00:00Ben Solak, who does, I think it's every Tuesday, he releases his seven things.
00:04And it's seven things he thinks right now.
00:06And so one of his things had to do with Kevin Stefanski,
00:11and basically the fact that he right now would vote for Kevin Stefanski
00:15as a Coach of the Year, which again would be his third Coach of the Year award.
00:21Not that that should preclude him from getting that award,
00:24but the two-time Coach of the Year award, rarefied air.
00:27Three-time, you are in the exclusive creme de la creme, greatest coaches of all time, right?
00:33It's not an automatic pass to the Hall of Fame, but it might as well be.
00:37I don't think Belichick has won even three times.
00:40It's a short way.
00:41All right, I'm going to make you feel better about this situation, okay?
00:44I can't, and you know I love Ben Solak.
00:46He might be one of my favorites.
00:47Hey, he's an aura farmer.
00:48He's fantastic.
00:49I just, I can't find any, first off, I can't find any betting site that correlates this at all.
00:53But I also can't logically find anything that correlates with why Stefanski would be Coach of the Year.
00:58You're a sub-500 team, and your offense is supposed to be the everything around this,
01:03and their EPA per play is 22nd.
01:06They're 17th in yards.
01:07They're 26th in EPA for dropback.
01:09Like, I don't know where he got this.
01:11Is it because Bijan is good at football?
01:13News alert.
01:14Bijan was good at football last year, too.
01:16It's actually the recent play of Michael Penix Jr., and the fact that they are getting Michael Penix to play
01:21in a non-Michael Penix Jr. kind of way.
01:26So instead of just slinging the ball all around the yard and making a lot of big, dumb, goofy, awesome
01:30throws, he's doing more restraint.
01:32He is playing within the offense, and basically that is the number one reason.
01:37Solak believes that what you've seen from Michael Penix Jr. the last two weeks, two to three weeks,
01:42is what you're going to get for the future, and I think that's carrying a lot of water for both
01:50Michael Penix Jr. and Kevin Stefanski.
01:53But again, that also goes to a lot of what I was just talking about, is the underneath-the-hood
01:56aspect of this offense is not really that strong.
01:59Now, I'll give you that. Penix has looked the best Michael Penix has looked.
02:03Are we building this award just based off of making one quarterback that we thought was dead and buried all
02:08of a sudden look like he's competent?
02:09So it's interesting. I do think that's why the idea—
02:13I mean, that is a lot behind Munkin, is it not, I guess, in theory?
02:16I credit it more than that, but as I'm talking about it now, is that what the award's built on?
02:21I think the difference is this feels even more slight because it's basically two to three weeks of Michael Penix
02:26Jr.
02:26Well, and that's where I'm like, hey, everyone, pump the brakes a little bit.
02:30Let's be honest, it's about the 49ers win.
02:31And it's like, well, the 49ers sold out to stop Bijan, and yes, the stat line for Michael Penix Jr.
02:38looks good, but he's still—it's not like—it's still very much an offense where, hey, a lot of your skill—
02:48Drake London carried a lot of the heavy lifting for Michael Penix Jr.
02:52And it's also two to three games.
02:54He completed 18 passes in that game.
02:55But it's the three touchdowns, 226 yards.
02:59And listen, that is—obviously, some of the heavy lifting in this discussion is going to be that the Packers game
03:04was on a nationally televised game, and so everyone got really impressed with that one.
03:08And the 49ers, like, you have two quality wins.
03:11No one's debating that.
03:12No one's arguing that.
03:13But your offense is basically the same offense it was last year.
03:16It's Bijan or bust, and, like, you're sub-500.
03:19Coach of the year goes to sub-500?
03:21Listen, I think Ben Solak is incredibly smart.
03:24And I like to say that so then I can rip his idea.
03:26Okay.
03:27I also think Ben Solak might have been one of the guys who just never sold his stock in Kevin
03:31Stefanski.
03:32And I think there are more people out there than we realize.
03:35At some point, Kevin Stefanski was elevated in the minds of NFL writers to a different level.
03:44And some of that is, like, reporters—well, Kevin was really good with national reporters away from the microphones.
03:49As bad as he was at talking into a microphone, nobody played the game.
03:53Of all the coaches I've seen in Brown's history, no one has played the game away from the microphone as
04:00good as Kevin Stefanski.
