00:00I have qualified this as a Conor or Browns bombshell for the deadline.
00:05You weren't in quite agreement that it's a bombshell,
00:08but I do know whether you think it's a bombshell or not,
00:12it has upset Browns fans across the board.
00:15Whether you like Shador, you don't like Shador,
00:17whether you like Deshaun, whether you don't like Deshaun,
00:19because Conor or pitched 10 trades he'd like to see ahead of the deadline.
00:24And he had the Browns trading a late round pick for Spencer Rattler,
00:28the backup quarterback for the Saints.
00:31And his logic was he thinks Deshaun Watson is ripe for regression.
00:36Then he also had this little tidbit in there saying,
00:39I think the idea of turning to Shador Sanders is a non-starter for Todd Munkin.
00:46I hated pretty much everything Conor had to say about this, JP.
00:50So the only rebuttal I have, it's pretty clear,
00:53and there's a lot of places we can take this and will as we get going in this conversation
00:57that I do find interesting and I think matter.
01:00But, you know, after week two, or sorry, approaching week two,
01:03the Browns were pretty hell-bent on getting the word out there
01:06that they were ready to bench Deshaun Watson then
01:08and make Shador Sanders a starter.
01:09So, like, in five weeks, has their opinion on Shador Sanders changed that drastically?
01:13Maybe that answer is yes, but I just don't know that it is.
01:16Yeah, and listen, in fairness, Conor said he initially thought about putting Kirk Cousins in there,
01:22and I can't remember his logic for not doing it.
01:25With respect to Kirk Cousins, he's lost four straight games.
01:28He's not the reason why they're losing all those games.
01:30No, he's not. He's actually played really good football.
01:32I don't know that switching quarterbacks and expecting 38-year-old Kirk Cousins to plug and play,
01:38I don't know that that's a fair expectation if Deshaun does have some sort of massive regression from here,
01:43or if all of a sudden he has the same stat line but the Browns just stop winning.
01:49I don't like the Shador implications either, though.
01:52Those are probably the ones that frustrate me the most because it's like,
01:56it's not like Spencer Rattler was a former first-round pick.
02:00Spencer Rattler was a fifth-round pick, and he was okay last year.
02:05Okay. He still got benched for Tyler Schock.
02:07But even that's being generous.
02:09Two years ago, he was 40th out of 40 qualified quarterbacks in EPA,
02:12and last year he was 28 out of 33.
02:14He wasn't very good.
02:15And, listen, you know I'm not a big QB wins guy.
02:17I'm not.
02:18So I'll put that on the front of it, but I know you are.
02:20I know you care if the quarterback has wins or losses.
02:24And I care relatively speaking.
02:26Now I'm just making myself sound like an idiot as if it doesn't matter at all.
02:29It matters some.
02:30The point is Spencer Rattler is 1-13 as a starting quarterback.
02:34So Spencer Rattler's win-loss record, if you're going to account for that
02:37because you don't care at all about my advance numbers that say that he sucks,
02:40his win-loss record sucks.
02:41But what I think is an interesting convo off of this, Nick,
02:44and I think a real convo, do the Browns trust Shador enough
02:48if you have a winning team to throw him in there in back of Deshaun Watson?
02:52If you either, A, need to bench Deshaun because he starts stinking up the joint,
02:55or, B, does in fact get injured.
02:57You are in a different spot than we were entering this season
03:00with the idea of, well, just, you know, throw him out there and see what happens.
03:04Like, no, you're playing for the playoffs now.
03:06This is a different story.
03:07You are, but, I mean, this is the same team that still waited,
03:10I think it was four or five weeks, between Deshaun Watson and Joe Flacco.
03:14You still did the P.J. Walker song and dance.
03:17You still did the DTR dance.
03:19And you were a winning team when Deshaun got hurt back in 2023.
03:23Yeah, but it's different now, obviously, because of the trade deadline
03:25and what has to happen.
03:26Like, you got Joe Flacco because he was on his couch.
