Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Type in media.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: For the Burning river sportscast. Cue the funeral procession.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: We gather here to say our goodbyes.
Here she love eyes. We had to see through the late, great season of 22. On these nights, we used to celebrate with you in that little town of Cleveland we raise our glass. You beat our ass, too.
La Jo.
Swing low. Sweet.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Coming for to carry me home.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Rest easy, Cleveland. Rip in the name of Graham, Sype and Kozar. Amen. Amen.
All but eliminated from the playoffs.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Where do we go from here? We'll break it down for you.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Next on the Burning River Sportscast.
He likes it when his nipples get hard.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: It's weird, man.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: I like to take pictures of hot girls on the beach. That doesn't make me a photographer.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: You heard it here first. Well, you won't hear it till Thursday. So you heard it somewhere else first.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Ingvar Campard. Elm Tard Aganyard.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: That sounds explicit.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Oh, honey, take a picture. Oh, I'm dead.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Hang glide. An accident. What an idiot.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Idiot.
Welcome into the Burning River Sportscast, presented by Tapin Media, unofficially, the number one international Browns podcast, as we've now been downloaded on three separate continents. I'm Kenny Thunder alongside the only man ever to cure himself of tertiary syphilis and beat method man in the game of Pictionary. At the same time, his pronouns are kick and ass. The one and only, Red hot Ronnie jams.
Ronnie, where can our friends find the podcast Man?
[00:03:01] Speaker A: I'm the most interesting man alive. I have to say. They can find our podcast wherever they get their podcasts. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Pocketcast, Castro, and so many more.
Oh, Kenny, how was your weekend?
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Did you look up the liver King this weekend?
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Liver King? That was wild, man.
That dude's crazy.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Yeah, but weekend was fine. And season three of Seinfeld, it's really picking up. It's hit its stride now.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Did you hit soup Nazi?
[00:03:39] Speaker B: No, but the first two seasons, I was kind of like, I don't get what the big deal is, but by season threE, it's kind of hit stride. And it's funny now. So is that. What about you?
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Are you a huge Seinfeld fan?
[00:03:52] Speaker B: I just. It finally clicked the characters and now that, like, know them a bit, and it's funnier than it was because it wasn't very funny to start.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah, fair for me, it was continuing to try and get into a rhythm with the baby. And just real quick, hats off to all the new parents out there. It's tough. It's hard. I know it's hard.
It's challenging in all facets.
And I just want to say, you're not alone. There's other parents, other new parents out there that are struggling through it, and just everything that you're going through is normal.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: How hard is it?
[00:04:34] Speaker A: We don't have enough time, but.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: It was like a Seinfeld joke.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: What's the deal with airline food? But no, I mean, it's still going well. At the same time. I mean, it's great.
Nori's an amazing little girl, so it's been great, but it's just hats off to all the new parents.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: How are you dealing with the poop on your hands?
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Oh, there's lots of poops, literally on your hands.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: It's just another human's poop on your hands.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It's projectile most of the time. That's what they don't tell you.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Do you got to catch it?
[00:05:11] Speaker A: You just got to make sure the diaper is still up while you're changing, just in case.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds fun.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: It's wild, that's for sure.
But, yeah, I guess now that we've talked about baby poop and other things, Seinfeld being mediocre, contrary to popular belief, let's talk about the Browns and how their playoff hopes are officially dead, as you mentioned.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Do we have to?
[00:05:40] Speaker A: We do have to. Unfortunately, we're a Browns podcast, the number.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: One International Browns podcast.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Unofficially.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Unofficially.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: But, yeah. Let's go ahead and get into it. The week 14 recaps. This week, Division game.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Look, I don't care. Let's just run through this piece because I know that we're going to spend a lot of time bitching about everything else.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: All right, so we'll start with the Bengals like we always do. We start with the opponent, the offense. Joe Burrow, 18 of 34 for 239 yards, two touchdowns and interception. I mean, he didn't light the place up.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: No, but he beat us.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: He beat us. Joe Mixon, 14 carries, 96 yards, two catches, ten yards. Couldn't stop the run.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Could not stop Joe Mixon, no Samaji.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: P. Ryan, four rushes, 22 yards, a touchdown.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: He had kind of a bad game, actually. I expected to see. He just kept dropping balls, which was unusual.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think it probably threw him off. He probably had trouble getting a rhythm seeing his last week. He was the feature back with mixing out and everything.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: He was just so good the last two weeks coming into this game. But he beat us.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: He beat us. Jamar Chase, ten catches, 119 yards and a touchdown. That guy is pretty good.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: I don't know why we decided not to cover that guy all day, but we tried.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: We'll get to that.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Literally, the other two receivers didn't play.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Denzel Ward tried, but unaffectively.
Trenton Irwin, wherever that guy is, two catches, 58 yards and a touchdown. And as you mentioned, T Higgins and Boyd both did not play in this one, but Trent didn't matter.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Trenton Irwin looks like thrift store.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: I'm going to pop some tags.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Thrift store. Trevor Lawrence.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Trevor Lawrence. Oh, nice.
And then the Bengals defense, they got two sacks. They had one interception, but I mean, it was didn't just like Joe Burrow, they didn't light it up, but they did enough to beat the Browns.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Interception came at a bad time because we were trying to get back into it, but Rusty.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: So let's go ahead and head over to the Cleveland side of things. Usually we start with coaching. We're going to hold off on that for a minute because we've got a lot to say about them. So we will save that for last. So let's start with the offense. Deshaun Watson, 26 of 42 for 276 yards, one touchdown and one interception looked much better this week. I would say.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: It'S what we needed, right, to see improvement out of Deshaun Week to week and hopefully continues on a solid linear trajectory upward.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah, and I will say this, I know there's still a lot of Browns fans out there that are kind of trashing Deshaun and thinking, oh, we spent $230,000,000 on this.
They're going to bitch and complain like they do. I mean, we're Browns fans and we're frustrated right now. So everybody's going to have, I mean, honestly, in this game, he showed me enough to where I think that, not that he was back to form by any means, but there was flashes in this game where I was like, oh, yeah, that quarterback is still in there.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah, look, I think it's really early still. I think we talked about it last week. It's going to take probably through the end of the season just for him to get his bearings back and especially at this point now without being in the playoff hunt. That's kind of all we have to look forward to for the rest of the year. But look, it was another solid step in his development in this offense.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yes, I agree. So next up, Nick Chubb, 14 carries. Notice he didn't get 2034 yards, by far his worst game this season. But I wouldn't say that's all his fault. You can't really establish a rhythm when you get the ball in the most obscure and nonsensical situations during the game. Like this doesn't even make sense when we give Nick Chubb the ball.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Are you questioning play calling?
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Absolutely. 100%.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: How dare you.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Again. We'll get to Stefanski here soon. Freaking Stefanic. I hate him. Kareem Hunt, four carries, six yards, two catches, six yards. I don't know.
I don't even know what to say.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah, keep it rolling.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Amari Cooper, two catches for 42 yards. He was dealing with a hip injury.
So far, he just really hasn't been able to get anything going with Watson.
He had really good chemistry all year long with Jacobi Brissette, but I think that's one of those things that's just going to come with time like we talked about, hopefully.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And sounds like just after the game they had said that he re aggravated his hip injury on the very first.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Good.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Kudos to him for toughing it.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Never, never good when you have an injury coming into the game that you're trying to play through and you aggravate it on the first play of the game and continue to play through it. So thank you for doing that, at least showing some effort. There's not many guys on the Browns team right now that are showing a lot of effort. So DPJ, eight catches, 114 yards. Another solid game out of him. So he's definitely coming on and we can officially say that DPJ has proven himself as a number two receiver at this point.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think he's a solid number two option and he's getting closer to 1000 yards on the season, which I think would be a nice milestone for him for this year.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: I'm just really excited because before the season started, if you remember, I mean, that was one of the big questions. Receiver, we're like, well, really? DPJ is going to be your guy that's going to step up after 14 weeks.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: We think about the things that are wrong with the Browns or the things that are huge question marks. I'm no longer concerned about the receivers. They're not very deep after that. So injuries would be a concern. But Amari is a solid number been. He's been strong all year long. TPJ has come on very nicely and they probably need a number three to be, which I did. Some kind of versatile number three.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: I didn't put him on the list this week, but David Bell had another three catch game. He's starting to see the ball a.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Lot, so I don't know if he's that guy or not. We'll see, but they definitely need some depth there. But I'm not concerned as I once was. And I think that this offense is absolutely good enough to win with those guys, plus your tight ends.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say. And the fact that David and Joku is absolutely. As long as he's on the field, he's earning his paycheck. Sure. That definitely helps. He had seven catches for 59 yards and a touchdown in this one, so good bounce back game after being out.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: For a week, and I think the Chief and Joku can do more. Actually, I think he's still being underutilized, which I agree. We'll talk about coaches again in a second, but there's a lot of people.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: On our team that are being underutilized.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: But therE's no reason why this guy could not be as productive as Kelsey or Kittle.
He has all the physical tools, even.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: If he's not, because those are. I mean, you cherry picked, obviously, the top two guys in the league if he's a step down, like just one step down from them, but I don't.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: See why he couldn't be on their same tier.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: I mean, he's every bit as. He's probably faster than those guys.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: He's probably more athletic, faster, and stronger than both of those guys.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: He's definitely more ripped.
That dude's just a specimen, and he never has clothes on.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Do you need to tell us something, Ronnie?
[00:13:18] Speaker A: No, not at all. I'm just saying, like, every pregame show that I turn on, they're like. And Joku's out here in negative three degree weather, just no shirt.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: He likes it when his nipples get hard.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: It's weird, man.
But yeah.
