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Breaking down Todd Monken's 2-point call going for the win, latest defensive issues for Browns
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00:00Another opportunity to see and showcase your young talent.
00:04Something that we've kind of discussed back and forth throughout the season
00:08is that no matter who your starting quarterback is this year,
00:11whether it is Shador, whether it is Deshaun or Talon Green in there,
00:15I want to see what the young guys have.
00:17I want to see more of Denzel and KC and Harold Fannin.
00:20I want to see what this run game can do.
00:23And it wasn't great today, but it wasn't bad.
00:25Quinshawn with 43 yards, Shador obviously is a bigger part of the run game
00:30than Deshaun Watson's going to be.
00:32I mean, we're splitting hairs here.
00:33It's not like Shador is Lamar Jackson 2.0,
00:36but it's still probably a little bit better than a guy coming off two straight Achilles tears.
00:41That's something positive that I can take away from this game.
00:44I know a couple of you guys called me the most negative post-game host in Cleveland history,
00:49which I appreciate the praise, but I want to take away something positive from the game.
00:53I got to see what Denzel and KC and Harold Fannin could do.
00:58Now back quickly to the negative.
01:00On that Denzel throw, I think that ball is still in the air.
01:03On that KC throw, I think the ball is still in the air.
01:07He pulled out his best Dylan Gabriel impression when he was throwing the ball to those guys.
01:11And, you know, KC Concepcion, because he's incredibly shifty,
01:15was able to get past the two defenders in front of him.
01:18Shador doesn't hit him in stride.
01:19That's fine, whatever.
01:20We can nitpick as much as we want.
01:22And then on that Denzel Boston one, Denzel Boston just makes a Randy Moss-style play,
01:26getting it off the helmet of cool Randy McKinstry
01:29and is able to take it in, you know, down inside the goal line.
01:34But one of the biggest issues that I saw out of this game,
01:38as we mentioned last segment, was the penalties.
01:40And again, you come into this game as the most penalized team in the NFL,
01:44averaging 10 penalties per game.
01:47And the majority of it is coming on offense.
01:49And it is so frustrating that we are continuing to watch this happen.
01:55And, again, as I mentioned at the top of the show,
01:57of course it had to happen on that two-point conversion play.
02:00So on that two-point conversion play,
02:02I can nitpick the fact that Shador Sanders bailed out of a clean pocket early.
02:07I can nitpick the fact that he was on the run,
02:10had a guy open, and just throw it at his legs.
02:12I can nitpick the fact that he probably hung on to the ball for way too long.
02:17But the thing that stood out to me was, of course, when all else fails,
02:21Titus Howard is nabbed for a holding call.
02:23And in the moment, I felt like it was a holding call.
02:26Here's what your Browns right tackle said about that holding call.
02:47So, Titus, I've seen the clip pretty frequently since you committed the holding call.
02:53And, I mean, that's about as clear-cut, cut-and-dry as a holding call
02:57as you could possibly imagine.
02:59And for Titus to come out and say that, no, wasn't really a holding call,
03:02of course you're an offensive lineman,
03:04so you never think that you're going to get called for a holding.
03:07But that was just one of multiple plays this game and this year
03:11that Titus Howard has completely blown up,
03:14has put them further behind the eight ball.
03:17That is something that Titus Howard has become very familiar with.
03:21And he's turning into somebody that Browns fans are pointing their frustration to.
03:25And the problem is that they just don't have the depth at this point in time.
03:29To cycle in somebody else.
03:31Maybe at the trade deadline on Tuesday, they'll pick up another tackle.
03:34But I think you're seeing right now, and especially on that final play,
03:38why good offensive linemen are never made available.
03:41There was a reason why Titus Howard was available to the Browns.
03:44And it's kind of an indictment on the Browns that, yes, they poured so much investment
03:50and so much time into overhauling this offensive line this offseason.
03:55You knew that five starting linemen in the same season,
03:59especially when two of those are rookies,
04:01that's not exactly a recipe for success long term.
04:04But Titus Howard has played absolutely atrociously week in and week out.
04:08And for him to just go out there and be like, no, I didn't think that was a hold call.
04:12I think you should look at the tape, dude.
04:14I just watched you smile on national TV after a loss.
04:18And like, I know that maybe that's just be kind of shifting my anger onto somebody
04:23that maybe doesn't fully deserve it because there's so many systemic issues
04:27that we could talk about that came out of this game.
