Show Notes
Kenny Thunder and Ronnie Jams break down the disastrous week 2 game against the Jets and preview the week 3 TNF match-up against the Steelers.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Tan.
This weekend I went to the old Google machine for answers I found in a non comprehensive list and in no particular order.
Declutter your workspace. Wash your dish, put it in the dishwasher, toss in a load of laundry, take out the trash, trim your nails, make your bed, floss, water your plants, wipe out your bathroom sink, download your favorite podcast, text your mom, tell her you love her, brush your teeth, all things that can be done in under two minutes.
If you're the Cleveland Browns, you can snatch defeat Majawls of certain victory.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: FMR.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: What a dumb thing to say.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: I think it was Nick Chubb, though. He looked like a Madden glitch. I thought for sure he was going to land that and just keep going.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Into the Burning river sports cast, I'm Kenny Thunder alongside Red Hot Ronnie Jams.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Thanks, Kenny. Let's go ahead and tell them where they find the podcast, in case they didn't already find the podcast and listen to it, which they should be. Now.
You can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Podcast Castro, and so many more.
Burning River Sportscast.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Thanks. So this is a painful one.
Before we get started here, I have to air some grievances.
We're going to get in and break everything down. But man, this one hurt. And I know there's a lot of vitriol being lobbed at Joe woods right now, and rightfully so. Two weeks in a row, same story, momentous busted coverage that reshaped the entire narrative of the game. This defense was supposed to be a strength of the team, and we expect to have to win ugly a lot this year. And if this Browns team is going to do anything, we have to win ugly. Well, it was damn ugly.
You let Joe Flacco throw for four touchdowns. What's going to happen when we play a good quarterback that can actually make you pay for your mistakes? But that's Joe Woods. Mike Prefer get your shit together. Burned on the fake punt, missed extra point, allowed an onside kick. Recovery after a timeout, the Felton fumble on the last punt.
Why were we kicking the Braxton Barrios all game long, all game at solid return after solid return, you have Cade York that can kick the damn ball back in time to ancient Mesopotamia. Well, literally warping spacetime to the Middle Ages. And we keep taking chances with a guy we consistently couldn't stop. A loss like this only happens in Cleveland. And I know that there were other blown games this weekend and in all weeks in the NFL, but not like this. Not in 90 seconds. Not the way this went down. This was the sloppiest, sorryest, most pathetic excuse of an effort I have ever seen at any level of sport in my entire existence on this godforsaken rock. And I'm getting awful tired of hearing teen heartthrob AC Slater jump up to the podium every week and say, we're going to get it figured out. We'll fix it. It's going to get better. Won't happen again.
Open your eyes. A loss like this is what gives fans, gives us pause when you take questionable actions, like giving a fully guaranteed contract to an alleged sexual predator in the midst of dozens of accusations and lawsuits, and say, trust us, we'll get it figured out. We'll fix it. It's going to get better. It won't happen again. There's simply no excuse for what we saw on Sunday. The city of Cleveland deserves better. You have talent on this roster, generational talent. Miles Garrett, Nick Chubb, Denzel Ward. And you're pissing it all away. Get your damn house in order.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: And with that, we will just go ahead and jump right into the week two recap. I'll let Kenny cool down a second, and I will say, what in the actual fuck?
What just happened?
As you so eloquently put it, the jets had absolutely no business winning this game. No business whatsoever winning this game.
We all know, obviously, it was a monumental collapse by the Cleveland Browns to give this game up. But let's just go ahead and break it down for you. We'll start with, on the jets side, Joe Flacco. 26 of 44, 307 yards, four touchdowns, and I wrote in here, orchestrated an unbelievable comeback. But that's being pretty Generous. We handed it to him.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: I mean, he had to be one of the top performing quarterbacks in week two.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: No, you'd be surprised. There were some big games. But, I mean, he did well. He played very well.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: He overperformed for Joe Flacco.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. For a guy that is past his prime by about seven years, he did well.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Absolutely ugly.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: It was bad. If you can let Flacco have a game like that, you're probably not going to win the game. And it's funny because we said if we can have Joe Flacco throw the ball that many times, it wasn't quite 59, it was 44. But we said we should be winning that game. And by all accounts, we should have won that game.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Jesus. If you just looked at the stat lines altogether outside of the Joe Flacco stats in the box.
There's no reason why you would say, oh, yeah, the jets won that game.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: No, the jets running backs. I'm just going to do combined here. Combined, they had 16 rushes for 95 yards, six catches for 37 yards and a touchdown. So we did well against their running backs. There was a touchdown reception, but we kept them in check.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: And I think it was clear they wanted to get the run game going early. I mean, the first couple of plays were all run calls, and they knew, right. They didn't want Joe Flacco to throw the ball 60 times.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: But they abandoned it quick, though, because.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: They realized that, well, apparently 44 is the magic number.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Garrett Wilson, holy cow. Wow. This Ohio State boy came home. He was barking the entire game at the fans, probably letting them know that he should be on their sideline rather than the jets sideline. I don't know if that was even possible. We didn't have any draft picks. We'll never have draft picks, but we.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Made a rookie wide receiver look like Randy Moss out there.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Eight receptions, 102 yards, two touchdowns. His catches, most of them were big time. Like, there was some big time plays that that guy made. And there was also some plays that we just kind of gave him.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Huge game. Huge game. Impressive. I mean, we watched Garrett Wilson, Ohio State. I think he was one of those that we all liked coming out in the know.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: I was hopeful that the Browns could get him, and then we traded away.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: But after week one. But after week one, you said they got him involved late, but he looked like a rookie receiver. Not last week.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Not last week. Last week he looked like the guy they drafted him to be. So the rest of the jets wide receivers, Corey Davis, had a big touchdown on the busted coverage to pull within a touchdown.