With the complimentary receivers that we have with Amari Cooper at number one, like you said, DPJ at number two in Joku at the tight end. And then if we can just have somebody step up as the number three. You're right. I mean, I'm not worried at all with our receiving core.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: No. Because even if they don't get that number three, they're good enough.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's pretty solid.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: They're good enough for Deshaun to spread the ball around.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Because you also have good running backs.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And then the offensive line in this gave up two sacks, only able to pave the way for 71 yards rushing. But I don't put that completely on them. That's a lot of play calling. We threw the ball 42 times for some reason, even though we were in the game.
But I will say that the offensive line in this one, to me at least for a good chunk of this game, looked pretty much outmatched and just bad.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So you said we're not going to put this on them, not completely on them, but I think we've been too light on the offensive line this season. I was just actually looking, talking with a friend today, and the Browns offensive line has graded second worst in the league since week nine.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Holy shit.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: So certainly losing Ethan Pochick, I take.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: It back, they are trash right now.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Ethan Pochick hurt, but Jed Wills is a turnstile. Jack Conklin, I appreciate it's always good.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: When you call lineman turnstile.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: I appreciate the effort, but he's been banged up and just hasn't been the same player.
Yelta Froholt has been doing his best.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: But he's love his name.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: He's just not. Yeah, because he sounds like a Viking.
Froholt. Did you see he tweeted something this week? Because the picture that they put up on his name on the broadcast was like, not him. And he's like, who is this guy?
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Put that up there. Can you find it?
[00:15:22] Speaker B: I'll try, but Batonio's good and Wyatt Teller's been good, but Teller's even been banged up a little bit. But this offensive line just. It's well regarded because of the names that are there, but it hasn't been that good this year.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: You know what I'm getting tired of? This is just over the course of, coincidentally, since Kevin Stefanski has been our coach is every year we have an offensive line that's touted as one of the best in the league. And it seems like by Week 12, 13, 14, every season we're like, our offensive line is God awful and there's no depth.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: That's also an Andrew Barry problem.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: I agree. But like I said, it actually is somewhat of a coincidence since that it's been since Kevin Stefanski has been here. But yeah, I mean, we need depth there and we don't have every. It's weird because I know you could say, well, what do you mean we don't have any depth? We're on our third center and he ended up being a Pro bowl caliber center and then he went down, too. But the fact is, everywhere around the rest of the offensive line, we don't have a lot of depth. And once a few guys go down, we're kind of screwed and it's going.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: To be a question mark next year because it'll be interesting to see what they do with Jed Wills's option. It'll be interesting to see if Jack Conklin comes back. My guess is he won't at this point.
And who's going to be your center next year? I mean, is Pochett come back? Is he going to be around? Nick Harris was slated to be the starter and he got hurt. So who knows how he comes back from injury.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Joe Thomas can throw on 100 pounds and come back for us. No, he's got to be better than Jed Wills.
Even at the weight he's at now, he's got to be better than Jed Wills.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: I just think, like, the left tackle on this football team isn't on the team today, so you got to find that guy. And you also have question marks at center and right tackle.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: That's a tall order when you don't have any first round draft picks.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it's going to be a difficult task to replace to figure out what the right composition is there.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's the offense. Go over to the defensive side. Miles Garrett will talk about him soon. He had a pretty good game. Jadevion Clowney seemed more active and disruptive this week, but it didn't matter.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Nope.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: We lost Dion Jones four tackles and interception, and our secondary actually looked pretty good, except for Denzel Ward trying to cover Jamar Chase, which was just tough to. Don't. I don't even know what to say, but every time I looked up, Jamar Chase had another catch and I was just like, Ward just was falling all over himself trying to cover him.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: It was disappointing because they've matched up so well against those Bengals receivers the last few times we've played.
But, yeah, it was ugly. Jamar Chase clearly is one of the best, or if not the best wide receiver in the game right now. Justin Jefferson's pretty good.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Yeah, but you expect a Denzel Ward with the contract that he has. Well, yeah, I'm not even saying you've got to blank him or anything like that, but you have to at least put up a fight. I mean, the dude had 118 yards or whatever I just said.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it wasn't pretty.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: And it wasn't just he had 100 and some yards and a touchdown or whatever the numbers were. I don't know if he had a touchdown, but he had 100 and some yards. It wasn't just that. Like I said, it was painful to watch at times. I was like, what is Denzel Ward doing?
[00:18:41] Speaker B: He would just like, well, and then they also got burned on the fleece liquor to throw store Trevor Lawrence.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that was not good. But I mean, the rest of the secondary, though, besides Ward, they were playing a bunch of scrubs, but they held them in check.
You look at Joe Burrow, only had 239 yards passing.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Fair.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Special teams, Cade York, one for one field goals, one for one extra point, wasn't allowed to try the long kick at halftime, just before halftime. And that was one of the greatest moments I've seen in a broadcast, is you could clearly read his lips. And he actually said to the coach, somebody told him, they said, oh, it's a record field goal. And he says, I don't give a fuck.
And then he's just like sitting there, arms out, like, why?
[00:19:38] Speaker B: I'm torn on this because Cade York is must see TV. So I appreciate the fact that he wanted to boot it, but I also have watched Cade York kick low, short kicks for the last four weeks and have three of them blocked. So I could see the hesitancy on Kevin Stefanix part to be like, I mean, how low does that got to come off your foot to kick?
[00:20:06] Speaker A: Don't. But if I'm Cade York, I'm demanding a trade past the trade deadline. I'm demanding a trade right now.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: That being said, cade York is must see TV, and he should have got a chance to kick it.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: What do you have to lose at that point?
[00:20:19] Speaker B: An incomplete pass.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Right.
Instead of kicking, trying for the 70 yard field goal, which we know, regardless of whether or not it might be blocked, you know, he has the leg to kick that. Instead of trying that, we go with a probably 1% chance of getting a Hail Mary to fall into someone.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: And this is late in the season, too. You don't have a ton of opportunities like that in this part of the country. But the weather was pretty fair that day, so it was probably worth a shot. I don't know. You drafted the guy in, what, the fourth round? And that was the talk all camp long, was, this guy can kick it from 71.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: What gets me is all during the whole first part of the season, we had no problem trying to put the game on Katie York's shoulder from 60 yards, 55, 65 yards. But then when you get to a halftime against the Bengals in Week 14, when we're probably not making the playoffs anyways, you decide.
I don't know. I think it might be a bad idea, just more Stefanic.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Think maybe Stefanic was just saving Cade York from himself, because if he had missed it, it would have plummeted. His confidence meter.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. When you look at Cade York on the sideline begging to kick the ball, you could tell he's got no confidence.
Anyways, our punter, I decided to put him on here again this week because he averaged 51.5 yards per punt on four punts as long as 65.
And I thought it was just something to point out that we seemingly have all the pieces, including always winning the field position battle, but it never seems to matter. We always end up losing the game somehow.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we've owned time of possession in just about every game this year. I think all but two, like, significantly. Yeah, but doesn't matter. We lose, we're the worst.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: So with that being said, that will take us into coaching now, so we could actually have a discussion about these things. So let's start.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: Do you want to finish up just with the overall stuff real quick and then we can just because we're going to probably just rant here.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: All right. I guess I could do the overall. So the overall, the total yards. Browns 344 to Bengals, 363. Time of possession? Browns 31 52 to Bengals 28. And it was just a piss poor showing in a divisional game with your playoff hopes on the line, we could.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Probably cut it off there. I just didn't know if you wanted to hit that stuff because I think all this rolls together, the rest of this.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: All right, we'll go there and then we'll jump into the coaches here. So let's start with Mike. Prefer still trash, absolute trash. Like that, roughing the punter, that changed the momentum of the entire game.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: There was just no reason for it.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Why? And I don't even blame Fields. I do a little. Because you shouldn't run into the punter. That's like rule one. But your coach should probably be telling.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Well, who called it? You were going to get the ball back at midfield. They were punting out of the shadow of their own goalpost. Why?
[00:23:14] Speaker A: We're playing a team that's clearly better than us. So what do we do? We take some chances early on when we're still in the game.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: I mean, you turned Tony Fields from a hero to a zero this week, but yeah, to your point, like, who made the call?
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Who ordered the code? Like, he do you talk about turning him from a hero to zero? He literally got crucified on Twitter this week.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: I mean, he straight up tackled the punter.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: You can't do that.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Can't do that. I don't know what that was. I was just like, you can't. But it wasn't like he was alone. He was the only one that tackled the punter. He's the only one that went full horizontal into the punter. But there was three other guys on each side. Why? For what purpose did that serve to bring the heat on that punt? The game wasn't on the line. It was early in the game. You were going to get the ball back with good field position.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Mike prefer doing. Mike prefer things.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: But instead you say, yeah, let's just go tackle the punter.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Makes sense. Makes sense.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: And things got worse from there.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: I mean, I don't really have anything else to say for Mike prefer. Besides, he's just be.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: He's got to be let go at the end of the season.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: The end of the season.
Look, we've been saying for weeks that.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: He should have been let go, but.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: They'Re clearly proven that if you want to keep your job through an entire NFL season, make sure you're working under Kevin Stefanski because he fires nobody during the season.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Yeah, him and Andrew Barry.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: There's no accountability.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: They're cut from the same cloth there. But, yeah, we've said he should have been fired all year, but they're clearly not going to fire him right now. So at the end of the, like, that should be staff move number one prefer, see ya.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Speaking of dudes that need to be fired, Joe Woods. Hashtag Fire Joe Woods. I think that's just his name now. Hashtag Fire Joe Woods.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Hashtag fire Joe Woods.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: I mean, like, the defense didn't look as bad as it has looked.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Still couldn't stop the run.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: They couldn't stop the run. Why is it hard to stop the damn run?
Put nine people in the box, I don't care. And if we turn around and start losing to the pass every week, I'll be like, well, at least we stop the run.
I don't care.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: And they get burned on the flea flicker, right?
[00:25:16] Speaker A: It's a flea flicker. It's like, the easiest. Like, how? Why?
