00:00They're at home as the Wine and Gold knocked off the Minnesota Timberwolves
00:05from the ranks of the unbeaten in an overtime 127-125 win.
00:10Danny Cunningham will join us 20 minutes from now.
00:12Chance to win Cavs tickets at 9 o'clock.
00:14But we are getting back to the Browns.
00:17They're 5-2.
00:18Nick Badone is in for Ken Carman.
00:20If I were to ask everybody in Cleveland, why are they 5-2?
00:25Without a dissertation, that's not what we do here.
00:28I mean, sure, if you have your – remember the old – was it the blue book in high school
00:33you had to fill out?
00:34No, I don't need any of that.
00:35I just need to know what is the biggest reason this team is 5-2
00:42because Sunday was one of the rare occasions.
00:45The defense let you down.
00:47I thought the defense was atrocious in the opening game of the year.
00:51It led a lot of us to wonder, did we choose the right defensive coordinator?
00:56Yeah.
00:56But since then, they have been an elite defense.
01:01I mean, they have been one of the better defenses by almost every way to track that sort of thing.
01:07And then the offense has been missing in action for most of these games up until the fourth quarter.
01:15But I thought the offense was terrific.
01:18You had your young players doing a lot.
01:19And then Todd Munkin, you know, preaching some complimentary football.
01:23So, overall, I'd say no wrong answers here, but we'll see about that.
01:29Nick Padone, why are they 5-2?
01:31I think it's because they hired the right head coach.
01:33And I remember when that was going on, dude, there were a lot of Jim Schwartz fans around Northeast Ohio
01:39that said, how could you move on from this guy when he got the vote of confidence from Miles Garrett,
01:44when he got the vote of confidence from Denzel Ward, just hire Jim Schwartz.
01:48It's the easy thing to do.
01:50But then we were barking up the Nate Sheilhouse tree and the Grant Yudinski tree.
01:55And it was like, man, we could get one of these young, up-and-coming minds with a young team.
02:01How fun could that be to be one of these modern NFL offenses?
02:05And they land on Todd Munkin.
02:07And I remember when you and Ken kind of broke the news when you were like, you know, too much
02:13or not enough Munkin.
02:14And that's kind of how people found out that the announcement was getting ready to come down the pike
02:17that it was going to be Todd Munkin.
02:19And it kind of felt like the air got sucked out of the offseason really early on.
02:24And then everybody kind of bought in a little bit to Todd as he started talking a little bit
02:29and did the combine and you see the draft class.
02:32But then they trade Miles.
02:34And it's like, okay, you only won five games last year.
02:37A lot of those games were late in the season when Miles was chasing history.
02:41And a lot of teams were just selling out to not have Miles break the sack record against him.
02:47Dude, you just traded the guy that won you five games almost single-handedly last year.
02:52How are you going to win five games with this young team, with a new head coach that's never done
02:58this before,
02:59three coordinators who have never done this before either, by the way.
03:03They bought in, though, like from day one.
03:05And then when adversity hit week one, they fought back and they rattled off three straight.
03:10When adversity hit in week five in a rainy game against the New York Jets,
03:15they fought back and they've won two straight.
03:17Now looking for three straight if they could beat the Steelers on Sunday.
03:21I really just think they hired the right head coach for where they were at as an organization.
03:27All right, 216-474-0092.
03:29Can you, the fans of Cleveland, tell me why this team is 5-2 and a chance this weekend
03:37if you can pull off the season sweep?
03:39You think people like Todd Munkin now?
03:41I mean, that's the stuff Kevin Stefanski quite honestly came right in,
03:44and he beat teams in the AFC North.
03:46So that was a big reason in 2020 why Kevin Stefanski earned a lot of early support.
03:53It was beating these teams that have had our number for so long.
03:56I remember the records that not only Big Ben had against us, Joe Flacco, and even Andy Dalton.
04:02It was crazy how we could not beat teams in this division.
04:06And then it felt like Baker and Stefanski kind of found that fire
04:08where they could never lose against Cincinnati.
04:10Even when they got Burrow and Chase, it just felt like they had Cincinnati's number.
04:14Like, if Munkin could create that and you could do that against the Pittsburgh Steelers,
04:19man, we'll have a lot of fun with this.
04:20A Cleveland Browns segment brought to you by Surfside.