We'll get to that more in a minute. Jack Conklin, big catches to extend drives all day. Just, it's like we don't even pay attention to tight ends. We just let them do whatever they want.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Elijah Moore, Kenny's impact player, pretty much a non factor. I think he had a few catches for like 40 yards.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: They went to him a couple of times on like third down, just didn't connect. And they tried him on the end around that went nowhere.
But with as big a day as Garrett Wilson had, he was pretty much all they needed.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: Right? The jets defense, they couldn't stop the run to save their lives, but they did end up getting stops when they needed to in order to keep them somewhat close. And by somewhat, I mean within 13 points, I mean if I told you.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: That before the game Nick Chubb is going to have three rushing touchdowns, you wouldn't ask any other questions. You would just say, okay, the Browns won that one.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: How many we win by?
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: So yeah, the jets defense, really nothing remarkable or notable. I mean, they didn't really get a ton of pressure. They didn't stop the run.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: We just, I did them the game. The jets just of highlight the jets defensive backfield played well. DJ Reid had a couple of really big tackles like game breaking, game saving tackles. Sauce Gardner, I don't think he got credited with giving up any of the touchdown passes. So he's still without giving up a touchdown in college or now in the NFL.
So good performances out of those guys. The only other thing I had on the jets was just the jets center apparently thinks he's a wide receiver because he got called multiple times for, I.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Think it was a two or was it three?
[00:09:08] Speaker A: I don't know if it was a couple that he was downfield ineligible. Man down.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: That was one of the LOL moments during the game. You texted me and said, was this guy a receiver?
[00:09:16] Speaker A: He thought he was for the day.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: He wasn't.
All right, and so we'll head on over to the Cleveland side here.
Let's start with the offense. Jacoby Brissette played about as perfect a game as he could up until that last interception, which I'm not even putting on him.
He was trying for a miracle at that point.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah, Jacoby was nearly flawless until the final play. And like you said, that final play was garbage, right? 22 seconds on the clock. One time out, you get the ball 25. You're just hoping for good luck.
I'm sure he wants that throwback, but you can't put the game on.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Jacoby, 22 of 27 for 229 yards, a touchdown. That interception we mentioned, and he was.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: So mobile, he had like five rushes for.
What did he have there?
[00:10:04] Speaker B: He was so mobile, the mobilest.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Six carries for 43 yards.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: He had that tremendous straight line speed.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: You just can't stop him.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: At one point, Joe Flaggo took off and I was like, oh man, it's going to be the battle of the mobile quarterback.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: We needed to helicopter him, Josh McCallum style.
But Jacoby, he also showed a lot of grit. He got banged up a couple of times. There was a couple of hits he took that were pretty tough hits.
He kind of hobbled around for a minute, but he got right back into it and I kept marking down in my game notes. Watch this. He got banged up what's going to happen after this? Because he played so well up to that point and he really didn't miss.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: A beat to that point, though. I think that's still something to keep an eye on the rest of the season. Now, as we go, obviously banged up in week two is not a great start.
No, hopefully it's not anything that's serious, but you get into bone bruises and things that it's painful for you and for a while. So, yeah, something to keep an eye on.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Nick Chubb, 17 rushes, 87 yards, three toucHdowns, three receptions, 26 yards, three touchdowns.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Three touchdowns and Kareem was productive as well.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Kareem Hunt, 13 rushes at 58 yards, two receptions, 16 yards.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: There was one point there in the fourth quarter where Chubb had the big drive and then the next drive they went straight to Kareem and he had.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Three big runs in a row.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Just couldn't stop him. I liked on the same drive, Nick Chubb and Kareem both went with the hurdle move button.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Kareem's did not work at all, though. No, did not work at all.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: He got banged up a little bit on that.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: I think it was Nick Chubb, though. He looked like a Madden glitch. I thought for sure he was going to land that and just keep going.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: He had the 360 Hz.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: He almost landed it and kept going, but his knee was down.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Tremendous athleticism and balance. It's Nick Chubb. So what do you expect?
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Amari Cooper, that was my impact player for this week.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: He came to play Monster day.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Nine receptions, 101 yards and one touchdown. I mean, that's what we went and got him for, right?
Not that we had to pay all that much for him, but that's what we traded for.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what you were hoping for when you made the move. It was good to get him going because for a wide receiver room that's not that deep. You need somebody that can come in every week and be super productive. And he was. I think that's a good sign going forward, but just a monster day.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And they say that his relationship with Jacoby Brissette continues to blossom and that they're becoming pretty close in the locker room.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: I just think the other big thing was that game showed Amari can get open on any play, any play that he wants to get open like he can.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: His route run separation, next level.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: He's open on every play.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: He is. There were so many times throughout the game that I was like, you probably could have got it to him on that one, too. But DPJ followed up a big first game with no catches, one target.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: He didn't have any catches. I didn't even realize that.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: No catches.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Wow. One target, that's not good.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: But also in the no catches zone. You'll like to hear this. Anthony Schwartz. No catches, no targets, no rushes.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Anthony Schwartz was involved just the right amount in the offense. None, none, zero.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Is it time to cut him?