04:29But to see him get called for the hold and not give the Browns another opportunity
04:35or not allow Shador Sanders and his weapons to actually make the play necessary
04:41and then I can blame them for not making it.
04:44I'm seeing you on national TV smiles simple, like seconds after you committed that holding call.
04:49It's just a little nitpicky thing for me that I'm just,
04:52it just really, really got under my skin that like, all right, I'm all pissed off.
04:57I'm all mad that they just lost that game, even though this is a game
05:00that maybe you shouldn't get all that upset about because that's a backup quarterback.
05:04What are you going to do about it?
05:06But if he's smiling and laughing and joking after he just gave up the game there,
05:10all right, fine.
05:11Maybe I shouldn't.
05:12We're going to do a little lesson here on NFL overtime.
05:14Once the clock hits zero, if the score is tied, you end in a tie.
05:19I have zero, zero issue whatsoever with Todd Munkin trying to go for the win in that situation.
05:27If Todd Munkin were to have gone for the extra points and walked out of there with a tie,
05:32mind you, there was how much time left, Matt?
05:33Was there a minute left in that?
05:35Yeah, just about a minute.
05:36There's just about a minute left in the overtime period.
05:39And again, you go for the extra point.
05:40Great.
05:41There's a minute left.
05:41You have two timeouts.
05:43So what is New Orleans going to do?
05:45They're going to try and march down the field and get a field goal.
05:47And it's not like you're going to be able to stop them.
05:50Yeah, maybe there's the 99th 1% that you're going to be able to do to force an interception
05:57or force a fumble or whatever.
05:58But if we're playing statistics, like what William said, I think you're going to go for
06:03the win as opposed to the loss.
06:04How candy ass, how ridiculous would it be if, if Todd Munkin would have said, nope, we're
06:10going to go for the extra point.
06:11That is such a lack of belief in your team and your organization.
06:14And a quarterback and Shador Sanders that puts you in a situation to win.
06:20How terrible would it be if you're the team and your reward for scoring that touchdown and
06:26your reward for getting this tech game to overtime in a situation, in a game where for the entire
06:32first half in for really three quarters, your offense looks stagnant and awful.
06:36Your reward was going to be, we're just going to walk out of here with the time.
06:40A tie is just as good as a win.
06:42Is it really?
06:43Finally, we would have had a fiery, fiery postgame show if Todd Munkin would have gone
06:48for that extra point.
06:49Now to the fourth downplay, because I, I, there is a little bit more room there for conversation.
06:55Matt, did you have any issue with them going for the touchdown there?
06:59Not a single one.
07:00Okay.
07:01Neither do I.
07:01You are in the NFL.
07:03Put your big boy pants on.
07:04You have to trust that no matter how good or bad your offense is that given season, that
07:10given game that they could get one damn yard.
07:14Also with that on Twitter, a lot of people, I don't even know if you notice this in the
07:21moment, but a lot of people on Twitter were like, what is that play call on the two point
07:25conversion?
07:26It was just well defended.
07:28Yeah.
07:28I have no problem.
07:29What do you want to do?
07:30Have Quinn, Sean run into a wall behind this offensive line.
07:34You want to try a read option with Shador.
07:36What else are you supposed to do?
07:38Yeah.
07:38I just thought it was really good defense by the saints.
07:40And we just kind of need to come to grasp with the fact that like, okay, you know, you're
07:44going to do this.
07:45That was the best possible play call for that scenario.
07:48Yeah.
07:48I, and I agree with you because maybe if we had a better starting quarterback, you know,
07:52he's able to either extend the play or stick in the pocket longer and find the open
07:57man and allow some guys to open up in the end zone.
08:00Like that's fine.
08:00But yeah, what are you going to do there?
08:02I, your run game hasn't been reliable consistently and how, again, how candy ass would it be if
08:09you ran the ball, you know, six feet out and Quinshaw Junkins gets stuffed behind the line
08:14of scrimmage.
08:15You're like, all right, well, Shador Sanders just put you right down at the goal line store
08:18just hit, you know, you know, put you in a situation to win the damn game.
08:23And we're going to take the ball out of his hands.
08:25No ride the hot hand there.
08:26I'm totally okay with that.
08:27No matter how good or bad I think Shador Sanders is, I don't give a damn.
08:31It's the guy that's getting you in that spot to win.
08:34You continue to go with that horse.
08:37The fourth down play at the goal line.
08:39That was a cavalcade of issues.
08:42Shador Sanders stepped the wrong way, tripped over his running back.
08:47The offensive line didn't get a good enough initial push.