04:01There's a reason why reporters were carrying water for him well into another lost season.
04:06And the framing of it wasn't when they finally did say, well, maybe Kevin's got to go.
04:10It was change of scenery.
04:11It was, well, there's just so much water under this bridge, right?
04:15It's probably best for Kevin as well to go.
04:17That's a very friendly—it's a very friendly Kevin Stefanski—Stefanski—I almost said—stance.
04:28A Kevin Stefanski stance.
04:31So even when they finally realized that Kevin was going to get fired and that was the right move for
04:35the Browns,
04:36it was actually, no, this is really good for Kevin, right?
04:39And the reason why this matters is I don't wish any ill will of Kevin Stefanski.
04:45There is no plane of existence.
04:49There's nothing in this whole conversation in which Kevin Stefanski has a better path
04:54or should have a better path for Coach of the Year than Todd Munkin.
04:58And we can agree, by the way, that Coach of the Year is a—
05:02I don't really know how much I really care about this thing year in, year out.
05:06But specific to this year, if Todd Munkin continues on the 5-2 start in the Browns or a playoff
05:12team
05:12or in the playoff conversation come December, there is nobody on the planet that will have
05:18a better Coach of the Year candidacy than Todd Munkin because half the people voting on it
05:23didn't think he should be hired.
05:25And nobody thought the Browns were going to win games.
05:29The fact that we—if they win this week, the fact that they will already have beat Vegas' estimation for them,
05:34the win total for them, and they will have done it in eight games,
05:37it is hard to—it's hard to oversell how incredibly impressive that would be,
05:42especially once you factor in they're doing it with Deshaun Watson, a quarterback left for dead,
05:47the previous four years.
05:48Yeah, and again, like, I don't have any updated odds on this,
05:51but last week going into a game where the Browns won,
05:53Munkin was the odds-on favorite, according to our friends in the desert, to win this award.
05:57So, like, he's getting the respect.
05:58I think people are realizing that from a culture standpoint and what he's done to change this team
06:03is far more impressive than what Stefanski has done in Atlanta.
06:06Like, it's just—it's night and day. It's not even close.
06:08You want to argue John Harbaugh if you're a Giants fan?
06:11Okay, maybe we can start to have some of those discussions if J.J. McCarthy all of a sudden
06:15has the light bulb go on and look like the way he did the last couple weeks.
06:18Maybe he enters the chat. Maybe that's a good conversation.
06:21You want to bring Kevin O'Connell into the mix.
06:23I think that's a worthy adversary. Stefanski's not that, though.
06:26We used to do the Cleveland coaching confidence meter.
06:29It was labeled better than that, but it's been almost a decade since I did the bit.
06:34But we did that at nights when I was there.
06:36And I wish we could do that just with NFL coaches across the board.
06:40Right? Just where your general—everyone just gets to assess the confidence
06:44because, like, John Harbaugh getting the coach—what he's doing in New York is very impressive.
06:49It is.
06:50Because people had expectations for that team.
06:52It just looks different, them fulfilling those expectations.
06:56No, but they won four games last year.
06:59Yeah, but there were still people—
07:00There was a bad Giants team.
07:02Yeah, but there were people who believed that John Harbaugh was going to turn them into a media winner.
07:05I don't think their over-under was that particularly high, though.
07:08If I said 7.5, I think I might be even generous there to the Giants.
07:12I want to say it was 7.5.
07:13And even within that, though, is not—and that's, again, me being generous.
07:16It might have been—it's got to be somewhere in there.
07:17I'll look it up in a second.
07:18You're known for your generosity.
07:19But, like, that's not a juggernaut.
07:21Like, if he fixes J.J. McCarthy while in the process has the Giants at 10 or 11 wins,
07:27again, we're talking about worthy adversaries.
07:30So fans keeping three and four and having three good weeks of Michael Penix, not it to me.
07:34I think what I'm realizing now as we're talking, because I'm getting worked up as you're selling this case for
07:38John Harbaugh,
07:39which, by the way, you're doing a good job.
07:40You're making salient points.
07:42And so I recognize that the point you're making is correct.
07:45I don't like it.
07:47I don't care for it.
07:48It was 7.5 on the money.
07:49How about that?
07:49Todd Munkin—if Todd Munkin gets to 10 wins, no one else should get a vote for Coach of the Year.