[00:13:22] Speaker A: I don't know what we're going to do with him, but if that's the game plan going forward, I agree with it.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: I hope he does not find our podcast.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: There's a lot of things that we can disagree with and talk about the Browns offense coming out of this game, but that's not one that I could take any issue with.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
David and Joku paid him big money in the offseason. First game, one catch. Second game, three catches, 32 yards. He did. I will give him. He made a really athletic play, almost came down with the touchdown in the end zone. The fact that we even talked about that being. We're even talking about that being close is pretty remarkable.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I would say just in general, before this game devolved into Mad Max and the Thunderdome that it was clear that that was something that they wanted to change in this week's game plan, which is just getting the tight ends involved. And they went to Harrison's MO, right? Yeah. And I think we were surprised in week one because they didn't do a lot of that. So I think you saw early on there was one drive where I think that we had like four tight end targets in a row. So I think that was good to see because I think that's what we all expected. But Njoku's got to come down with some of those balls. He was a little shaky.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, we're going to keep tracking him just because they did pay him big money. He's pretty much unproven throughout his.
I mean, you're something you're going to have to watch all year long. Did we make the right move? And as of right now, he hasn't really shown a whole lot.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I think during the game Sunday, he went from Njoku to N Joke really fast.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: No, man.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Should we. Hashtag, hashtag and Joke.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Hashtag and Joke.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Still time to correct that. But the Chief was in Joke in week two.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So for the offensive line, they only gave up one sack, so they played pretty well throughout the game.
The running game was going, so they played pretty well.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: And getting Conklin back will help.
He missed his second week in a row, so hopefully he'll be back soon. I don't know about this week because it's a short week, so my guess is it'll be at least next week before we see.
Don't mean, all in all, I don't have a ton of problems with the offensive line to this point. Right. I mean, Jacoby has been relatively protected. He did have to scramble a little bit, but the running game has been solid.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Let's be honest, no matter how good you are, the quarterback is going to have to scramble a little bit every once in a while.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
But at the end of the day, across the offense, 30 points. Right. And you should win that game.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: 30 points. With how much our defense was touted in the offseason, which we're going to get into right now, you should be winning just about every game.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: One other quick note before we jump out of offense.
No chunt this week. I didn't see them on the field.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: No. Which, if that's the only time we're going to see it all season, I'm going to be really disappointed.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: I think it's interesting. I think that that game was so important to the Cleveland Browns and to Kevin Stefanski to go in there and beat Baker Mayfield that they pulled out all the stops. They said if we got to put our absolute best eleven on the field at all times, those two have to be out there. Damn the torpedoes. Damn the rest of the season. Like, we got to go Chunt. Full chunt.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: We put Baker Mayfield to bed week after week one, and here we are after week two talking about him again.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: He's going to come back one more time today, I think.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. So, on defense, let's start with Miles Garrett. He did have one sack, two QB hits, but that dude is on the sidelines a lot sucking air.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: I specifically didn't like him on the sidelines sucking air in the final minute of the game where, you know, we.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Need him the most after you've already.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Blown the big play and they're driving, literally, to win the game. AnD your best player, your captain, your generational talent on defense, is on the sideline huffing and puffing for air. And I know there's been some stuff written and said about COVID and long COVID and respiratory issues that he has.
So look fair, I get it. But you are the face of the defense. You're the face of the damn team. Get your ass on the field.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, all fair points.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: That's what the money is for.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: That is what the money is for and he is getting paid. So he needs to be on the field helping the team win. Clowney, he had the strip sack and the recovery, but he got injured late and he was isn't able to come back and he's out this week.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, clowning had a good game up until that point. I think we've talked about clowning more as a disruptor than like a big stat compiler, and I think he did that up until that point.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Well, and the fact that big strips act, it's really disappointing that he got injured and he's going to have to miss a week now because he has gotten to the quarterback the first two games. And the fact that he's actually getting home, I mean, that bodes well for the defense going forward. But if he's healthy.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's always been the knock on him. Right. I mean, as a first round pick and just a guy that had a lot of expectations coming in. Injuries have derailed a lot of his career, so hopefully he'll be back on the men's shortly. One other note, Miles, potentially with neck thing, didn't practice a little bit this week. So we could be in real.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: We'll get into the injuries here in a minute. But I mean, if we're without him, as well as some of the other injuries we already have.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Not good.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: It's not going to be good.
The secondary, this is where we just kind of want to rip our hair out because they are supposed to be a strength of ours. I mean, you said it on last week's podcast. You didn't even want to talk about the matchup.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Because we should win it and we should have won't. I don't have any explanations for that.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: What are they doing out there?
[00:19:15] Speaker A: What are they even Davis like? Corey Davis is not Jerry Rice out there.
What are we doing?
[00:19:24] Speaker B: No. Multiple miscommunications in multiple games leading to wide open touchdowns. Like not just. I got burnt. It was close. He's just. Good play by the receiver. No, we didn't cover that guy. We didn't want it. We ain't want it.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: I got nothing.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Now people are calling for. I know you mentioned this at the top of the podcast here. People are calling for Joe woods to be fired after week two.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah, and I struggle with that.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: I mean, the rest of the defense didn't play terribly for 58 minutes.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: They played fine for 58 minutes. She said, hey, 30 to 17. Great.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And I would say this, I'll throw this name out there in case anyone's wondering. I know Joe woods is the defensive coordinator.