03:28Well, yeah, I guess my thing is, if there was a quarterback out there
03:31that I saw as a, oh, I think that's a definitive upgrade,
03:35and I think day one he walks in and can do it,
03:38maybe I'd be more open to this, but it's like,
03:40I don't think Spencer Rattler's better than Shador Sanders.
03:43So we see eye to eye on this, though.
03:45And I also think, like, I think the fact that Shador has been in this system
03:50and has been in Cleveland and knows his teammates for two years,
03:53but has been in the system since, you know, January,
03:57I think that gives him an edge up over another quarterback as well.
04:01No, we see eye to eye on this.
04:02Where I thought I was going to have to give you a concession of sorts,
04:05you know, because obviously everyone knows I like Shador Sanders a great deal,
04:09but the concession I was going to give is,
04:10if you think that this season has now become a postseason team,
04:14and they really are, if you think about it,
04:16you just go 500 down the stretch, it's all you need to do.
04:19I understand that.
04:20Like, if Munkin's like, I don't want to throw out there a second-year player
04:23because he's just too inexperienced, too whatever, I'll listen to it.
04:27But then you've got to give me the guy that's better.
04:29You've got to give me the guy that you unequivocally know
04:31is going to have the production
04:32and is going to be able to take this team to the postseason.
04:35If that answer is Kirk Cousins, I actually would listen to it,
04:37all things considered.
04:38I thought we were going to get a lot more Gardner Minshew discussion
04:41out of this maybe, but it's definitely not Spencer Rattler.
04:44I think Kirk Cousins playing in a cold-weather climate
04:46in the coldest part of the year sounds like a disaster to me.
04:49I just think it's as simple as you had a chance to upgrade
04:53this quarterback room, whether it was behind Deshaun
04:56or in front of Deshaun, and that time was somewhere in March and April.
04:59And so the fact that you haven't done it, we are in an element of,
05:03and I get that people have already flipped it to playoff expectations.
05:07I think you owe it to yourself that if something happens to Deshaun
05:11or there's a regression, I think you owe it to look at one of the three
05:15young quarterbacks you've drafted in the last two years.
05:19I would put that to Shador because I think he's got the best blend
05:22of upside and actual potential ability to play the spot.
05:27I don't think Taylor Greene is an NFL quarterback.
05:28I think he is a future gadget player.
05:31And I think I have no problem drafting him, by the way,
05:34scratch off as many lottery tickets as you have.
05:36But I think people talk about his upside without talking about the fact
05:39that I think his floor is laughably low.
05:43I think Dylan Gabriel's floor is incredibly high, but his ceiling is laughably low.
05:49I think Shador is the best of those two worlds of good ceiling, sturdy floor.
05:56I would just, if something happens to Deshaun on the field or injury-wise,
06:01I do need to see what Shador has this year.
06:04Next year is different.
06:05Next year we can have different conversations, but this year it is Deshaun or Shador for me.
06:10So I agree with that, but do you think that Conor Orr is right in his assessment
06:14when it comes to Todd Munkin, that Munkin in five weeks has drastically changed his opinion on this
06:18and now, in fact, doesn't want to play Shador Sanders and would be looking towards something else?
06:23So I think that's what is the toughest part about this is Conor Orr is one of the most
06:28plugged-in dudes in the NFL.
06:29He has done projects for teams before.
06:33He is incredibly in the know, incredibly respected.
06:37I don't know that there is that relationship with Todd Munkin,
06:40but I think the idea of turning to Shador Sanders as a non-starter for Todd Munkin,
06:45I don't know if that is a guess by Conor because he doesn't like Shador
06:49or whether that's an informed bit of speculation from Conor Orr.
06:53So I read it as a guess, but I got the vibe earlier that we were reading it a little
06:57bit differently,
06:58and this comes with a lot of respect for Conor as well.
07:00I used to have him on my show all the time back in the day, I think highly of him,
07:03but I read that as a guess because of what we knew five weeks ago
07:08and how ready the Browns were to move off of Deshaun Watson
07:11if he just had one more bad half of football.
