I was listening to that, I'm like, Oh, this feels
06:04like he's not just talking about what's going on around the quarterback. It feels like he's
06:07talking about the quarterback who looks, I think your read was right there. I thought
06:11he was as hard on Deshaun after a win, especially than I think I've ever heard him be on Deshaun.
06:17And maybe it's because he knows after a win, you're just going to have more latitude that
06:20way. And the fan base is going to be more forgiving. But I mean, he was pretty blunt
06:24about it. Like I, he was very, very forthright about the idea that that offense is not operating
06:28the way that he needs it to operate. If they're going to be a good team this year.
06:31Well, and why that matters is for a very, very, very hot minute. Todd Munkin has been doing
06:37the kid gloves things with Deshaun. I mean, even up until like last week, there were moments
06:42where it was like, you probably should have hammered him on a specific question about
06:46a, uh, almost turnover worthy play or a breakdown in like it basically Deshaun tucking the ball
06:53too early, whatever it was, he did not do that yesterday. And that is a change of pace
06:58from the, not just five weeks. What did the first two months, the first month of camp too?
07:04Yeah. I mean, honestly, I thought he was going to, I mean, listening to the, the post game
07:07comments, I thought he was going to go and do, well, you know, yeah, first half wasn't
07:10great and just kind of like brush past the idea that you had 25 total passing yards in
07:13the first half and then focus in on the idea that Deshaun had four incompletions total in
07:17the second half and another game winning drive. He didn't take that route, which, which tells
07:21me that him and Deshaun right now are in a good place to like the idea that he can, he
07:25doesn't have to treat him with kid gloves. He can be as hard as he needs to on him. And
07:28he's going to understand that it's going to be all right. Cause he's got a little bit
07:30of a little bit of room to work with, or he's ready to ratchet up the pressure on Deshaun
07:35and see if Deshaun can handle it. Cause that is something you would have to go to as well.
07:38That's great. I get to move the goalpost on Deshaun all the time. Right? So why shouldn't
07:43the head coach be able to, I don't think that's moving the goalpost. I think it is, Hey, we've
07:47laid the groundwork here. You should have the confidence necessary. Now I need to be able
07:52to coach you with a little, a little, a firmer grasp, call it what you want, moving the goalpost,
07:56raising expectations, whatever it is. But like, yeah, like this is, this is a good thing, by
08:00the way, this is the development they needed because you couldn't treat him with kid gloves
08:03all year long. I think the fear with going to uptempo early in the game is, uh,
08:08the Jacksonville game where I did think they were trying to do some tempo things early.
08:14And the problem is the defense had one of its, uh, vaunted, uh, slow starts. And then before
08:20you knew it, the game was over. Yeah. That turned out to be a real problem really quick. So like,
08:24and the cool thing about the Ravens, Nick, is that the Ravens, whether it's Harbaugh or now
08:29Jesse Minner, they vomit all over their shoes in the second half of games. You're down at the
08:34half by double digits. And there's not a soul out there, even though we weren't moving the
08:37ball or doing anything you kept thinking about. It's the one team you want to be playing down
08:41double digits. Cause they just always cough up these leads and pace is built with trust.
08:45You're not going to go with if, cause here's the thing. At some point you've got to eat up enough
08:49clock that if you do have a six and out or a five play drive that ends in a punt
08:55that you're not
08:56doing that with, uh, about 75 seconds of clock time. I mean, uptempo, my goodness, we couldn't
09:01complete passes. Yeah. Like we couldn't, we couldn't do anything really. Even the basic stuff,
09:06nonetheless, try to do anything uptempo and burn a lot of clock for what, but other than that,
09:10they should definitely try it. 216-474-0092 ESPN analytics gives the Browns 5% chance
09:17to win the division. Is that disbelief or downright disrespect?