The DB's coach is Jeff Howard. So that's probably who we need to be yelling at more than Joe Woods. But both of those guys, I mean, let's be honest, they need to get this short up because Browns fans are ruthless.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: And here's the other thing, too, and this is why I struggle with this, because something tells me Joe woods isn't on the field, right? Something tells me Joe woods didn't.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: Sometimes he probably wishes he could be. He's like, I could have made that play.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Joe woods probably didn't say, hey, guys, when the guy in the green jersey runs by, just let him go.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Just watch him go again.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: We talked about this last week on the podcast.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: What's the number one rule for a DB?
[00:20:52] Speaker A: No balls over the head. Deep is the deepest at that point in the game. That's it, right? You're in your deep zones and your prevent, especially then everything in front of you.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: I actually wrote it down. Okay, we're in prevent defense. No.
Deepest deep. No.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: That's not complicated.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: No.
So, like we said, the defense up till that point, I said average to above average. We did give up. What was it, 17 points to the jets up to that point, and I didn't think that score that many.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: And at that point, Joe Flacco had thrown for two touchdowns and 200 yards. So if the game had ended on that note, you go, okay, that's kind of what you expect. What we didn't expect was the next 92 seconds.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Well, yeah, there's that.
Especially with all the hype, though. I mean, it's just really disappointing.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Super disappointing.
That's a huge red flag early in the season because, let's be honest, you're a light roughing the passer call and a 60 yard fuel goal away from being Owen two because of that defense.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
All right, enough of bashing the defense for right now.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Oh, we're going to keep bashing.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: I know. We'll come back to it. But the special teams. Cade York is human.
Is human. He missed an extra point. And look, people are upset about it and whatever, but this game was by no means on Cade York. I mean, yeah, if he makes it, we're in overtime. But it shouldn't even have gotten close. Again, that game should have been over.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: We talk about football being the ultimate team game and a team win, a win as a team win. This was the ultimate team.
Murphy, Murphy's law at work.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Everything, anything that could go wrong, will.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Go wrong, went wrong. It was.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: I know, we've had a lot of painful losses as Browns fans. I was there a few years ago when Baltimore blocked the kick and returned it for a touchdown to beat the Browns. As time expired, we were already up. We were just kicking it just because they ended up beating us. And then I was also at a Cincinnati game. I don't even remember the circumstances. I remember we lost as time expired. As I. We've seen some painful things.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: You just become so numb to just.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: I don't understand. Every time I think we've been so creative, we've come up with every possible way to lose a game. They prove me wrong.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: And I think that's what's so of us. A lot of Browns fans today just either weren't old enough. We just weren't alive during the fumble and the drive and some of those horrific moments.
But, man, we've seen our fair share. We sure have. Dwayne Redd helmet incident to kick six.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: If you're listening to the podcast, if you could see my face right now.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: All the different just coaches and Holmgren and his retirement plan here. Hugh Jackson being here.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Johnny Manziel's entire time with Cleveland.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: The anthology of the Cleveland Browns is.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Full of just heartbreak and disappointment.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: So bad. But you just become.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: We stick with them. I know that you haven't wanted to talk about the punter at all this season, but, man, that dude's got a cannon for a leg.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: It's funny that you wrote that in the show notes because I wrote in my personal notes.
I'll finally talk about the punishment we'll give Butcher request his due.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: I guess I should say. He puts the other team in bad field position almost every drive.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: 63 yard boot in that game.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Impressive. Yeah. And it wasn't one of them towards the end of the game, like, he tried to help us and it didn't work.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Punter did his job. Check. Plus for majora quiz. Good job, buddy.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: So, I mean, that's all we could really say about him, though, is good job.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Well, let's give him his due because I've refused to talk about.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: You have. You hate talking about punters for the day.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Punts. Cleveland punting.
I don't even have it because we.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Won'T give him his due.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: No, he's going to get his due.
Corey Bajorquez, three punts, 156 yards.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: That's impressive.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: 52 yard average. 63 yard long. And comparatively to Brayden Mann of the jets, who only averaged 47.3 yards per punt. To Bajor, quizzes, 52. So well, done. Golf clap for you.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Good job, buddy. Now let's get into Demetrius Felton back there.
Just an absolute liability.
He came out week one and he said, you know, they threw me back here. I couldn't say no. I didn't want to lose my job, so I decided to return punts for you guys. Fine, whatever continues to do it. Week two and says, let me drop as many punts as I can and let's just play with fire until we get burned here. We haven't yet, but it's coming, and it's going to be in a big moment. You know it is.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: You have to make a switch there. I don't think they can keep Felton back there much longer because it's just dangerous. It's dangerous and irresponsible at this point.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: I mean, after last week, you would think that as well. And they said, no plans.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: I mean, I'll give a guy a second chance, but what was the George Bush? Shame on me, fool me once, shame on me, strategically fool me twice. You can't fool me again.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: So we got to get him out of there. Make a change, please. Stefanski. We need a different returner.
