00:00I don't think it caught anybody by surprise.
00:01I think most people expected this to be Todd Munkin walking in.
00:05Even if it's not what you wanted, I think it's what you expected
00:08to have Deshaun Watson be your starting quarterback against the Houston Texans.
00:12This shouldn't come to anybody as really a shocking development.
00:17But I do want to start with the idea that I get you naming it.
00:22The way that Todd named it was not odd in the sense that,
00:27oh, maybe there's something afoot here.
00:30Odd in the sense that I just kind of question as to why you went through
00:36the trouble that you did in the first place.
00:39He made this pretty much feel very clear that it was pretty much going to be
00:45Deshaun the entire time, and he just wanted to talk that over with his staff,
00:50kind of inform him that's what he was thinking and hear anybody out,
00:52which, by the way, I can respect.
00:55I have no problem with that.
00:57Again, I think there was probably a conversation being had with Andrew
00:59Barry during that time, but maybe that's just me.
01:04The part of this I don't get is that you did create a lot of drama around it.
01:11Like, there were things sitting here, you know, having to go through and be like,
01:15I don't know, not ready to name one yet, and kind of create this big deal of,
01:19whoa, maybe Shador played well enough to the point where Todd names Deshaun his starter.
01:25And this is right after, obviously, the report came out, Todd officially named it.
01:30I kind of think he's reasoning on it.
01:33I mean, ultimately, the full body of work.
01:36I mean, the previous eight games that we had played, Sean played pretty well.
01:39And that was my intention.
01:40I just wanted to make sure we'd run it by the staff before I said it publicly.
01:43I don't even know why I have to say it publicly, because it's really only our business in terms
01:47of who's going to play and who's not going to play.
01:48But he played well enough to earn to still be our starter.
01:52So there wasn't really, that was his intention.
01:54He was thinking about playing Deshaun the entire time.
01:57By the way, Jeremy Fowler would like a, you know, little tip of the cap there,
02:00because he was clearly in on it early.
02:04And maybe that was from Deshaun's people.
02:06Maybe it wasn't.
02:06I don't know.
02:08But it was very clearly in the know of what was happening in the same way that I think
02:12a lot of us, again, kind of were in the know on what was going to be happening.
02:15The fact that that was going to be the answer.
02:19So if that was your intention all along, again, why leave it so up in the air?
02:23Like, it's a type of thing where it doesn't really make all that much of a difference.
02:28But if you're Todd, why not just come out and be like, hey, I pretty much know who I
02:33want to go, but I just want to talk it over with my staff.
02:36Think I know what direction we're leaning, but I want to talk it over.
02:39Like, you don't have to tell me who it is.
02:41You can still leave it in the air.
02:43But you left it up like it was still up for debate and you weren't ready to name it,
02:47which leads me to think either A, you didn't have the intention all along, or B, you just
02:53kind of completely botched the situation to make it sound like something it wasn't.
02:58And then also, we are getting a little bit of a testy version of Todd Munkin right now.
03:03He does not sound like he's happy to be answering questions from the media for whatever reason.
03:08I know they're off back-to-back losses.
03:10I'm sure Todd isn't happy, but he is like on edge for whatever reason over the last
03:15week or so of just, you came out after that game and was basically like, I don't want to
03:19do this anymore.
03:20And I don't mean be the head coach of a football team.
03:22I mean, talk to the media.
03:24I wasn't the sense that we got most of it.
03:26And maybe because some of it had divulged into some of the quarterback conversation that
03:31Todd had to deal with all preseason.
03:32And now we're into the regular season.
03:34And again, it is a sort of unnecessary drama the way Todd set it up.
03:39And obviously that's double backed on a, and they have to ask him, was there any intention
03:44of not going with Deshaun?
03:46And of course, Todd had an answer for that as well.
03:48I don't look at it either way.
03:50I don't look at it week to week.
03:51And I don't look at his long-term.
03:52I mean, we're judged each week.
03:54I am, he is, our team is.
03:56That's just, that isn't surprising to anybody at where we're at.
03:59I anticipate him being our starter.
04:01It's what he's been.
04:02He's been our starter.
04:03But we all control that, right?
04:04How we scheme up what we do offensively, how we play, how we play around in my heat place.
04:08That's, that's a part of every player in the NFL, right?
04:10Terms of where you're at.
04:11And like you said, I anticipate him being the starter, but that's, again, we're week to
04:15week.
04:15I had no intention of Deshaun not being our starter.
04:19I love the paradox.
04:21I don't view this as week to week or long-term, but also by the way, we're week to week.
04:27Okay.
04:27So you're week to week.
04:28Like, it's okay to say that.
04:29I mean, the shore did play well, uh, and I thought that he opened the door for the conversation.
04:34I thought it was a, you know, one worthwhile of having after he had it again, still in
04:38a lot of ways, a no brainer for me that you're probably going back to Deshaun, but I, I did
04:42think, you know, should or played well enough to at least raise the question.
04:47Like, yeah, you're week to week because you haven't gotten great quarterback play for majority
04:51of the games.
04:52And I mean that for, you know, the games in their entirety, not necessarily across the
04:56length of the season.
04:58Yeah.
04:58Like neither guy had put together really much of a complete performance.
05:01So it makes sense to me again, that you're week to week, but it is just unnecessary drama.
05:06And like, I point to Todd being upset by it because.
05:11Okay.
05:11You're upset, but you created this.
05:13Like the whole storm that you have going right now, there was always going to be a little
05:17bit after Shador played and he puts up almost 300 yards and he has them in the game up until
05:21the very end.
05:22There was always going to be people going, Oh, I think Shador should start from here on
05:25out.
05:26Like you opened the door for so much more of the conversation.
05:29You could have walked in after the game.