08:50But again, in any situation where it's fourth down and goal from right there or fourth down
08:55and one from inside your own territory, I have no problem whatsoever going for it there on
09:00fourth down.
09:01You have to trust that your team is better than the guys on the other side.
09:06And it's a crappy indictment on the status offensive line and Shador just making a boneheaded play.
09:13And that's what leads you to, you know, getting stuff there at the, at literally at the goal line.
09:18And I mean, throughout the game, once they got down into the red zone, they couldn't run the ball.
09:22So it's not like this was anything crazy.
09:24Also, you could have, you'd be sneaked it.
09:27You have Blake Whitehart there.
09:29I don't know if Taylor, Taylor Green was not active today, but you didn't need to just run the ball
09:34up the gut.
09:34So we can nitpick and pick apart that play call as much as we could the two point conversion play
09:40call.
09:40I understand why people are coming away from this game feeling like, what, what is the point in going back
09:45to the Sean Watson?
09:46It doesn't really have anything to do with on the football field.
09:50It's kind of more so the future of the team and who we want to be the starting quarterback in
09:552027 and beyond.
09:56If there is a path with anybody on this roster, it is Shador Sanders.
10:01But I mean, if you're being honest with ourselves, like I don't think starting five and three or five and
10:07two,
10:08and now still being in a playoff hunt past the midway point of the season is necessarily changing Andrew Barry's
10:14mindset and the Browns mindset of being like, well, we're five and four.
10:18Or let's just ride with the horses that we have and let's not, you know, try our hand at some
10:23of these quarterbacks coming out of college this year,
10:25or even another stopgap quarterback that might be made available this off season.
10:29Also, if Shador Sanders was really seen in this organization as a long-term answer and you're seeing where he
10:36is in week nine and where the Sean Watson has been throughout eight weeks.
10:40Don't you think Shador would have won the starting job out of training camp?
10:43He didn't.
10:44They sided with the Sean Watson.
10:46The Sean Watson gets you to five and two and nine weeks later, we're still seeing the same thing with
10:50two different starting quarterbacks.
10:52216-474-0092.
10:54One more segment with you guys want to get a little bit about the defense in as well.
10:59Looking forward to a big Texans game next week because the Texans blew the doors off of the LA Chargers.
11:06I want to break down a couple of, like, interesting Sabermetric stats.
11:12EPA per dropback today, Shador Sanders negative 0.2.
11:15Deshaun on the year negative 0.14.
11:18His success rate today, 38.5%.
11:21Deshaun's this year, 40.5%.
11:24The only market difference between the performance from Shador today and what we've seen from Deshaun Watson is the explosive
11:34rate.
11:34So, basically, how explosive Shador Sanders was when he actually got the ball off.
11:396.9% explosive rate for Shador Sanders as opposed to a 3.6% explosive rate this year from
11:46Deshaun Watson.
11:48Now, Todd Munkin was asked after the game about if he'd make a decision on the starting quarterback.
11:52And he basically, he said he's not ready to think about the quarterback situation right now.
11:56And I understand the situation.
11:58He said, how long has it been?
11:5930 minutes since the game ended?
12:00I'm not getting into quarterback.
12:02If we want to talk about Shador, we can talk about Shador.
12:05There's a little, there's a couple of different tentacles here that kind of make me think that this isn't signaling
12:12that a quarterback competition, a real conversation is going to be had this week in Berea.
12:18Deshaun Watson was injured this entire week.
12:20And whether he was cleared on Friday night, whether he was cleared this morning from concussion protocol, I didn't think
12:27that after not playing, not practicing at all this week, that Deshaun Watson was going to be the starting quarterback.
12:33I felt like the second that he went into concussion protocol, that was basically wraps.
12:38And you hope for his sake that it's just a one and done.
12:40It's lingering side effects from that hit last Sunday.
12:44And he's able to get back out on the field next week against the Houston Texans.
12:48And oh boy, think about the conversations going to be had when Deshaun Watson returns to the field against the
12:53Houston Texans.
12:54But if you're Shador Sanders, the role of a backup quarterback, and that's what I've been trying to harp on
12:59so much this entire year.
13:02And even since we knew that the Shador Sanders wasn't going to be the starting quarterback, the role of a
13:08backup is so much more than when you're playing in Madden and your starting quarterback has a 90 overall rating
13:14and your backup has an 87.
13:16So just by overall rankings, he's the next in line because he's the second best talent wise.
13:22There's so much more that goes into being a backup quarterback.