Overall, the Browns is the we just.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: Like I said, only in Cleveland.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: There's absolutely no reason the Browns should have lost that game. And this is the one that you circled last week and you said, this should be the one that we can count on for a win.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: And they should have. And all game long we did. It looked that way. I mean, they clearly.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: But it didn't that way.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Like the better team.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: You got beat by a team that was not as good as you. That's the bottom line.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So the offense played well. We mentioned it. Jacoby Brissette did everything he needed to do. The running backs did what they always do. The defense played well enough to win the game until the final two minutes, and then the secondary has just been bad. They're really letting us down back there.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: And I think we have to talk about the final two minutes here briefly because there's been quite a blame game going on.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Don't jump the gun. That's in my game rundown coming up here.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: We're breaking the game down further.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: I had two more points and then we're getting into it. Okay.
As we were talking about, the Browns should have won. Total yards, Browns 405, Jets 402, almost a wash. But really most of the jets yards came in the last two minutes.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: 90 seconds.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Time of possession Browns 30 214, Jets 27 46. But alas, Brownie, the elf's return did not come with a happy ending. No pun intended. There.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Are we going to talk about the munilot? Because there are some ugly things going.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: On out there, guys.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: You got to do better.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Yeah, get your shit together. I know you think you're funny, but there's just some things that are probably better left off limits.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Those are the kinds of pictures that are going to get people doxed and fired from jobs. You can't do that.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: The guy that's standing there in every picture right next to that thing with his arm around his wife or girlfriend or whoever she is, what are you going to do when you go into work this week and your boss is like, hey, this you?
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Corporate HR does not take kindly to. Come on, guys.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: And again, no peppermint patties.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: No peppermint patties. He did make his one fuel goal attempt, but the misjuction point hurt.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
And then Denzel Ward rated as the worst defender for the Browns, according to PFF.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: It's a guy with a lot of money, big contract.
A lot of responsibility has been given to him and trust put in him.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: The worst part about that is he acknowledged it. He came out and publicly disagreed with it and said in his press conference, he said he didn't blow his coverage.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: I thought we weren't talking about the blame game yet.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: This is the final rundown, but I.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Feel like this is part of the blame game.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: Yeah, this is the end. This is where we get into it. So he came out, he publicly disagreed. He said he did not blow his coverage, but he wouldn't say who. Now, I don't know if anybody's paying attention even a little bit, but Grant Delpit was the safety on that.
You know, not that he's saying who it was, but I would assume if he's saying he had safety help and that's the safety on that side, he's pointing the finger at Grant Elpitt.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: If that's true, that Denzel Ward's responsibility on that particular play in that particular moment was to get the flats, was the Flats, then Joe woods should be fired. Because why do you have your best defensive back covering the flats in an end game situation where the goal is deep as the deepest?
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Plus, let's be honest here. We all know they were in prevent. They all were supposed to be back in both Del Pitt and no one.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Should be in the flats. Give up the flats.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: Always give up the flats.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: Keep it in front of you.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Del Pitt and word should have both been back there. So it's probably not a good sign.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: What a dumb thing to say.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: It's not a good sign that teammates are already taking jabs at each other.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Yeah, we're going to talk about that more in a sec.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And then Miles Garrett's post game press conference, he came out and said the more disappointing thing to him, I'll quote it, and I quote, the more disappointing thing was the booing at the end. We don't want to see this crowd, this stadium, give up on us this early. We want to see them completely behind us. I think. Oh, that's a different one. But. So he said he wants to see us completely behind him. Let's be honest here. You guys earned those booze. It's not like you got booed just because they're giving up on us. No, you earned them. That was historically bad. In the last 90 seconds of that.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Game, I've seen two reports on this, and so I don't know which number is exactly accurate, but that a game hasn't been blown like that in the last two minutes to give up two touchdowns. In the last 2229 games, I saw one that said 2331 games over 2000 games. Regardless, around 2300 games. And the last team to do it was the Cleveland Browns nine in 2001 against the Chicago Bears.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: You cannot make this up.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: I was a young lad at the time, but I remember the.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Just the wee lad.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Tim Couch was like my hero growing up. We got the Tim couch rookie card hanging on the nice, on the shelf nice. I think he threw a pick six in that game, but that one went to overtime.
I feel like this was worse.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: It took the last 90 seconds and overtime to do it. Yeah, this was just the last 90 seconds. It didn't even take that. If you really want to get technical, it took like 75 seconds.
And then in a separate interview, he said, I think every man in that locker room should point the finger at themselves, coaches included. So not to Denzel Ward, not to be outdone, Miles Garrett comes in and says that the coaches should be taken blame as well. So we got players pointing fingers at other players. We got players pointing fingers at coaches. Good start, guys.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: And I think this is where, for me, Baker Mayfield makes the return. Right. I think last year we all would have said there's bad leadership in the locker room. OBJ Baker, this thing's just a fight. We got to get rid of these. You got to cut the fat.
Here's my concern, and this is why I picked the Browns to go seven and ten this year, is because, guys, I'm worried about Kevin Stefanski and his control of this locker room. Again. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, you can't fool me again. This shit is still going on. You got players pointing fingers at coaches, at players saying, well, it wouldn't.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: The Spider man meme.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what it is. And that's not a healthy NFL locker. No, you got to be on the same page. And that's his job. That's his job.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Funny you should mention Kevin Stefanski. My very next point is these are the types of games that get coaches fired 100%, especially because he came out in his interview after the game and said there was a breakdown in communication. You think there was a breakdown in communication for a full two minutes?