[00:25:20] Speaker B: I can't even remember the last time I saw a flea flicker work.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: The only time I've seen it work anytime recently is it works. But it works for like, 15 yards. They throw a pass underneath because everybody, like, all the safeties drop back and they're like, hell, you ain't getting us. And they throw it for, like, 15 yards.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Yeah, because the defense backs eyes usually are in a backfield, and they go, oh, shoot, he just pitched it back. They're going to throw it deep as the deepest. Okay, those are the keys.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: No, says I.
Yeah.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Staff move. Number two, the day the season ends is Joe Woods. See ya.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Yeah, he's done. So he's got to be right.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Hashtag fire Joe Woods.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Hashtag.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: This is where things I think, get really interesting, because if we're making the case that we have to fire coaches for the other two phases of the game, where does that leave Kevin Stefanski?
[00:26:09] Speaker A: Kevin Stefanski's got to go.
I mean, Friggin Stefanik. I'm just so done with this. I don't even really have words for Kevin Stefanik. Let me just run down a list of things that I wrote down from this game. This game. This is one single game.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Oh, boy.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: Fourth and one. On our first possession, we bring in Jacoby. Jacoby Brissette, and what do we do? Fade.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: We throw a fade naturally.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Why did we even bring in Jacoby Brissette if we're going to throw a fade on fourth and one? Dude's cold. Hasn't been in the game at all, and we threw a just.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: And it's almost just not fair.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Why.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: And it's not fair to either quarterback because. No, a like Jacoby is.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: You mean to tell me, analytics are telling me that the best way to pick up that first down is to throw off the rhythm of both quarterbacks, not that JacobY had any to start with, because he is his only play of the game, but to throw off Watson's rhythm. And you're saying bringing in Jacoby and trying a fade on fourth and one is the best analytical move that you could have made there?
[00:27:21] Speaker B: I mean, just put yourself in the mindset of both quarterbacks. Jacoby's saying, okay, like, I'm playing my part. I'm showing up every day, and I'm working hard to get Deshaun ready because I know the offense and I know that he's still trying to pick up everything. So I accept. I've taken on your backup role, and now you just want to toss me into the game for a gadget play for no reason. And if you're Deshaun, think about what's going through his mind right now. You paid me $230,000,000 to come here with 25 sexual assault allegations.
There's a reason I'm here, and you're going to take me out of the game on the most important play of the drive.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I agree.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Makes sense.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: Talk about Deshaun's coming back after not playing football for a couple years. What would that have done for Deshaun's confidence? For example, if they ran a QB sneak. And he got it.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: And he's fired up, ready to go, and we got it. First and goal. No, we didn't want that. We wanted to throw a fade. Not only do we throw a fade, by the way, we threw it to the end zone. I believe it was DPJ, right?
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Let me just ask this first because I'm going to get to this again in a second. How tall is DPJ?
[00:28:30] Speaker B: 61, I think so.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: He's not like the biggest receiver, right?
[00:28:33] Speaker B: He might be six two, but he's.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Lanky, but he's not like the biggest receiver.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: No, he's not traditional jump ball guy.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: Right. Okay, so let's go ahead and get into my next play that I want to address. Fourth and goal. Towards the end of the game, we still got a chance to possibly maybe get back into it. What did we do? We throw a 50 50 jump ball to DPJ in the corner of the end zone.
Why?
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: That's the best you could come up with on fourth and goal?
[00:28:59] Speaker B: I never like goal line fade with the game on the line.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't care if you throw one of thoSe.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: That exact play, first down.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: On first down.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: But, yeah, like I said, I don't mind that play, but I don't mind that play on like, first or second down. You take your shot and then you run the don't. Why are you throwing a jump ball to DPJ, who's not a jump ball guy, on fourth and goal?
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was just going to say. On first and goal, you want to throw the end zone, fade to Njoku. Because you jump over people, then fine.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Right. That's the guy. You throw the fade to jump ball?
[00:29:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Hell, even throw it to Amari. He's a bigger, more physical receiver than like, what are we doing?
[00:29:41] Speaker B: Separation.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: I know DPJ had a good game, but good Lord, he's not the guy to do that.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: And even to their credit, to both guys credit. So when you think about coaching and what your job is, it's to put your players in the best situation, to be successful.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Way to go, idiot.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: And Deshaun delivered a pretty good ball and DPJ was able to get his hands on and he just couldn't come down with it. So they did as good a job as they could being put in a tough spot with the game on the line.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: But that play is 50 50. Like, there's a reason. That's literally what they call it, a 50 50 play. Because you could run it perfectly and they pretty much did and still not come up with it. Because that's not a very high percentage throw.
Analytics man. They get you every time. Deep.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Odessa, next one.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: We already talked about it, but I'm going to come back around to it. Didn't give Cade York a shot at the end of the half.
Why did we draft cade the cannon if you aren't going to let him kick Cade York?
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Peppermint patties.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: Why? Like, why is he on the. He. Why is he on our team?
[00:30:45] Speaker B: You spend a draft pick on him?
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Why did you spend a draft pick on a kicker when you don't give him a chance to win the game? Okay, not win the game in this case, but you don't give him a chance to kick the field goal that he was drafted to kick. What do we say all the time? He can kick 70 yarders when we.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Just talked about his confidence, too, right? So what better way to give a guy a chance to make an ego play than to do it on a play that doesn't matter, right? I mean, if he nails it from 68, that shoots you through the roof. If you miss it, you go. It was before halftime. It was a 68 yard field goal.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Right. That's what I was just about to say.
There's only good outcomes can come. I mean, the only bad outcome. The only bad outcome is they block it and run it back for a touchdown, which I don't put past the brown.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Could happen on a mike pre for special teams unit.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Correct. But at the same time, the good far outweighs the bad in this, because like you said, we're not supposed to win this game anyways.
If you're talking about Katie York's confidence. His confidence goes through the roof. If he makes that, we get all of the momentum in the.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: Yeah, because you double dip before halftime.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And the only thing that comes from it being blocked. And here's the other thing, is, even if it is blocked, the chances of it being run back for a touchdown are low.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Yeah, because Cade's really fast. He would track them.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: So it just didn't make any sense. Apparently. Again, analytics.
They're above me, above my pay grade. I don't know what the analytics tell you on that, but apparently it's to throw a Hail Mary that's got less than 1% chance to land.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Stefanic loves his jump balls.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Yeah. What an idiot.
Here we go. Here's the big elephant in the room that we talk about every single damn week, and he still can't get it through his head. Nick Chubb had 14 carries in this. It was a game that was close pretty much throughout until probably the beginning of the fourth quarter. And Nick Chubb had 14 carries. Even with him bottled up most of the first half of the game. Why would you abandon the run in a close game like that?
[00:32:49] Speaker B: Well, and the thing is, Nick Chubb is one of those backs that gets stronger as the game goes on. He's had some games this year where he was bottled up early and teams were scheming against him because he's clearly our best weapon. But then he breaks one for 25 or like 60 and ChaNGEs the game.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah, because that's what he does. There's been probably a handful of games this year where he's only got like 40 or 50 yards going into the last quarter and then he ends the game with 100 and 3141. Hundred and 50 yards.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: The stat is pretty simple. 20 carries, 20 carries. 20 carries, 20 carries, 20 carries. Stefanik, 20 carries. Hey, Stefanski. 20 carries, 20 carries, 20 carries.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: And what's so frustrating is this isn't a secret because we talked about last week. Howie Long at halftime was saying, watch.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: The burning river sportscast and then repeated.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Nick Chubb gets 20 carries. They win. And throughout this entire game, I forget who was on the call. It was Gumble and Archuletta, maybe. And Arch kept saying, it's bizarre to me that Nick Chubb only has five.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Sounded like a fancy soup. Gumble and Archuletta.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: It's like the law firm of Gumble and Archuleta.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: He was like, it's baffling to me that Nick Chubb has five carries before halftime. And then later in the second, baffling to everybody. Second half, he said, it's baffling to me that Nick Chubb only has eleven carries right now. Like he couldn't figure out. He was like, he's your best weapon. So when the guys that are calling the game, the guys that don't watch you every week, know that he's your best weapon, you see him every day in practice. You know how special he is. How do you not give him the ball?
[00:34:31] Speaker A: Kevin Stefanski is just so damn smart. And instead of running the ball 20 times, we decided we were going to throw it 42 times. As a quarterback, that's still rusty as hell because he's been off for two years. That's the game plan. That's the game plan.
I don't know. And then finally there's still another point. You thought that was enough? It probably is, but there's still one more. How many timeouts can you just absolutely waste in a game? There was at least three in this game where I was like, why are we taking a time out right now? What was the point of that?
Two in the first quarter, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, two in the third qUarter. So you're down to one time out going into the second and fourth, and.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: They needed it this week.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And, yeah. Good job. Good job.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Stefanik, when's the last time we ended a game and we said Stefanski was on it? On the clock management tonight?
[00:35:24] Speaker A: I don't think we've ever ended a game where I thought, man, it was a good.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: I mean, it's okay. So maybe that's one of those things that goes unnoticed in a win. But I would like to think that if you manage it expertly, that we would pick up on that. And I can't remember a single time.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: You know what probably happens is he's so busy calling plays that he forgets about the defense, the special teams, and the timeouts.
Right? Well, yeah.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: He doesn't care about the other two phases of the game or anything else.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: Literally anything else.
And now it's getting even worse because the one thing that we've always leaned on is he's got great play calling. Well, I just gave you about 14 examples of why his play calling was shit this week, and I think his.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Play calling has been shit most weeks.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: I've got a migraine.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: The first drive of the game. That man can script a first drive.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Except for when you throw a fade.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: On fourth, one that probably wasn't scripted, but I hope not.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: You should never script that.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: His scripts have been good, but outside of that, all I've seen all year long is questionable play.