07:13I mean, I think the way the Browns were going to pivot at the time was,
07:16and this kind of circles back to what you were just saying a couple minutes ago,
07:20the Browns were going to pivot that if they had lost that Tampa game,
07:23the expectation was no longer we've got to try and make the playoffs,
07:26and now we're trying to develop along the way.
07:28That's what that Tampa loss would have meant to them.
07:32I mean, that's what Mary Kay was setting up going into the Tampa Bay game.
07:36I'm like, while you're 0-2, it's really hard to make the playoffs after that.
07:39You tried with Deshaun.
07:40Now we're just going to do our best and see what we can do with Shador.
07:44I do think all of a sudden being in a playoff mix is where this might change people.
07:50No, it just changes it.
07:50It just doesn't change it for me.
07:51But does it change it enough?
07:53Is there a quarterback out there that exists where you feel comfortable enough
07:56and you feel good enough that is not only unquestionably better than Shador is right now,
08:01but also if something happens to Deshaun, you feel like you don't miss a beat.
08:05And that's what I can't come up with a good one.
08:07Again, I gave you like six different names trying to find somebody that we could latch on to
08:11that you feel like if something happens to Deshaun, the season doesn't go up in smoke.
08:15Because the fun thing about this, Nick, you can't in the NFL predict when you're going to be good.
08:20I mean, this is it.
08:21If the Browns tried to predict they were going to be good starting next year, guess what?
08:24It happened early, but you can't let these opportunities go away either.
08:28I mean, listen, could this be a Daniel Jones in Minnesota situation where they brought him in
08:33after the deadline because he was cut in New York and he was the backup
08:37and then eventually got a chance to play in meaningful football, potentially.
08:41But to bring somebody in just to leapfrog Shador, no.
08:45And if that were to happen, I would need a real explanation from the Browns.
08:49Like, I would need something more meaningful.
08:51Well, the explanation would be pretty clear.
08:53I'd want to hear it, but it'd be pretty clear.
08:55They don't trust Shador and they believe somebody else can do it better.
08:58And I would like to know what changed with that.
09:00I think that's when I talk about the explanation, I'm saying what changed given where you were five weeks ago.
09:05I think it would just be that idea that now they're a 5-2 football team or whatever it is
09:09when Deshaun goes down or starts to struggle and they're trying to get to the postseason.
09:13They're trying to take advantage of how many good skill position players are on this team
09:16and how the defenses look so far.
09:18Again, I don't think it's crazy.
09:20I really, I don't think it's crazy.
09:21I just took it more to be, I took the Todd Munkin part to be more of a guess than
09:25fact-based.
09:26I say this as somebody who really, really, really, really likes and respects Connor Orr.
09:31I was massively annoyed.
09:33I took it as an opportunity for somebody that doesn't like Shador to bleep on Shador
09:37and act like Spencer Rattler's a better quarterback.
09:40Yeah, that's the part that just lost me.
09:41Spencer Rattler's not a better quarterback.
09:43Spencer Rattler's not good at football.
09:44You could give me draftism if it was, like Daniel Jones in Minnesota, was it two or three
09:50years ago, that was a former first-round pick.
09:52I told you, I would have heard the Kirk Cousins thing.
09:54And you make a good point, like he stinks in cold weather and it's not the ideal situation.
09:58And when people hear Kirk Cousins, they cringe, right?
10:02But you can make an argument.
10:02You needed somebody that's a veteran.
10:04You need someone that's going to protect the football.
10:06You need someone that's basically going to let the skill position players shine.
10:09I mean, he's doing all those things right now in Las Vegas.
10:11And so, like, I could listen to that if at the end of the day that's what they said they
10:16needed.
10:16But I just can't hear it with Spencer Rattler.
10:18Yeah, not a fifth-rounder when he would be replacing a fifth-rounder.
10:21Wonderful.