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Again, is this a breakdown in communication or.
The only thing you need to do is keep the play in front of you?
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Seems simple enough.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: This isn't complex. This isn't blitz packages and trying to move personnel around. This is, hey, take the four fast guys and drop them back an extra 15 yards and let them watch everything that happens in front of them.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: This is where you pull the Bill Belichick and you even put in your tight end. You just send in Joku in there and say, just go get the ball. Whenever it goes up in the air.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: No communication is needed.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: I mean, none. Just get deep. Don't let them beat you.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: I know neither of us played professional football, but we played some defensive back. And if you have four people covering a 50 yard span and the ball.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Goes in the air, someone's going to get there.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Someone can get there.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: It's not any more complicated. There's no communication needed. What a dumb thing to say.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: You know, in what scenario you would not get there is if you just let the guy run past you.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: If you're covering the flats, yeah.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: If you're covering the kind of. I kind of felt like I have the majority of the time I've been a Browns fan. Like I said, we find creative ways to lose, and it's just one of those things. You look at it and you say, only in Cleveland.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Only in Cleveland.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: And Kenny's seven and ten prediction is not looking so crazy. If this is how the team is going to handle themselves and react after.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Losses, I hope that I'm wrong about that. I hope it's flipped and I hope they make the playoffs and they win the Super bowl, and it's a magical run. But like I said earlier, you are a 60 yard field goal, a questionable roughing the passer call away from being Owen two.
The only silver lining at this point after that game is that the AFC north standings, we're not in last place are pretty even at this point because some of these other teams are a mess.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I will say let's reel it in a little bit here. And Nick Chubb to the rescue on Tuesday, tried to take blame. He said he should have went down instead of scoring with a minute 55 left. They could have run out the clock because the jets were out of time out. But let's be honest here. That does not matter.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: No, look, that's Nick Chubb being Batman. Being Nick Chubb.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: You say it all the time. I say it all the time. We do not deserve.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: We don't deserve Nick Chubb.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Nick Chubb.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: No one does.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: Nobody deserves, like what? That's what real men do. That's what leaders on teams do is he comes when it's clearly, clearly not his fault. He was the MVP for the Browns that game, and he comes in and says, that's on me, guys. Sorry, just went down.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Sorry, guys. I shouldn't have scored so much.
Yeah, look, I hate that line of thinking. That's a loser's lament. It's a loser's way of thinking to say, like, what are we paying the guys on defense for if we just go? Well, obviously if the other team gets the ball, they're going to score. No, your job is to stop them. You stop them.
We gave you a nice lead. Now it's your turn to play. Yeah, we don't want to give the ball back because they might score. That's the game.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: And we had two chances to stop them. Two we didn't.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: All you had to do is stop them once.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: We didn't do it.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: Another bright if Miles would have been on the field, maybe they could have.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, another bright note, Joe Thomas inducted to the Browns legend program. Let's talk about Joe Thomas just real quick here. 10,363 consecutive snaps played. The ultimate Iron Man. Ten Pro Bowls, only offensive linemen to be voted to ten straight Pro Bowls in NFL history. Seven All Pro teams, 2010 All Decade team. Only 30 sacks allowed and 6680 attempts. In case you're keeping track, I believe that's above 96%.
And he's officially, as of today, he's officially on the hall of Fame ballot for 2023.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Love Joe Thomas.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: Just another man we did not deserve.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't deserve Joe Thomas absolute travesty that he never made it to a playoff Super bowl for a guy that was that good, that played on that many bad teams.
Just kind of like wasted talent. Feels bad.
We probably should have done the right thing and traded Joe Thomas at some point, but we didn't. And we love Joe for.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: So Joe Thomas probably wouldn't have let us.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: No, because he's just a good guy. He's like Nick Chubb. We don't deserve them.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
All right, so let's get into the division roundup.
The Steelers played New England this week. Steelers ended up losing New England 17 to 14. They did keep it close, but so far they haven't looked nearly as bad as I thought they would.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
And we'll get into the Steelers more in the breakdown or the matchups and that, but Mike Tomlin clearly keeps them playing competitively and you can just never count them out, even when there's a lot of things that are goofy or going on there.
He is a good coach. He does have that locker room in order, coach, and, well, there's some finger pointing going on over there right now.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: But either way, this is unprecedented for them. I don't think before this season he'd ever been under 500 since he's been with the Steelers.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Yeah, they haven't had those types of issues before. And a big part of that, too was, I think this was the first Steelers Patriots game since, what, 1998? That didn't feature Big Ben or Tom Brady.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: That is a wild stat.
That's like 24 years.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: And those two teams were the class of the AFC for the last two decades. I mean, there was a lot of really good matchups between the Steelers and the Patriots in the last 20 years.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: The last time they played that, one of those two guys wasn't their quarterback. I was eight years old.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:58] Speaker B: That is crazy. But yeah, like you said, mike Tomlin, great coach. I know there is some finger pointing going on over there, but he's really kind of holding them together. The fact that they're in these games. I mean, they beat Cincinnati week one, who, I mean, at this point looks way overrated, but we'll get to that in a second.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: And they probably should have lost that game.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: True. But I mean, they were right there with New England. But on the flip side of that, know, Pittsburgh coming in just looking like it was going to be a rebuilding year, they weren't going to be very good. Do we know New England lost week one?