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04:29I hear what you guys are saying, and I agree.
04:31Munkin's been great, and having Deshaun play non-turnover football
04:36has been a welcome surprise, right, offensively.
04:39But, guys, the defense traded away the best player on defense in the NFL,
04:45the best player on defense in the franchise's history.
04:48And I think everyone thought they were going to take a major step back
04:52and with a new coordinator.
04:55Got rid of Jim Schwartz, right?
04:57And they really – I guess the numbers probably aren't the same.
05:01They aren't the top five numbers on every statistical category.
05:05Some of them until this week were.
05:07But that defensive stand, that goal line stand.
05:10It was awesome.
05:12It saved the game.
05:12It is.
05:13It's exactly the reason that the season is going the way that it is.
05:17So that's interesting.
05:18You point to that goal line stand and you go,
05:20you want to know what Cleveland Browns football is about in 2026,
05:24and it's about being backs against the wall in a spot where they should have
05:28went up 21-7 in the game.
05:30And even Todd Munkin after the game said,
05:32I thought they actually scored the touchdown there.
05:34He wasn't thinking – he was thinking in terms of what they needed to do
05:38to counteract it.
05:39And you look at that spot and go, that's who they are.
05:43That's the point if you're making the NFL films.
05:46If John Facinda's talking, you go to that point right there in the season.
05:50I know it's the Titans and it's not, you know, the Steelers or the Chiefs
05:54or the Bengals or the Bills,
05:57but it is everything that you want from the Lunch Pell City team, right?
06:02So even – yeah, Owen, I think you laid it out perfectly.
06:06Even in a game where you did not have your best defense,
06:10they showed that they had another pitch.
06:13Well, they didn't.
06:14And they've had some games like that.
06:16You know, obviously the Jacksonville game comes to mind.
06:18The game against Baker and Tampa Bay – I thought Tampa Bay and Baker
06:23let us off the hook completely.
06:24They could have just kept the ball on the ground were we ever –
06:28Stopped running.
06:29That's what Mike McCarthy did too on Thursday Night Football.
06:32It looked like Jalen Warren was about to have a Barry Sanders type of day
06:35and then McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers decided to just start yelling at each other
06:39and airing the thing out.
06:40Yeah, so, you know, that's important that a team,
06:43even when they're not at their best,
06:45even when they're having the constant defensive breakdowns,
06:49can still produce turnovers, can still come up big.
06:53I'm still going to say it's Deshaun, though,
06:56in terms of, like, why they're here, why they're 5-2,
06:59because as much as I've seen a bunch of national writers say that Watson
07:05has been terrible this year because they're looking at those advanced metrics.
07:09I look at those advanced metrics all the time.
07:11I don't just throw them away.
07:12I don't just say people are using numbers to prove an argument.
07:15But it wasn't – until this week, it wasn't what Deshaun was doing.
07:17It was what Deshaun was not doing, which was turning over the football, right?
07:21He was just protecting the ball.
07:23Yeah, if you go 3-and-out and you punt the ball back
07:26and at least somehow get one first down and you flip the field,
07:31analytically, it's not good.
07:32But what are you doing?
07:34You're putting your better unit out there.
07:36You're putting your defense out there.
07:37You're not giving teams a short field, which Deshaun –
07:41man, we've had a bevy of quarterbacks over the last 15 years save for those
07:46playoff seasons.
07:47Give teams short fields – I illustrated it last week that this team,
07:54turnover-wise, we have had a number of years where we've had twice the amount
07:58of turnovers through six games that we have this year.
08:01Some of that is good fortune, right?
08:03But also some of it is they have dialed things in a way a little more conservative
08:11of an approach, although I thought in the Pittsburgh game that went out the window
08:14they did go vertical.
08:15But that's part of it, and that's part of Munkin playing very, very three levels
08:22of football, smart, smart complementary football.
08:26He's done the really obvious thing, which at times is not a common thing for Browns head
08:32coaches is just to do the obvious – it was obvious to get KC the football.
08:36There were so many numbers that alluded to the fact that Tennessee was horrible
08:41defending the slot or defending running backs as pass catchers.
08:45So the fact that you were able to use him as a running back three times in that game,
08:49the fact that the down-under game with him was just wide open all day long,
08:53it was obvious.