Haven't again, when's the last time you get done with the game and you go, Kevin called a great game.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Do you think that's what they do in practice, is they literally only practice the first drive? That's it.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: It must be because they're real good at it.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: And then after that, it all goes to hell.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: They just run the same plays out of different formations the rest of the game.
That's what's on this play card. Look, here's the thing.
I don't call for a coach's job lightly.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: No.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Prefer. And Joe woods have earned that over time, because they've been trash. They haven't done anything good.
Stefanski gets some credit for the job he did with Baker Mayfield, the job he did with Jacoby. We'll see what he does with Deshaun. He gets some credit because people have liked wrinkles in his offense.
And there is something to continuity. When you look at the teams that have been good for the last 20 years in the league and you look at the New England Patriots and the fact that they haven't had turnover at the head coach position and didn't at the quarterback position, when you look at the Steelers and you say, okay, you went from Bill Coward to Mike Tomlin and that's it. Those guys have been entrenched there. Even teams like Indianapolis, when Peyton Manning was there, went from Tony Dungey basically that entire time, blanking on the guy in Green Bay that was with Aaron Rodgers for a long time, Mike McCarthy.
And those were teams that year in and year out were perennial playoff contenders, Super bowl contenders, no matter what, just because they had that continuity. So there is something to that. But I also know that you can't just keep doing the same thing wrong over and over and over again.
That's a problem.
And we went through that with Hugh Jackson, continuity for continuity's sake, and that didn't get you anywhere because Hugh Jackson was never going to take you to the playoffs. So again, I say I don't call for coaches, especially a head coach's job lightly, but are you calling for it? Like we've kind of been joking about it for the last few weeks? I'm so frustrated with Kevin Stefanski this and that. Look, I think Kevin Stefanski is fundamentally a part of the problem on this team. Yeah. And I think Andrew Barry shares a lot of the fault.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I think for Stefanski, I think it goes all the way to his attitude and his approach in interviews and things like that.
We've mentioned it a number of times this year where after the game, after a loss like that, he comes in and the facade that he's so smug, he's so like, well, he's the smartest guy in the room and that he's going to figure it out and that there's nobody better for the job than him.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Well, and he just continues to say nothing. He's Pat Shermer in a press conference.
Kevin Stefanski is like, if Pat Shermer.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: And Freddie Kitchens had a baby, oh, man, those aren't guys you want to be.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Speaking of Freddie Kitchens, I'll venture to say this. I think if you start really looking at Stefanski and look at his body of work, I do think it's fireable in a lot of cases, and I'll go over a couple of those things here in a second. But I will say this. I think the only reason Kevin Stefanski still has a job is because I think if he looked like Freddie Kitchens and talked like Freddie Kitchens because he's handsome, well, I just think he plays a different personality. Right. He looks smart, he sounds smart. People think he's thoughtful. If he sounded like a dumb cowboy, they'd have been like, what are you doing? You couldn't figure out how to use Odo Beckham. You ran him out of town.
You couldn't find a spot for Jarvis Landry. He was unhappy and had to leave.
Let's not even talk about Baker because I think he's beside the point right now. But you can't figure out to give Nick Chubb the ball 20 times a game. You can't figure out that your most impactful plays on offense this year came when Kareem Hunt and Nick Chubb were on the field together. No one can stop that.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: I don't think I've seen that since more than two, maybe one play a game since, like, week two.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: Yeah, but there wasn't a play where those guys were on the field together that they could be stopped.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: No.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: And so you think about players only meetings in week two of the season. You think about the toxicity in the locker room last year with the receivers and your quarterback. What are you managing? What are you managing? And in three years, you've made the playoffs once, you're going to miss it twice. And when you watch that team on Sunday, ask yourself, or on Saturday this week, ask yourself, does that team look like they want to play for this coaching staff?
[00:41:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with you. And so far this season for, I would say, the majority of the games, I would say no. It just seems just. Should I run down the rest of my.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Okay. All know, we talked about it ad nauseam to this point. It was a piss poor showing in a divisional game with your playoff hopes on the line. It seemed like a game where the Browns sent the message of, don't get your hopes up, fans. There's no magic at the end of the season here, and in the end, this team is who they've been all year, which is their average at best. They lack leadership from the coaching staff. They're completely undisciplined, at times, disinterested. They play uninspired football and no single player was ever going to save them from themselves.
There's just too many flaws. And what Hurts Browns fans the most is the fact that it isn't a personnel issue. It's clear that we have one of the most talented rosters in the NFL, I would say easily. But what this coaching staff does week after week and the product that they ultimately put on the field has been absolutely horrendous. Browns fans deserve better, I would say, because after all the shit and all the heartbreak and so many of them realizing that we just wasted another year of our lives rooting for a team that we're always waiting for next year, guess what?
We'll be back next year.
We'll be back next year, and we'll be loud and proud and optimistic as ever that the perpetual next year will actually be next.
You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results. So when people talk about Cleveland fans and say they're insane, I would say that they're right. But for some unfathomable reason, us as Clevelanders are proud of that fact. Hey. Yeah.
And so while we are sad and hurt and disappointed and angry and fed up right now, and we're venting against the coaches, we'll be back next year, we'll be back next week, we'll be back the following week, and we'll be back next year, in the following year, and every year after that, and we'll be as insane as ever waiting for next year to finally come. But in the meantime, for the love of God, please do whatever it takes to find a competent coaching staff that doesn't bring us down week after week.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: There's not a lot I can disagree with.
Just that team looks disinterested. They have for a while. And again, I go back to the things that aren't even on the field, the locker room issues that we've heard of, the guys not being accountable. I mean, look, I love Miles, but what are you doing and just speeding around in the rain in the middle of the season, right? You're the face of the franchise. Like, you have to lead by example.
The players only meetings, the fact that you couldn't figure out how to work Odell Beckham into this offense. It was really easy to blame Baker for all these problems last year. But none of those problems went away.
David and Joku wanted a trade. Kareem Hunt wanted a trade.
Why don't these guys want to be here? The only reason we kept them was because we said, hey, sorry, you're under contract. We're not going to trade you. But they didn't want to be here.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: And it seems I've mentioned it a couple of times already, but just hitting the nail on the head again, it seems like the only consistency you get with Kevin Stefanski is inconsistency.
That's it. That's what you get. You get inconsistency and undisciplined football.
[00:45:03] Speaker B: Look, I think he'll be a good offensive coordinator somewhere else.
[00:45:06] Speaker A: I think he's a fine offensive coordinator. I just think that he's not a head coach. What he's proven in Cleveland is that he can't handle everything that goes with being a head coach somewhere.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: No. When you're the head coach, you have.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: To be the CEO, and he's not that.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: And he's not that. Everybody thinks CEO is an easy job.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: If all he has to focus on is being the offensive coordinator. I think he's fine.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think he would be fine. And I think that's how he built a reputation in Minnesota. Right. He was good at that side of the game. But you can't not care about the other phases of the game when you're the head coach. And you can't not care about leadership and culture and just your players having the right attitude and discipline coming into each and every week. And this team, week in and week out and again on Sunday, had ten penalties and 100 yards. And you can't win games like that. And, guys, this isn't rocket science. And this isn't the NFL that we've known for the last 20 years that was dominated by Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and dominated by Pittsburgh and Mike Tomlin. This NFL is up for grabs.
[00:46:09] Speaker A: You see it week in and week out.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: This year there's no dynasties left. Maybe Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid in Kansas City, but they're beatable.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: They've proven it multiple times.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Cincinnati beat them last week. Right? They're not infallible.
The game has never been. There's never been more parity in the game today. And it's easily identifiable by just looking at the goddamn standings. The Detroit Lions are in a playoff hunt. The NFC south could literally go to any one of those four teams, and it's Week 14.
[00:46:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: So the fact that you're in a population of about four or five teams that have no chance at a postseason at this point in the season all.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: Comes back, especially to coaching, with the high hopes that we had in the preseason and the amount of talent that's on this roster, even with the fact that you're waiting for Deshaun Watson because.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: You still have enough talent. I mean, here's the thing that's a serious question, is if Baker Mayfield were still here. What's your record this year?
Is it the same?
[00:47:16] Speaker A: Worse? I don't think it's probably better. And I'm not a Baker guy at all. As a matter of fact, I'm happy that he's gone just because of the baggage that I think he brings along with you. But to your point, those problems are gone, and we still have those problems in a different way.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: And you know, what's fascinating about all that is the media created such a narrative about Baker being a bad locker room guy. But I saw an awful lot of tweets from teammates in Carolina and in Cleveland that wished him well after the big win on Thursday. Football, those weren't guys that hated went to.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: He went to Carolina and he was a captain of their team.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I meaN, the tweets were rolling in from all over, from guys that respected him as a teammate and a quarterback. So even if he were here, this is beside the point. Even if you were here playing mediocre at quarterback but healthy, and you were potentially in the playoff race or making a playoff run this year, and you have all the draft picks.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: And I will preface that, I should say, I will caveat that with the fact that, I'm not saying that it's a mistake what they did yet, but what I will say is the coaching has been so poor that we haven't been able to succeed with what we've done.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: I just think it's the wrong application of a solution because Deshaun Watson still isn't going to stop a flea flicker. Deshaun Watson could be the best quarterback in the league next year. He can't tackle no name running backs in Atlanta.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: He can't play defense against.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: No.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: He doesn't manage the special teams unit. So I think the problem is the quarterback wasn't the problem.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: No, not at all.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: It was easy to blame Baker, but I think Baker, Jacoby, Deshaun, they can all plug in and they're all capable of having good games.
The quarterback position is not why you were losing.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: No.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: Baker with one arm, playing Green Bay, throwing four picks, okay, he lost that game, but he didn't lose every game.
Baker wasn't the problem with his team last year. He's certainly not the problem this year because he's not on the roster. Kevin Stefanski is your problem.
[00:49:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I guess I think we've hit on this subject enough, and I think we are going to just go ahead and move on. Even though we're still fired up, we're still upset. We're going to move.