Are they a little overrated?
[00:40:38] Speaker A: I think it's hard to count out either program, right? I mean, I think Bill Belichick's a great coach, Mike Tomlin's a great coach, and I think you're going to see scrappy play. I think you're going to see the kind of scrappiness that the Cleveland Browns need to win games and win them ugly.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: I will say I'll bring your boy up one more time with Baker Mayfield. That was one thing that we had when he was here is a little.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Bit of grit, little moxie.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So we are missing that right this moment.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Yeah. But he was an easy scapegoat if he had the same stat line as Jacoby on Sunday. But through that last pick and the locker room was divided, man. Baker is the problem. We just got to get rid of Baker.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: He needs to be better.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: I don't know what you all are going to say when Kevin Stefanski finds himself fired at the end of the year because he was the problem.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: All right, so for the Steelers New England game, though, for our tallies, I got that one right and Kenny got it wrong. So we'll move on to the Ravens.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: Wait, I did.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: I think that's the only game that I won.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Oh, we were both right then.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Oops.
So we'll move on to the Ravens in Miami.
That game was wild.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: Wild.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: That game was crazy. We talked about there was some big comebacks around the NFL, which we'll get to here soon. The other one. But this was one of them. Besides the Browns game, Ravens were up 30 514 going in the fourth quarter.
I gave them 28 in the final quarter to lose it.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Tua throws six touchdowns.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: Six.
Six.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a guy that's know much maligned.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: I said it last week. Tyreek said that he is more accurate than Patrick Mahomes.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: Look. And my instant reaction is to laugh at that.
I mean, I think Tua made a lot of people believers last mean they think there's something about left handed quarterbacks, too. If he was right handed, would there be as many questions?
[00:42:53] Speaker B: Probably not. That just looks weird.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: It looks weird.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: Yeah. But in this one, I was right. Kenny was wrong. Kenny.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Kenny picked Baltimore.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: I was right. For three and a half quarters again.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Cincinnati lost to Dallas. Cincinnati looks bad.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Joe Burrow has not played great.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: They've lost to two middle of the road or worse teams.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: I will say Dallas looked a lot better in that game than Dallas looked in week one. But to your point, Cincinnati has now lost to Cooper Rush and to Mitch Trubisky.
[00:43:32] Speaker B: Imagine when they play a real quarterback, what's going to happen?
[00:43:35] Speaker A: So that's not good.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: If this keeps up. I mean, let's be honest here. When you're coming into a season with this much hype coming off, know, you're the AFC champs. You went to the Super bowl and you come in and you just completely lay an egg. If this keeps up much longer, people are going to start losing their jobs and it may be midseason.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Yeah, not good. The AFC north had a rough week.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: We all lost.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: We all lost. We all lost again. Silver lining. That's the one thing we got going for us, is Cincinnati Bengals are in last place and you are tied for the division lead.
[00:44:10] Speaker B: In case anyone was wondering, both Kenny and I picked that One wrong.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: Yeah, we both got that one wrong.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: That was bad news, Bears.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: I was not expecting. I mean, Dallas looked so hapless in week one, but they looked better. They came out with some energy. With Cooper Rush playing. He had a decent game.
They kind of lost some steam there midway through and just ultimately didn't go well for Cincinnati.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: So that's it for the AFC North. Now let's move on to the rest of the.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: You. Did you go over our standings?
[00:44:47] Speaker B: I'm going to save that for King of the north later.
[00:44:49] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:44:50] Speaker B: All right. So around the NFL, this is a new segment this week. We wanted to just give you some updates of big news around the NFL. Mike Evans and Marcus Lattimore decided they're just going to go at it.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: I don't know what happened. There was some reports that, like Marcus Marshawn, that Marshawn Latimore.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: Marshawn. I think it auto corrected me.
Marshawn is not a name.
[00:45:17] Speaker A: I saw a report that said Bruce Arians was, like, on the sideline egging on Mike Evans. Like, that's your quarterback. You got to go out there and protect him.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: You know what I think happened? I think Lattimore being an Ohio State guy, knowing that Tom Brady's a Michigan guy, he probably took his shot at all the plastic surgery Tom's been having, and Big Mike took offense to it.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: What is going on with Tom Brady's face?
[00:45:38] Speaker B: He thinks he's.
He's. He's so stressed out his wife's gonna leave him because he unretired. And he's just so stressed out that he has no idea what to.
[00:45:52] Speaker A: So Mike Evans gets the one game suspension there for coming out and throwing blows.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So wild finishes galore. We've mentioned the jets and the Browns. Browns up 13 with under two minutes to play. They were up 30 to 17, lost 31 30. Miami versus Baltimore. Baltimore up 21 to start the fourth, 30 514. They ended up losing was that 42 38. I think was a score.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Yeah, 42 38.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: And then the Cardinals versus the Raiders. The Raiders were up 20 to nothing and lost in overtime. And in case you didn't see in that game, Kyler Murray got smacked in the face by a fan while celebrating. And now the police are investigating.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: He did. Did you see somebody threw a bottle at Jimmy?