08:53They did the obvious thing in that situation.
08:57You know, Deshaun, every time they put a microphone in front of his face,
09:01I still do kind of pause a beat just to make sure that the right thing comes out of his
09:06mouth
09:06so we don't have a whole other hellstorm situation like what happened over the summer.
09:11I thought him talking about playing complementary football and about that being kind of maybe
09:16the reason why the offense looks slow starting to fans is one of the most intelligent things
09:21that the dude has ever said.
09:22Because when you've got a defense like this, there's no reason to put the ball in harm's way.
09:27Just do enough to win offensively because the defense is going to ball out more times
09:31than it's not going to.
09:32Absolutely.
09:33And the way on Sunday, the plays that they got those young pass catchers,
09:38the ball in their hands, allowing them to do things that they can do,
09:42their God-given talents.
09:43You saw it on full display, especially, man, that Harold Fannin.
09:46There were a few, like, three-yard throws to him, four-yard throws to him that became eight or nine,
09:52and then it was second and manageable.
09:53Like, that is the stuff that is a play caller's dream.
09:57It's a quarterback's dream.
09:58David in Nashville, still probably partying from Sunday's win.
10:04Go ahead, David.
10:05Hey, guys.
10:06How you been doing?
10:07Yes, I am still partying.
10:08It was a great game.
10:09It was a fun time to go to.
10:11But the reason we are 5-2, without a doubt, in my mind, is because of Andrew Barry.
10:17He has put together two fantastic drafts back-to-back.
10:20We have added nine or ten Count Dylan Sampson starters to our roster.
10:26I mean, he has completely flipped it.
10:28He took Miles Garrett, traded him away.
10:30We've got all kinds of assets for the next upcoming year.
10:33This isn't going to be a flash in the pan.
10:35This is going to be like we are building something for the future here.
10:39And no doubt in my mind, that's why we are where we're heading.
10:42All right, David.
10:43Appreciate the call.
10:45And Andrew Barry, did he have anything to do with Deshaun Watson?
10:50You know, it's funny because you wouldn't give anybody credit associated with the Deshaun
10:53Watson move over the last how many years?
10:55But this year, you'd have to say, like, they thought against the wishes of the masses.
11:03I heard Adam the Bull, the afternoon show, said no one saw this coming.
11:07I'm sure there'll be some people tweeting at us and said, no, no.
11:09I said, yeah, but it was against conventional wisdom.
11:12Like, even me, somebody who had begged for Deshaun Watson, did not think there were a lot
11:16of redeemable qualities.
11:17Giving him credit for restructuring the deal so many times that we couldn't cut him before
11:21this year?
11:22Yeah.
11:22Had they not done all the restructures, he would have been gone.
11:25Yeah, he absolutely would have been gone.
11:27And I was very critical of Barry doing that because it wasn't like those restructures
11:31really helped the football team in a lot of ways by bringing in big-time free agents.
11:36We're still gambling on that, right?
11:37Yeah.
11:37We're still riding the edge of that right thing.
11:39And the bottom could fall out on that at any moment.
11:42It hasn't so far.
11:43And Deshaun's been the reason that it hasn't because it's, you know, you're actually getting
11:47decent quarterback play now.
11:49But, man, you still, it's tough when you stop and actually take a big-picture look at
11:55it all.
11:56Like, man, this thing could go south at any moment if something were to happen to Deshaun
12:02now.
12:02But, to the caller's point, the big-picture stuff, even if things go haywire with this
12:09quarterback, you still have Harold Fannin.
12:11You still have KC.
12:13You still have Boston.
12:14You still have Fano.
12:15You know, you have Swessinger.
12:18Like, there are a lot of reasons to believe that even if this season went haywire with the
12:22quarterback and he turns into a pumpkin like so many people think he will, and many of
12:27you are rooting for him, too, like there is a reason to still have hope.
12:32All right, when we come back, hey, how about some hope in a rookie, a second-round draft
12:38pick for the Cavs who was calling himself a star last night, who Donovan Mitchell said
12:42they rode his coattails.
12:44How big of a development is Malik Thomas and that Sterling rookie debut as they beat a very,
12:51very good basketball team last night in overtime?
12:54Danny Cunningham to talk about their first three games and what it's all looked like
12:58here on Sports Radio 92.3.
13:00The fans.