13:25And I don't know if Shador Sanders has that necessary skill set.
13:28Not everybody does.
13:29And that's okay.
13:30Dylan Gabriel has the necessary skill set to be a backup quarterback.
13:34He is in terms of the week in and week out prep.
13:38I don't think Dylan Gabriel might ever see an NFL field during the regular season again, unless everything hits the
13:44fan.
13:44And he's thrust into a situation where he's put at quarterback, but, you know, detail oriented, some guy that can
13:51pick apart opposing defenses and he's going to break down everything and give the starting quarterback that second set of
13:58eyes.
13:58Think about what Brian Hoyer did for Tom Brady for so many years.
14:01Do you really feel like Shador Sanders at this point in time is focused on breaking down opposing defenses and
14:08making sure that to Sean Watson has all the help that he needs.
14:12I'm going to go with no, at this point, you know, we've, we've talked about, and I've seen on social
14:17media, even today.
14:18Well, Shador Sanders is a gamer.
14:20Shador Sanders, maybe isn't going to look that great in practice, but he's going to show up in the biggest
14:24moments and he's going to perform.
14:26That's all well and good, but the NFL doesn't work like that.
14:29You gotta be a good teammate, a good quarterback, a good assistant in that offensive room throughout the week.
14:37No matter what you do on Sundays, if you can't get it done Monday through Saturday, you're not going to
14:43be long for the NFL.
14:44So all the questions kind of popping up about, was this a showcase for the Browns to get off of
14:49the Shador Sanders train?
14:51Maybe, I don't know if I would have to imagine that he's going to be here come Tuesday afternoon, but
14:57it's an interesting point because I just don't know if Shador Sanders is that quote unquote prototypical backup role.
15:04He played in a backup spot today and he played like a backup quarterback today, but the ins and outs
15:12of what it means to be a backup quarterback.
15:14I'm just not seeing it yet.
15:16Another thing that I want to touch on is the defense because much like our friends down in Columbus, the
15:23Ohio state Buckeyes, there was a lot more wrong with this game than just who was the starting quarterback.
15:28The defense, I don't know what the hell's wrong with them.
15:31I don't know if it's the fact that Alex Wright going down in preseason was just such a big issue
15:37and they need to sure up that defensive line through the trade deadline.
15:41Or if it's something else with the Mike Rudenberg scheme and it's a lot bigger than that.
15:46Obviously losing Myles Garrett is going to hurt you substantially.
15:50Myles Garrett today got three sacks and a forced fumble.
15:53Well, Jared first, did he show up in the stat sheet?
15:57I know he didn't get a sack because that would have been all over my timeline.
16:02I know that that's going to be a big difference, but the fact that they cannot get off to a
16:08hot start on defense is so underlyingly critical to this team.
16:13And so much of a factor that's lending themselves, lending the offense to get put in such a precarious situation
16:21late in games.
16:22We knew going into this season that the offense wasn't exactly going to be lighting the world on fire and
16:27scoring 40 plus points a week.
16:29That's fine, but you're putting them in a situation where they have to play above their skill set.
16:36You're forcing Deshaun Watson and now Shador Sanders to make these heroic plays and these amazing passes and reads late
16:43in the game because you're not doing enough early on on the defensive side of the ball.
16:48Audrick Estime, the Saints starting running back, who was not in the building with the Saints to begin the week.
16:54He was actually with the Browns before he got cut.
16:57He ends up with 15 carries for 72 yards and a touchdown.
17:01Tyler Shuck, who was not drafted based on his athletic abilities.
17:05He's what, 28 years old right now, was a second year player.
17:08He looked like Lamar Jackson today and finished with 51 rushing yards on the ground.
17:13These are the types of things that cannot happen.
17:15And it's not just that Jared Verge isn't getting it done or that Miles Harden is a boom or bust
17:21type of player or that Ronnie Hickman got burned multiple times today throughout and obviously allowed Chris Alave to have
17:28a big game today and a couple of other Saints players.
17:31It's that as a unit overall, there's just not that get to.
17:36There's not that punchy that I think that they need to have that is allowing these teams to hang around
17:43and build an early lead.
17:45Luckily, you're playing a bad Saints team.
17:47And this is a game that probably should not have come down to the wire here because the Saints talent
17:52wise do not look as good as you.
17:53But the Browns defense made Tyler Shuck look as good as he has all season long, especially late in the
17:58game.
17:59But you got to get off to these hot starts.
18:01I don't understand it whatsoever.