[00:49:56] Speaker B: I'm not ready to move on.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: All right, keep going.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: You don't get to be a head coach just because you call yourself a head coach. He's an offensive coordinator. I like to take pictures of hot girls on the beach. That doesn't make me a photographer.
It makes me a creep.
[00:50:12] Speaker A: It does make you a creep. That's weird, man.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Kevin Stefanski is a creep. He's a creep pretending to be a head coach.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: Dang. Feels bad, Kevin.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: Now I'm done.
[00:50:21] Speaker A: All right, so any other Browns notes? I've got nothing. Oh, wait, wait. I do have something. So Carly Teller, wife of Wyatt Teller, sends Christmas cards out to a few hundred fans every year. This year we were lucky enough to be on that list that got a Christmas card. So I'll just go ahead and hold this up, let y'all see. This is what they send out every year.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: And she's really pregnant, right? They're due like any day.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: They're due today, basically. So it says Merry Christmas on it. For anybody listening to the audio version here, Merry Christmas on it. Picture of Carly and Wyatt Teller holding up a mini teller jersey to announce their pregnancy.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: Little teller.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: So that was pretty cool.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: Thank you that we got a Christmas card from the Tellers. Merry Christmas to you as well.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: And then that'll take us to the Burning River Sportscast Dog of the week. I'm a dog noddle dog mentality.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: This is like the fun segment. This is like a good part, but I'm so down after.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: I was just going to say I should have shifted this up in the show just so that we didn't have to mix. But Miles Garrett is this week's Dog of the week.
He had two more sacks in this one, which takes him to twelve on the year. He is firmly in the defensive Player of the Year conversation. And I would say if the Browns were any good whatsoever, he would probably actually be talked about a lot more. But we trash.
[00:51:57] Speaker B: I think that hurts him in the overall conversation because his stats this year are pretty good. Yeah.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: I mean, unless he goes balls to the wall the rest of the season. And really, if he doubles his stat in his stat. Yeah, if he ends up somehow breaking the. He gets a six stack record, six.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: Stacker in the next four weeks, then.
[00:52:14] Speaker A: He might jump to the front of the list. But as it stands right now, the Browns have just lost too much for him to really be considered for defensive player of the Year. I mean, he'll be in the conversation, but nobody's seriously going to consider him. He'll probably finish like third.
[00:52:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think what's uNfortunate, too, is now that you're out of the playoff hunt, I don't even know that it makes sense to have him on the field a lot. I mean, I think the next four weeks, and we'll talk more about this as the show goes on, but I think the next few weeks are about Sean Watson. Well, just the depth and seeing what else you have in some of these other players and seeing if they can develop and what you think. Because in the offseason, you're going to have to make a lot of tough decisions because we know there are some holes on this team.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: Yeah. You know what scares me with Miles Garrett here is if you listen to him talk and just how fed up he is with know, I would not be surprised if in the offseason he tried to force his way out.
[00:53:05] Speaker B: No.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: Whether it's a trade or know, whatever the case may be, he holds out or don't, I don't really know what a holdout looks like for that. If you just want to leave. But I would not be surprised if he forced himself out of Cleveland in season.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: I wouldn't blame him.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: No, I mean, I feel the same way. Honestly, I feel the same way about.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: I mean, we keep saying next year, next year, next year. Okay, well, at some point you have guys on your team.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: Next year, if Kevin Stefani is still here, we still won't give Nick Chubb 20 carries a game and Miles Garrett will still be playing in meaningless games because we're going to lose them all in the end.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
So that feels bad. Yeah. I mean, think about Miles Garrett and Nick Chubb. You have two guys right now.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: You don't even have to say anything else. If you have those two guys, those are like some of the best building blocks you could think of.
[00:53:53] Speaker B: Well, I'm just saying you have two guys with hall of Fame potential on your team. How many teams in the NFL right now have two guys that are possibly going to be in the hall of Fame? Now, Nick Chubb won't because Kevin Stefanza won't give him the ball. True. But Jesus, I mean, if you just wasting pounded that guy into the ground, you'd win a bunch of games and he would absolutely be a Hall of Fame. He's a Hall of fame talent and Miles, because he has the stats to back it up, will be in the hall. But there's not a lot of teams that have just that going for them right now.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: Sorry, I'm checking the Monday nighter and Kyler Murray just go down with a non contact.
[00:54:32] Speaker B: Non contact injury. That's not good.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Kyler Murray definitely just tore a CLS are never good. You heard it here first. Well, you won't hear it till Thursday, so you heard it somewhere else first. But anyways, that takes us to the division roundup.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: Right now.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: All right, so Baltimore squeaked past Pittsburgh this week.
Both starting quarterbacks in this one got hurt. Lamar Jackson, as you know, didn't play anyways. And then Huntley got hurt in this one. I believe that was a concussion. And Pickens believe also has a concussion.
[00:55:16] Speaker B: Through one pass, which they're going to.
[00:55:18] Speaker A: Be in some weird trouble because he, like, I don't know if it's the Steelers are questioning the protocol or whatever because he came out, cleared protocol, went back in, and then immediately came back out again and had to go into. I don't, I don't really know what's going on there, but either way, Baltimore improves to nine and four and keeps pace with Cincinnati in the division. And Kenny was right and I was wrong.
But that takes us to the Browns game, which we already recapped. So I picked that right and Kenny picked it wrong. So we both went one and one this week.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: Excellent.
[00:55:52] Speaker A: We'll revisit this here soon, but for now, let's take a trip around the NFL.
[00:56:07] Speaker B: Classic.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: All right, so this week around the NFL, it's pretty much all about quarterbacks. We got Baker Mayfield released last Monday from the Panthers, signed Tuesday with the Rams, got his playbook and got his playbook sent to him before his flight out on Tuesday to California. Less than 48 hours with a team, gets in the game in relief on Thursday Night Football, and proceeds to lead a game winning drive. He was under a minute with no timeouts and 97 yards to go. Pretty impressive.
[00:56:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it was the longest drive in the shortest amount of time in like 45 yeArs, and it was impressive.
I watched bits and pieces of that game, and then I watched most of the first fourth quarter. And Baker wasn't great for most of the game. But to be fair, he knew, like six plays.
[00:56:55] Speaker A: I actually wrote that. I said, this was like a microcosm of Baker Mayfield's whole career. This game was. He played pretty poorly throughout, and then all of a sudden, flashes of brilliance and you're like, oh, my God, it's in there.
[00:57:07] Speaker B: And I don't even know. He played poorly throughout. He just didn't.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: It was pretty low completion percentage, like, a lot of short passes. It was typical Baker. And then all of a sudden.
[00:57:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, they just didn't do a whole lot on offense in general, but that game was kind of like that.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: Because that's what he does, though.
[00:57:23] Speaker B: He was messy.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: He did that at the end of the game, and now they're going to spend the next six weeks hoping he does it again, and he might not.
[00:57:29] Speaker B: I guess we'll see, but good on him. Look, he's had a rough go of it the last 16 months or so. He was due for something good to happen in his life.
[00:57:38] Speaker A: So good on Baker fair, another quarterback we love to talk about here on the Burning river sportscast. Russell Wilson finally has a decent game.
The Broncos were able to hang with the Chiefs in this one, but in the end, he got a concussion and the Broncos lose again.
[00:57:55] Speaker B: Did you see the knot on his head?
[00:57:57] Speaker A: No.
[00:57:57] Speaker B: Oh, man. It was like a boil on his forehead.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: Broncos Country. Let's ride.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: Let's ride.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: All right, so. And then we got Brock Purdy over there in San Francisco.
[00:58:10] Speaker B: Who in the hell is Brock Purdy?
[00:58:13] Speaker A: Listen, there are only two ways you can describe this team's trajectory right now. Brock, solid or pretty good.
[00:58:22] Speaker B: He was phenomenal. And, in fact, watching that game and then going back and looking at the stat line, I was almost like, I swear he was way better than that because his numbers weren't overly impressive. I think he threw like, 185 yards in the game and two touchdowns.
[00:58:37] Speaker A: That's where we've talked about the eye test a lot.
[00:58:39] Speaker B: But, man, on our show, I mean, his command and his confidence and the way he carries himself on the field and the way he was just zipping balls in, like, in the COVID he was like, I don't care.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: I guess when you're Mr. Irrelevant, you've got nothing to lose.
[00:58:53] Speaker B: I told my mom, my mom was confused and thought Baker got traded to the 49 Ers.
[00:59:00] Speaker A: No.
Wrong California team.
[00:59:03] Speaker B: She was like, I guess we'll get to watch Baker at four. And I said, no, Baker played on Thursday.
And so I laid it out for her. I said, brock Purdy is 22 years old. Tom Brady's played in the league for 23 years.
He's Mr. Irrelevant. And I don't think she knew what Mr. Irrelevant meant. Thanks for not watching last week's episode, Mom.
[00:59:29] Speaker A: You had one job, Tina.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: And then in the fourth quarter of that game, after Brock Purdy had played Purdy good.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: He's got a purdy mouth.
[00:59:38] Speaker B: She texted me and she was like, what was that about an irrelevant?
[00:59:42] Speaker A: Like, you don't irrelevant. Regardless of whether he plays well or not. He's still Mr. Irrelevant. That's his title forever.
And then from there, we move on. Mike White Sunday. Mike White Sunday in review here. Let me just go through it. He left the game the second quarter after a hit to the Ribs. He came back in. Two plays later, he got hit in the ribs again in the third quarter and left the game for a second time to get X rays.
[01:00:13] Speaker B: Pause. When you say he got hit in the ribs, this man was mauled, just annihilated. Absolutely demolished. Most of the hits like that have been litigated out of the game. This dude was pummeled into the ground.
[01:00:33] Speaker A: On both of these plays. It was like good old fashioned football that everybody loved to see. It was like you just don't see anymore.