07:58This will be—I mean, this isn't Kevin Stefanski in 2020 when he won his first.
08:03No, because that team had been having expectations for multiple years.
08:07He finally just became the coach to actually get out of the way of the locker room and do the
08:11job.
08:12To lose your starting quarterback off of a four-win season as is and to be able to rebound and
08:18to be able to put it all together.
08:20My vote's for Munkin.
08:21Obviously, I'm a sports radio host in Cleveland.
08:23We need to acknowledge that on the front of this.
08:24But if Harbaugh got to 10 or 11 wins and Munkin ends up with 10 or 11 wins, Munkin's not
08:30winning that award.
08:30Yeah, that—
08:31You know he's not winning that award.
08:32Stop that you're baiting me, and I know you're doing it.
08:33The New York side of this isn't going to let Munkin win that award.
08:36You know that.
08:36Then I will call Boomer and Geo and Carton, and I will attack them on a daily basis.
08:39I will challenge the New York media members to a cage fight once a week until I get my way.
08:46It'll be ridiculous.
08:47If you salvage Deshaun Watson into a 10-win season, you're a playoff team, and Vegas had you at five
08:55-and-a-half wins, and everyone thought you were with the Jets, the Titans, and you were going to have
08:59a top-five pick.
08:59People accused you of tanking.
09:01If the NFL media does not give Todd Munkin the respect, at some point, I'm going to start labeling them
09:07as ageist.
09:08I will get the AARP to sponsor this show, and I will go ahead and I will invite—
09:17I would love to John Harbaugh.
09:18That's a good job he's doing.
09:20I'm not trying to diminish it.
09:21Both would have had either the five- or six-win improvement, and really what it comes down to is,
09:25do you get more credit for resurrecting the dead body of Deshaun Watson, or do you get it for resurrecting
09:32J.J. McCarthy?
09:33It's Deshaun Watson.
09:34It's not even close.
09:35A guy that was a—not even—he's not like he was a never—like a has-been.
09:39He was and never was.
09:40Yeah, but that's a perception thing versus Deshaun Watson literally being off the radar for two years.
09:46But losing your starting quarterback and then being able to take another quarterback and throw him into the mix and
09:51then win 10 or 11 games is an impressive feat to a lot of people.
09:55I'm telling you right now, just be ready for it.
09:58No.
09:58If he goes down this path, Munkin's not going to win that award.
10:01It would go to John Harbaugh.
10:02I'm not going to set myself up for, you know, oh, I'm going to—so I can let myself down.
10:08No, I'm going to be just as pissed five weeks from now as I am right now.
10:12It's asinine.
10:13I understand, and you're right.
10:15Big market media bias, I get it.
10:17The Giants are the Hollywood franchise.
10:19Oh, gosh, the Giants.
10:21The NFC East.
10:22By the way, that whole division stinks.
10:24It sucks.
10:26Like, your big competition is the Cowboys.
10:29They just beat your vaunted Texans who are 10.5-point favorites into that game.
10:35You put some respect on the Texans game, damn it.
10:36That's your team.
10:37Yeah, that—no, it's not.
10:39That is one of my other teams.
10:40That's your team right now.
10:41My team is the Cleveland Browns, and Todd Munkin deserves more damn respect.
10:43That's your team to me.
10:44In my eyes.
10:44And it's going to start with the Aura Farmer, who I think is 26 years old.
10:48I'm going to have to have him on.
10:50We like him.
10:51We want him to have him come on.
10:52No, that's what I'm saying.
10:52I'm calling him the Aura Farmer.
10:53I'm saying that both sarcastically and sincerely.
10:55When you said, is he actually 26 years old?
10:57I have no idea how old he is.
10:58He looks 26.
10:58I'm assuming he's not 26.
11:00Well, he looks 18.
11:01I think he's one of those guys that looks young, but actually is older.
11:04We call that the Michael J. Fox.
11:07Oh, really?
11:07From, like, the 90s.
11:08Yeah.
11:08Yeah.
11:10Hmm.
11:11Yeah.
11:11I realize now that people are going to take that a different way.
11:13I don't mean it a different way.
11:14Okay, good.
11:15I mean, Michael J.
11:15I took it the other way.
11:16Michael J. Fox played 25 for 30 years.
11:19Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:20Some people could do that.
11:20Yeah.