05:31You could have walked in on Monday and basically just looked at it and gone.
05:34No, you know, we looked at this and Deshaun's going to be our starter moving forward.
05:38Like you could have put that conversation to bed.
05:40You want to avoid all of the, the speculating and the things that are going to bother you very
05:44easy.
05:46Talk to your staff ahead of time.
05:47You know what time your press conference is on Monday.
05:49Go ahead and talk to the staff.
05:51Go ahead.
05:51If you got to get Andrew Barry on the phone, if that was the conversation, go get Andrew
05:55Barry on the phone.
05:56He's not a difficult process, but when you leave things open to conversation, when you
06:01allow that narrative to be ran, I don't think that you get to be upset by it either.
06:05Like the entire start of this week is us sitting here positing, you know what Todd's actually
06:10thinking in the quarterback decision, whether or not it's Todd's decision to make at this
06:15point, if you're upset by that, upset by the questions coming, you have all of the power
06:20to put them to bed.
06:22So I just don't think you get to kind of have your cake and eat it too.
06:25Like you don't get to delay it and then get mad when people create a narrative because
06:29you delayed the quarterback conversation.
06:33That's kind of comes at the territory.
06:34You have to be up there to answer the questions and kind of accept them when they are.
06:39And like, I don't think it was anything like egregious by Todd.
06:42It's not like he was going in there, I'm making a, an entire diabolical, you know, a blow up
06:47in the media room.
06:48He's just clearly a little frustrated by the line of questioning coming out and the questions
06:52he has to answer.
06:55But I just don't think you get that reality.
06:58And I do kind of question around this team right now is they sit at five and four fighting
07:03for their life this week, trying to get a, you know, back into a good position to fight
07:06for a playoff spot.
07:09Why create the drama in the first place?
07:11Why create anything else to get your best case scenario in this moment is to be put into
07:15a position where things are very clear.
07:17You know, what's happening, you know, what's going on.
07:19And they, the team has a clear direction that seems like the most obvious part of this
07:26that could possibly happen.
07:27Just give the team a direction.
07:29You had a guy that won five games for you across your first seven.
07:33Just stick with that guy.
07:34Like I just come out and say, you know, we're playing for the playoffs.
07:37We think he gives us the best chance to win.
07:39That is not a hard conversation to have.
07:41In fact, you look across the NFL.
07:43There's not many teams having that conversation, right?
07:46I have pointed to the Vikings time and time again, it's kind of the only one.
07:49And they went out and got Kirk Cousins.
07:50Why?
07:51Because they felt like they needed a quarterback who gave them a better chance to win games.
07:54Gave them more of a fight in the offensive category.
07:58So I think you just look at it like every other team, it feels like pretty much lines
08:03up a starter and just goes, right?
08:06They know who their guy's going to be in the teams who are in the quarterback competition
08:10conversation typically aren't very good.
08:13A majority of those teams are really bad at football.
08:16So this is where you have the stabilizing force, the ability to have it and just give that
08:22answer where, okay, no, the Browns are on track.
08:26They're still focused on winning games.
08:27They know what guy's going to, you know, do that the best for them.
08:31But now you have everybody questioning when it sounds like Todd didn't need to have everybody
08:36questioning.
08:37If you're just so confident, if it's your decision, again, I can respect the idea of it,
08:42but there's just so many different and better ways to go about that conversation, to go
08:47about, you know, eliminating the speculation where even if you come out and you give the
08:52line that I offered at the start of this segment, which is basically, I think I know who we want,
08:56but we're going to, you know, talk it over with the staff.
08:59Okay.
09:00Do you give that?
09:01I think everybody kind of respects that answer.
09:03And it's, you walk away from Monday's press conference going, well, because the follow
09:08reports out there, because we kind of understand the way that Todd's thinking about this most
09:12of the time, this is going to be Deshaun.
09:14And we're just getting a delay on that answer.
09:16And there's not the speculation.
09:17There's not anybody sitting up here really questioning what decision is going to be made.
09:21I think we'd all have sat there and pretty much been like, Hey, he's not saying it,
09:25but it is Deshaun.
09:26Let's go ahead and move on.
09:27And we don't have quarterback conversations to start the week other than, you know, Shador's play
09:31and how he looked against the saints.
09:34But that is just a given after the end of every single week, right?
09:37When you start up a Monday or a Tuesday, you know, following the Browns game, that is just
09:42a conversation you have.
09:44So it's all right there in front of you.
09:46Todd just, again, I think created this unnecessary drama that didn't need to be there by the way
09:52that he answered the questions.
09:53And I first chance being an NFL head coach, you know, and not used to having to sit down and
09:59speak to the media basically every single day that you're out there.
10:01Maybe that's just one that slipped through and Todd may be annoyed a little bit even
10:05at himself that he let that go by the wayside.
10:08Sure.
10:09Okay.
10:09And that's a learning experience for you.
10:11But again, you don't like the way it's handled understand.
10:15And I think Todd knows it better than anybody.
10:17You have the power as a head coach to control the conversation, to control the narrative happening
10:23around your team and around the decisions being made on your team by speaking with conviction
10:27and speaking with certainty, especially while you have it.
10:30If it's a legitimate debate, if you are thinking about going to Shador, I get it.
10:35But then you have to be okay with the conversations that come from it.
10:37You have to be okay with the questions being asked because you yourself are having those
10:41same exact questions.
10:42And yeah, people want to know the answers.
10:44It might be, you know, your team's business and your decision to make, but people do want
10:49to know.
10:50And fans are, you know, I think especially while you're fighting at five and four, kind
10:54of in the right to want to know and kind of in the right to know what's happening.
10:58That's why we have beat reporters covering the team.
11:00They give us the story.
11:01They give us the information on what's happening.