[01:00:40] Speaker B: He got drilled and my phone lit up with like, rip texts. And then he came back.
[01:00:45] Speaker A: He came back, they did it again where we're at. So he came back in the third quarter or he came back two plays later and then got hit in the ribs again. Was he pummeled again?
[01:00:55] Speaker B: Pummeled, pummeled again. My phone lit up with the rip text again. It was rip quarter.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: Left the game for a second time to get X Rays returned at the start of the fourth quarter and finished the game. But once the game was over, he left in an ambulance because he was sent to the hospital for testing for potential internal injuries.
[01:01:15] Speaker B: I mean, this dude, talk about just.
[01:01:19] Speaker A: That dude's playing for his career, right? Mean, he's know I'm finally getting another shot. I gotta make the most of it.
[01:01:26] Speaker B: He's the best quarterback on that Wilson. Zach Wilson is trash.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: Plus, he's out there just banging dudes'moms.
That's never good as a leader of the team.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: Gotta respect that.
But, yeah, just absolute toughness. This guy was absolutely just pummeled, drilled, demolished.
[01:01:48] Speaker A: Any word you can think of to describe a bad NFL?
[01:01:52] Speaker B: I can't even think of the words to describe the way this man was. Just absolutely.
[01:01:56] Speaker A: Do you have a couple screenshots you can throw up there?
[01:01:58] Speaker B: I'll throw a couple, but I don't think it doesn't have the same effect as just watching it because just the way he hit the ground.
[01:02:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
That leads us to the Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback, Trevor Lawrence. Since week nine, he is 125 of 174. That's good for 72.3%. 72 plus he's thrown for 1300 yards, ten touchdowns and no interceptions. I think it's safe to say Trevor Lawrence has officially arrived in the NFL.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: Look, I don't know if he's arrived or not yet, but he certainly played dang well over the last few weeks, and Jacksonville might finally have themselves the quarterback.
[01:02:39] Speaker A: I mean, that's pretty good.
[01:02:41] Speaker B: It's pretty good. Yeah. The problem is the same problem that just bad teams, like good quarterbacks on bad teams, have. He's on a bad team.
He'll only be able to go as far as. It's like Deshaun doesn't play defense or special teams, so he can be really good, but will still be bad.
[01:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So next up, we got Justin Herbert. Huge day. And a win over Miami. 39 of 51 for 367 yards and a touchdown. And it was the first time all season that Keenan Allen and Mike Williams played an entire game together, and they did not disappoint. 18 catches for 208 yards and a touchdown between them.
[01:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I watched that game last night, and that was one of the best quarterback performances I've seen in a while. Just start to finish, made every throw from every angle, scrambled and got out of trouble a couple of times, picked up key first downs on the run.
Dude was just absolutely in the zone and it was fun to watch.
[01:03:42] Speaker A: Yep. Another quarterback that's out there playing well. Jalen hurts. Another easy win for the Eagles.
And this dude's teammates were joking and dancing as they were skating to victory in this one on the sideline. And if you about 4ft down, zoom in on Jalen Hurts. He's just stone face on the bench, all business. Just no chill.
I mean, he's on a mission this year. I would say strictly business.
[01:04:09] Speaker B: He needs that mustache.
[01:04:10] Speaker A: Yeah, put that screenshot of him. Just dead eye.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: Oh, I thought you wanted the screenshot of the Browns doing a strictly business mustache.
[01:04:17] Speaker A: No, don't do that. Don't do that. You throw it up there.
And then we got Tom Brady. I think he's finally found a team so bad that he can't cover up all their blemishes.
But speaking of that division, the Buccaneers lead that division, Dylan, first place in seven and May win the division with a losing record this year. That division is so bad that the Carolina Panthers are in second place at five and eight.
[01:04:43] Speaker B: Carolina five and eight, Atlanta five and eight, New Orleans four and nine. Literally any team could still win that division, and probably whichever team wins that division will be under 500 and host a playoff game.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's wild. And then that leaves us with Jared Goff, who went off for 330 yards and three touchdowns as the Lions have officially made themselves a playoff contender as they upset the Minnesota Vikings.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: They're in the hunt. Look we said at the beginning of this season that the lion don't sleep on the Lions.
[01:05:19] Speaker A: Are their offenses good?
[01:05:20] Speaker B: Are they offense in the league? No, but they could make some noise. And I think I said at the time, they'll go as far as Jared Goff will take them. I mean, he's the wild card in that scenario because there are days he plays really well. Hell, Sean McVeigh had him in The Super Bowl. And then there's days where he will just throw four picks in for 16 yards.
[01:05:41] Speaker A: Yeah, bad day.
And we just a few minutes ago mentioned it. But the final quarterback news that I have is we just watched on Monday Night Football, Kyler Murray went down with what is sure to be from the replays, a CL tear, some sort of CL tear. And I'm sure Kyler Murray is done for the season.
[01:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that wasn't good. Carted off for sure.
[01:06:10] Speaker A: Which brings in Colt McCoy. But why?
[01:06:13] Speaker B: Colt has made himself a lot of money in this league, being a good backup journeyman.
I will say just as we look over that whole segment, something sticks out to me. What's that? Baker Mayfield being in LA for 48 hours and having a good game. You forget, too, from his stat line, like, he didn't start that game.
So he came in at the end of the first quarter.
[01:06:39] Speaker A: To be fair, they only gave the other guy one series, and then they were like, all right, we're going to Baker Bay.
[01:06:43] Speaker B: He had a broken neck.
And Brock Purdy in San Francisco playing as well as he did. Here's two guys that have absolutely no business playing well.
[01:06:57] Speaker A: Here we are.
[01:06:57] Speaker B: I think the difference is coaching.
[01:06:59] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Two places where you got decent coaching.
[01:07:02] Speaker B: People want to give Kevin Stefanski credit for being some kind of quarterback, but that was the eye test. Watch those two games and watch the job those guys did. That's what a good coach gets you.
[01:07:16] Speaker A: Well, and here's where we get into as the season wraps up for the Browns and we are testing out DeShaun Watson, I expect there to be a lot of games we pass 45 times a game because they're just trying to see just how good he can be. What does the narrative get to at the end of the season if we're still playing like garbage? DeShaun Watson isn't back to form yet and we've thrown the ball 45 times a game.
[01:07:40] Speaker B: It's going to be a long offseason.
[01:07:42] Speaker A: Is Kevin Stefanski still a quarterback guru? I don't think so.
Finally, in around the league here, though, we mentioned it last week, but I'm just going to mention it again. We have a Saturday triple header this week on the NFL Network. No, we are not sponsored by them. And I didn't mean to say their name, but I did it anyways. And that's the colts versus Vikings at one, Ravens versus Browns. Yes, the Browns are a part of this triple header at 430 and the Dolphins and Bills at 08:15 p.m. Which would be a. That should be a pretty good game.
[01:08:15] Speaker B: This is my favorite time of year for football.
Just because you get football like every day of the week. Every day. Yeah.
My poor mom and her naivete. She was like, why would they play games on Saturday? I was like, because no matter what is on TV on any day, if you put it up against an NFL football game, it loses. It loses. They make so much money and they make the rules. The more days that they can have NFL football on, they have the best product on TV.
[01:08:43] Speaker A: Well, the best part is they're like, we're going to play a Saturday game. The network, you know what they say? Okay, yeah, sounds good to me.
[01:08:50] Speaker B: Do it. So I love this time of year when they flex these games on Saturday and even through the first couple of rounds of the playoffs, just because we'll.
[01:08:57] Speaker A: Have football Saturday and Sunday.
[01:09:00] Speaker B: And especially now because once you get to the playoffs in the end of season, you lose Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football. So to have Monday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, I wish the Browns were good, but we suck.
[01:09:12] Speaker A: You need to change your underwear.
[01:09:14] Speaker B: I'm not wearing any weird.
[01:09:17] Speaker A: So that'll do it for our Week 14 coverage. Let's go ahead and take our revenue break and get into Week 15.
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[01:10:02] Speaker B: Family owned topath distillery and when you go there, you don't even have to wear underwear.
It's not a requirement.
[01:10:12] Speaker A: I don't think that's a requirement just about anywhere.
[01:10:15] Speaker B: Well, it's not there either. So selling point, fair value add.
[01:10:21] Speaker A: All right, let's get into the Week 15 preview.
[01:10:26] Speaker B: Face down.
[01:10:31] Speaker A: All right, so we got the Ravens this week, another division matchup. But guess what? That doesn't matter because we're out of the playoffs anyways. Not mathematically, but I think we've got like less than 1% chance as soon as the Ravens or the Bengals win another game, we've been eliminated.
[01:10:48] Speaker B: We're not mathematically eliminated yet, but we are eliminated.
[01:10:52] Speaker A: So I guess the rest of the season, probably what the goal is, and I kind of mentioned it a minute ago, is you let Deshaun Watson probably throw the ball 45 times a game, which means we all just be angry. We'll all just be angry the whole time because Nick Chubb's not getting his carries and they're going to probably open up the offense, whatever the hell that means, for Stefanik.
[01:11:11] Speaker B: Well, and here's my thing is, frankly, I don't care if Nick Chubb touches the ball at all for the rest of the year. You've been saving his legs to this point in the season. Why give the ball to we saved.
[01:11:21] Speaker A: His legs so long that we've saved his legs out of playoff contention.
[01:11:24] Speaker B: Might as well keep him fresh for next year because the life of a running back in the NFL isn't that long.
[01:11:29] Speaker A: Why don't we just shut him down and run a Kareem hunt the rest of the season?
[01:11:33] Speaker B: Well, that's what I'm saying. I mean, I think that's going to be a serious question over the next couple of weeks and maybe for the next one or two weeks.
[01:11:39] Speaker A: But on the flip side of that, I hate to do that to Nick Chubb because this is his career and he's hall of Famer.
[01:11:44] Speaker B: I understand, but we're all playing for next year, right? That was what we said. We said we would rather not be in playoff contention, trade away all of our draft picks, deal with a bunch of negative publicity and lose this year.
That was our choice. That's what we wanted.
[01:12:02] Speaker A: All for next year.
[01:12:02] Speaker B: And for the most part, Browns fans were okay with it at the time. They were excited about we're mad now and you're mad, so, like, you don't even get to be mad. Shut up.
[01:12:11] Speaker A: But you can't be mad. We're all Browns fans and we're mad.
[01:12:13] Speaker B: Well, I'm mad because we're wasting the talent that we do have. I agree, but you can't make a move like the move for Deshaun and then not go, well, what did you think was going to happen? He missed the first eleven games.
[01:12:26] Speaker A: I guess we'll preview this matchup. Not that it really matters, but do you got any opposition research before I get into the position matchups?
No. All right.
[01:12:35] Speaker B: No. We played them once this year already. We know what they have. We know that this is a defense that got a lot better with the free agent acquisition. We know also that we're not even sure who we're playing at quarterback because Lamar definitely is out, Tyler Huntley's in the concussion protocol, and Anthony Brown, I don't know who knows that is or if he's any good. He threw like four passes on Sunday.
[01:13:01] Speaker A: The only matchups that I think are even worth mentioning is the Browns front seven versus the Ravens rushing attack. JK Dobbins is now back and healthy. JK had a good game, very good this last week, but the Browns are trash against the run, so we'll see what happens. I mean, if we can't slow him down, then we're going to lose to a team that has no quarterback.
[01:13:18] Speaker B: It will. And like I said, I think there should start to be. It's not that we have to sit these guys on the bench for the rest of the year, but there should start to be a concerted effort to limit the reps for guys like Miles that you need healthy for next year. Guys like Denzel, just because there's no.
[01:13:36] Speaker A: Worst thing that could happen from now until the end of the year is for one of them to tear a C out.
[01:13:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, if Miles Garrett Tours Achilles, I mean, that would be devastating. And here's the problem with waiting for next yEar. That shit can always happen. So we could get to next year with Deshaun and Stefanik and Prefer and Joe woods and be all ready to take on the NFL. And if Miles Garrett tears his Achilles in week one, then what?
[01:13:58] Speaker A: Over.
[01:13:58] Speaker B: Guess we'll wait till next year. Always next year. Oh, yeah, you're next year.
[01:14:02] Speaker A: All right, so the only other one that I had here, it wasn't a position matchup, but just note in general, is Deshaun Watson versus the crowd and the rust. Yes, this is a home game, but I still expect there to be a lot of disgruntled Browns fans in the stadium, just disgruntled by the fact that he's playing at all.
[01:14:24] Speaker B: Did you see somebody snuck in a no means no sign during the Browns broadcast?
[01:14:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:14:30] Speaker B: Panned to it for about a second.
[01:14:31] Speaker A: I pointed to it and I said, oh, the NFL's trying to keep those out of, like, the broadcast and stuff, but that guy got him.
[01:14:37] Speaker B: They quickly were like, oh, got to.
[01:14:39] Speaker A: Get off that guy. That guy really got him. But yeah, I expect there to be some unruly crowd noise for him, so I just want to see how he handles that in the home stadium. Not something you usually have to deal with at home.
[01:14:52] Speaker B: The other matchup that I'm interested in seeing is just how Harbaugh deals with his quarterback situation. Because whether it's Huntley or the name's Powers, chad Powers or Anthony Brown or, they're, they're a contending team looking to win the division, make the playoffs, and you have a less than ideal situation at quarterbacks.
[01:15:15] Speaker A: Well, with no quarterback this past week they beat the Steelers, who I think, I mean, they're pretty much on par with the Browns as far as how good they are.
[01:15:21] Speaker B: I guess so.
[01:15:21] Speaker A: I mean, we have the same, but yeah. So overall, the Ravens, they're a nine and four team, tied for the division lead. Obviously they're a good football team, but without a starting quarterback, possibly without a second string quarterback at this point.
But with all that being said, it's sad to say that we are still going to need a much better game from Deshaun Watson and the offense as a whole, Kevin Stefanski and the coaching staff in order to get a win in this one. I mean, we probably need 20 carries from Nick Chubb, which we're not going to get. Won't get it. We're going to need really no mistakes from Deshaun. We're just going to have to play a good football game and I just have no confidence that that's what we're going to do.
Yeah, that's where we're at.
[01:16:10] Speaker B: Fair.
[01:16:11] Speaker A: So that takes us to the injury report. We'll run through that real quick.
[01:16:19] Speaker B: This is my favorite sounding.
[01:16:24] Speaker A: All right on the Brown side. Kenny, do we have any new additions?
[01:16:29] Speaker B: We talked about Amari Cooper at the top with his hip. With his hip aggravated the hip injury.
[01:16:35] Speaker A: Old man river, he's not hip problems.
[01:16:42] Speaker B: Yeah, so he aggravated the hip and J-O-K sustained leg injury late in Sunday's.
[01:16:51] Speaker A: Lost to since apparently getting MRIs. That might be serious.
[01:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't heard anything yet today, but he was scheduled for an MRI on Monday, so I guess we'll watch that throughout the week to see what comes of it.
But otherwise, the rest of the Browns injuries are already guys that are on the IR.
[01:17:09] Speaker A: We know about them. On Baltimore side, we got Kevin Zeitler will be out, Lamar Jackson most likely out again, backup QB like we mentioned, Tyler Huntley potentially out in concussion protocol and that means Anthony Brown will possibly, whoever that guy is, will possibly be starting unless they sign somebody else between now and then.
[01:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I wouldn't overlook the Kevin Zeitler injury. I mean, he's one of the better offensive linemen in the league at this.
[01:17:43] Speaker A: You know, we mentioned it for the time that he will be playing, especially with us being out of the playoff hunt at this point. Miles Garrett's going to look to feast on everybody.
[01:17:53] Speaker B: Well, yeah, you got to be stacked and you're going to have an inexperienced quarterback back there.
[01:17:58] Speaker A: Inexperienced quarterback. You're down a lineman. That should set up well for Miles Garrett.
[01:18:02] Speaker B: Let's put that in a position matchup.
[01:18:04] Speaker A: Whoever replaces Kevin Zeitler this week versus Miles Garrett.
[01:18:07] Speaker B: Kevin Zeitler is the leading vote getter for the Pro bowl right now for his position.
[01:18:10] Speaker A: So that takes me to the player to watch. Who do you got this.
[01:18:16] Speaker B: Going to be?
I don't know who the player to watch is, but I think it's going to be somebody that we aren't talking about. I think this point in the season.
[01:18:25] Speaker A: We'Re going to start lots of injuries, lots of, and just the fact that.
[01:18:29] Speaker B: Where we are, I think we're going to see different people show up in different spots. I think you might see Jerome Ford get some carries this week. Dearness Johnson may show up. I think it'll be one of those guys or could be a guy like David Bell. It could be.
[01:18:45] Speaker A: I hope so.
[01:18:46] Speaker B: Somebody that we're not thinking about right now is probably who's going to have an impactful game on Sunday because we're just going to have to start getting rep to some of those guys that haven't seen a lot of playing time.
[01:18:58] Speaker A: This, I mean, it's probably a really.
[01:19:01] Speaker B: Shitty cop out, but that's my answer.
[01:19:03] Speaker A: Well, during last week's podcast, I said that I wasn't going to pick Deshaun Watson anymore, but that was before we lost to Cincinnati and now we're pretty much out of the playoffs. And so my player to watch is once again Deshaun Watson. And I think it's probably honestly going to be for the rest of the season.
Again, that sounds like a pretty bad cop out, but the fact of the matter is, in order to calm Browns fans down a little bit about this guy, you're going to have to see glimpses of the Pro Bowler that he was in Houston before the end of the season.
[01:19:32] Speaker B: Well, this is the only thing that we have to hang on to between now and in until next year.
[01:19:36] Speaker A: Yeah, and like I said, just a minute ago. We're going to need a pretty damn good game from him regardless if we're going to win this one. And I fully expect Kevin Stefanski to, from this point forward, abandon the run pretty much and lean into this whole Deshaun Watson thing and we're going to be throwing the ball 40 to 45 times a game. He shouldn't.
[01:19:54] Speaker B: You know, it's funny, I wrote down just in my game notes this week that if Kevin Stefanski had Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes on his roster, that would be his wet dream because he would just never run the ball again. Like if he had a quarterback that he could just.
[01:20:11] Speaker A: But I think we're there.
[01:20:12] Speaker B: Not running the ball ever again.
[01:20:14] Speaker A: I think we're there, especially if Deshaun Watson can return to that form before the end of the season, which I think it'll take the rest of the season for him to get there.
But if he gets there sooner, Kevin Stefanski is going to be so happy because that's all he's going to do is throw the ball forever.
So there's that. So I just think Deshaun Watson is the guy to watch because if we're going to win this game, it's going to be a shootout and Deshaun Watson is going to have 400 yards and throw for four touchdowns.
[01:20:39] Speaker B: If Deshaun Watson throws for 400 yards and four touchdowns, we better win because we're playing some guy named Anthony Brown.
[01:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
[01:20:46] Speaker B: We get into a shoot.
[01:20:47] Speaker A: We also can't stop the run. So JK Dobbins is going to run for 300 yards and three touchdowns.
[01:20:51] Speaker B: That's still less than four.
[01:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyways, that takes us to the King of the North.
All right, so let's go ahead and remind everybody of the tally here, your favorite part of the show. We both went one and one this last week. So I am now 28 and 16 sitting pretty with Kenny down there at 21 and 23.
[01:21:15] Speaker B: You're sitting Purdy.
[01:21:16] Speaker A: Brock Purdy. So let's go ahead and get on the predictions for this week. The AFC North Steelers at Panthers. For the first one, you can go first. Actually, you hate picking the Steelers, so I'll let you go first.
[01:21:28] Speaker B: Mitchell Trubisky came in and promptly threw three picks in that game.
[01:21:35] Speaker A: He's pretty bad.
[01:21:37] Speaker B: The Panthers are an absolute dumpster fire, but they are in the thick of.
[01:21:43] Speaker A: A playoff somehow with the same record as the Steelers, they're in the thick of a playoff race.
[01:21:50] Speaker B: I'm going to go with Panthers over the Steelers this week because I don't know that Kenny Pickens is going to be able to play because I think he's in a concussion protocol and if Mitch Trubisky gets to play, I think he's shown all year that he's just not a good fit for that offense.
And the Panthers, amazingly have something to play for at this point in the season. Still.
[01:22:11] Speaker A: I will give you that the Panthers have something to play for. I don't think it matters.
While they are trash and while Pittsburgh is trash, this game is going to be the worst game I've ever seen, ever.
So just in a toss up, I'm just going to go with the Steelers one more time here. So we split picks there.
Bengals at Buccaneers, who you got?
[01:22:39] Speaker B: So I still don't think that the Bengals are that good. I know they just beat us soundly and I know that they are kind of peaking at the right time because.
[01:22:51] Speaker A: Everybody'S talking about them making a Super bowl run again.
[01:22:54] Speaker B: They've won like five in a row. But I do actually think that.
I think that Tom Brady is now a desperate Tom Brady, so similar to the Panthers in football and in life. I think that his desperation may lead them to a victory over the Bengals this week.
[01:23:14] Speaker A: I'm going to keep mine short and sweet. I got the Bengals continuing to roll. They beat Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, but everybody else in that division loses as well. So they stay number one in the playoffs for that division. And then finally the Ravens at the Browns. Who you got?
[01:23:32] Speaker B: I'm actually going to go, despite everything that we've said today, I'm actually going to go with the Browns because mostly because I don't know who the quarterback is going to be and if it's one of two guys that probably aren't very good. And also the pressure is now off for the Browns. There's nothing to play true.
[01:23:51] Speaker A: This is usually when we play.
[01:23:52] Speaker B: So this is where they're going to.
[01:23:53] Speaker A: We're going to look like world beaters.
[01:23:55] Speaker B: They might now run the table and we'll be like, well, damn, we missed.
[01:23:58] Speaker A: It by, we missed it by a game.
[01:24:00] Speaker B: That's what they do every year. The Browns are literally just a walking human rain delay and that's what they're bringing on Sunday Fair.
[01:24:08] Speaker A: I actually have the Browns for all of the same reasons. So we picked this one, the same lady.
[01:24:12] Speaker B: You scaring us.
[01:24:16] Speaker A: Man. After all that, we are just typical Browns fans and we shit all over the Browns and then we pick them to win against the division leaders.
[01:24:25] Speaker B: Did we just shit on the Browns for an hour and 25 minutes just to pick them. Just to pick them to win.
[01:24:31] Speaker A: Yes, we did.
[01:24:32] Speaker B: That's just how hopeless our lives have become.
[01:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's go ahead and take one more quick revenue break before we get back and wrap up the show.
[01:24:44] Speaker B: It's hard.
[01:24:45] Speaker A: I'll do it.
[01:24:45] Speaker B: It's hard to hold.
[01:24:46] Speaker A: Topath Vodka, an ultra premium, extremely smooth, high quality vodka, six times distilled and made for Midwest corn and Ohio fruit. Clean and crisp. A truly high quality spirit. Made right here in Northeast Ohio. Topath vodka.
Gone. And get some.
I don't know how well I did. I was reading, looking. I was doing all that all at once.
[01:25:12] Speaker B: I was checking our Doordash order. It came ten minutes ago. Dang.
[01:25:15] Speaker A: We got to get up there and.
[01:25:16] Speaker B: Eat to wrap this up.
[01:25:18] Speaker A: Keep eating.
We don't really have anything in for the land. Should we just do the sounder? Just to do the sounder?
[01:25:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll hit the sounder for the land.
Yeah.
[01:25:32] Speaker A: The Cavs are still playing. Nothing of note this week.
[01:25:36] Speaker B: I would just note that they're 17 and ten, still in the third seed in the east.
[01:25:41] Speaker A: About where we said they'd be. Still trying to get healthy.
[01:25:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:25:45] Speaker A: So let's close this thing out. What can we expect next week, Kenny?
[01:25:49] Speaker B: Next week we will recap the Browns and the Ravens game, and then we will look forward to previewing the Browns versus the Saints.
[01:25:59] Speaker A: If our whole show sounded just like that, be the worst show in the history of podcast.
But our social media pages, you can find tap in media on Facebook and Twitter, at the tap in media and on Instagram at Tapin Media official, you can find Burning River Sportscast, that's this podcast on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Burning River Sportscast and on Twitter at Burning River Pod.
You could also find the podcast itself. Wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Pocketcast, Castro, and so many more.
[01:26:41] Speaker B: Have you ever been to an IKEA?
[01:26:42] Speaker A: I have great meatballs.
[01:26:45] Speaker B: Do you know what IKEA stands for?
[01:26:47] Speaker A: No, actually I don't. SomethIng Swedish.
[01:26:51] Speaker B: Ingvar Compard, elm Tard Oginyard.
[01:26:57] Speaker A: That sounds explicit.
[01:27:00] Speaker B: I probably just butchered all those names.
[01:27:04] Speaker A: But what does that mean?
[01:27:05] Speaker B: The founder of IKEA was Ingvar Kamprad.
His farm was called Mtard Tyrad, and the village nearby was aganyard. So Ikea is literally Dude's name, his farm and where he's from.
I-K-E-A.
[01:27:26] Speaker A: Great.
[01:27:27] Speaker B: Fascinating. Also, how do you feel about baby gays.
[01:27:32] Speaker A: How do I feel about what baby gays?
You'll have to elaborate.
[01:27:38] Speaker B: In 1923, Leo Gertzen Zhang invented. Well, his wife, my dude. Yeah, Leo's wife invented.
Invented baby gaze when she stuck cotton on the end of toothpicks and used it to clean their baby's ears. Genius, he thought. And by 1926, baby gays were hitting mass production. Realized soon baby gaze wasn't really a marketable name. And so at the time, he changed the name to Qtips, baby Gaze. Because that's normally how you make something less complicated and more marketable.
[01:28:15] Speaker A: You just add words to it.
[01:28:16] Speaker B: Add words to it.
And then soon thereafter, in the next iteration, dropped baby gaze altogether and just became iconic. Qtips. Q for quality.
[01:28:27] Speaker A: Quality tips.
[01:28:28] Speaker B: Quality tips in your ear. Do you enjoy.
[01:28:31] Speaker A: There's a sex joke in there. Quality tips in your ear.
[01:28:34] Speaker B: So, now how do you feel about baby gaze?
[01:28:36] Speaker A: Much better.
[01:28:39] Speaker B: I wasn't around in 1923, so I don't know, obviously, the phonetics.
[01:28:45] Speaker A: Not that I felt bad about baby gazing to begin with. I just feel like I understand baby.
[01:28:51] Speaker B: Gazing language has changed quite a bit. So I was just trying to figure out what exactly.
Happy baby in 1923, that's what.
[01:28:58] Speaker A: I guess this is how you make your baby happy.
[01:29:01] Speaker B: Sounds explicit. In 2022. 100 years, almost. Wow. It's been 100 years since the Qtip was invented.
[01:29:07] Speaker A: Good job, Buddy. Good job. Budy's wife.
[01:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah, his wife did it. He just was the one that thought, I could sell this.
Finally, a few weeks ago, we talked about shark attacks and sharks. Shark bites being scary.
[01:29:21] Speaker A: Yeah, sharks are scary.
[01:29:22] Speaker B: But did you know that selfies now account for more deaths each year than shark attacks?
[01:29:31] Speaker A: Dang.
[01:29:31] Speaker B: 28 deaths each year are related to selfies.
[01:29:35] Speaker A: What's more dangerous than New Yorker?
[01:29:37] Speaker B: New Yorkers are still the most dangerous, okay? Because you're more likely to get bitten by a New Yorker than you are to die of a selfie than you are to die of a shark bite. But heights being the number one cause of the selfie death. I actually just saw an article this morning that a guy was hiking with his wife on some mountain and pulled a. Oh, honey, take a picture. Oh, I'm dead.
[01:30:00] Speaker A: Dead.
Hang glide. An accident. What an idiot.
[01:30:05] Speaker B: Idiot. I mean, look, obviously that's a joke. This probably shouldn't joke about dead people. It's not funny.
[01:30:10] Speaker A: I feel bad instantly.
[01:30:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sorry. We're going to hell. All right, but, yeah, if you fall off something high when you're taking a selfie, that is a problem. But if you're going to be a problem, don't just be a part of the problem, be the whole problem.
[01:30:26] Speaker A: And only you can prevent river fires.
Burning river. Burning river.
[01:30:33] Speaker B: Sportscast burning river.
[01:30:35] Speaker A: Burning river.
[01:30:36] Speaker B: Should we swing? Swing. Should we sing it? Should we sing it out? Swing. Sweet, sweet. Jeff and ski.
[01:30:43] Speaker A: I was going to sing the real one.
[01:30:44] Speaker B: Coming forward.
[01:30:45] Speaker A: Carry me home.
[01:30:48] Speaker B: Swing low.
Sweet stuff and ski. Coming for to carry me home.
[01:31:05] Speaker A: You look like that dude from Star Wars.
[01:31:07] Speaker B: George Chewbacca, Jabba the Hut.
[01:31:11] Speaker A: Yeah, like Jabba the Hut.
[01:31:13] Speaker B: That's canon, that, man.
That John Denver's full of shit, man. And totally redeem yourself.
[01:31:22] Speaker A: I saw that going differently in my mind.