[00:46:32] Speaker B: Well, yeah. Everybody should throw. I'm not condoning that at all. Don't do that. Don't throw water bottles. We don't need this to happen.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Can't, you can't throw things. You can't punch players.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: No, I mean, look, it really should be. I hate the word safe space sometimes, but that's a safe space for the players. They're just doing their jobs.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: And I think you see this a lot in the NBA because the quarters are so close. You always get the guy that you feel like a tough guy in the stands, like you're going to spit on him or throw a slap here and.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: There, but those guys get in your face. You realize they're professional athletes, a lot tougher than you thought they were.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: And Jimmy may not be a professional athlete, but he's got some bodyguards. I'm sure we're probably ex pro athletes.
[00:47:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: You don't want to mess with.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: You think Jed Wills is a big guy?
[00:47:19] Speaker A: Jimmy's got four of them.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Yeah, four Jeds. Some other news around the NFL.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: Detroit, sorry, real quick. That Cardinals Raiders game, I think was a big win for the Cardinals and may have saved Cliff Kingsbury's job if they start owing to they're as bad as they looked.
I think he's hot seat for sure.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Do you think he went in and he was like, guys, I'm going to get fired. Please help me.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: Well, and I also think Kyler Murray was feeling pressure, too, after the big contract to go out there and do something. And he was special at the end of that game.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
Other news, Detroit and Jacksonville finally showed life. All of a sudden they both have an offense this week.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Don't sleep on Detroit. Detroit's going to be as good as Jared Goff can be. And Jared Goff was in a couple.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: A couple big injuries. Trey Lance done for the year, horrific ankle injury. And then a scary moment in the Monday night game when Bill's starting cornerback, Dane Jackson was taken away in an ambulance with a neck injury. He does have feeling in all his extremities, so that's good news. But it's just kind of a reminder of how dangerous this game that we all love can be.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's entertainment for us, but it's real life for them. That was an ugly, scary thing to watch.
We were actually here and we missed it, so we didn't really see what was going on. And then when I saw the replays, I was like, wow, it was bad.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: And now since I ended the around the NFL on such a down note, let's go ahead and take a revenue break.
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[00:49:30] Speaker A: Topath Distillery what do we have here today? Rum.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the next ad.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: I mean, I'm sure that the people can see that this is rum. Doesn't it say rum?
[00:49:39] Speaker B: It is rum. I'll tell you about it later.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: It's the only way to get through a Browns game these days.
Rum, rum, rum.
[00:49:49] Speaker B: Here it goes down. Down to my belly.
All right, so let's get into the week three preview.
All right, so we'll start with the matchup preview.
Kenny, I'm going to let you kind of take it away here.
[00:50:04] Speaker A: Oh, we are.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: No, I don't like you talking.
So we're going to do some position matchups here, and I think one of the big position matchups we need to keep an eye on is the Browns offensive line versus the Steelers defensive.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: You know, I think this is interesting just because from a matchup perspective, I think when we covered some of these other teams, you don't know a lot of the players inner division.
We're familiar with all the names. Right. We know that.
We know in a lot of ways what we're going to get.
That Steelers defense is certainly the strength of their team right now.
[00:50:43] Speaker B: Really the only reason they're in any of these games.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: It's the only reason because Mitch Trubisky.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Ain'T doing them many favors.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: Their offense is a hot mess, which we'll get to. But yeah, I think the good thing we have going for us is TJ Watts out for a couple more weeks with the torn peck which he had the second opinion on and it turned out great for him. So he's only going to miss, what, six, seven weeks something.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: That's what they say. I would not be surprised if that turned into so.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: Yeah, but I think on that defense, I mean, you have guys like Miles, Jack was a big acquisition for them.
And on that defensive line, guys like Cam Hayward, our old pal Larry Ogan Joby is back.
[00:51:18] Speaker B: Ogan Joby.
[00:51:19] Speaker A: There's some athletes there, some guys that have given us trouble in the past, and it will be a good matchup for offensive line.
[00:51:30] Speaker B: I highlighted that matchup and my kind of things to watch here is can we keep Jacoby Brissette safe? We've done a good job of it for the most part so far this year. But don't forget the Steelers did have seven sacks in week. Yep, seven.
I don't care how bad the offensive line was for the other team. That's incredible to have seven sacks in one game.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: The good news is Jacoby has tremendous straight line speed.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: That's true. He can get away from anybody.
That is big facts.
My next matchup that I wanted to highlight here is the Steelers wide receivers versus the Browns DBS because we've been atrocious so far. Just absolutely atrocious.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And to be honest, the Steelers wide receivers haven't done a lot this year. But it's not a reflection on the Steelers wide receivers being bad in any mean. You know, Deontay Johnson, Chase Claypool, these are good athletes. They just haven't had chances to stretch the field and if they want to start winning games consistently, they're going to have to change that.
So more to come on that piece. But yeah, they have some good athletes out there. And the Browns secondary has been bad. There's no other way to real bad.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: Those are my top two matchups to watch. Did you have any other position matchups that you wanted to throw in there?
[00:52:54] Speaker A: I would also throw the Steelers secondary, notably Minka Fitzpatrick, a pick in each game this year.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: That guy's pretty good.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: Somebody just that Jacoby is going to have to keep an eye on all day long.
I think the other big name to watch. Well, there's a couple, right? Najee Harris hasn't had a super fast start to the year, and I think it's because that offensive line hasn't been great for.
So I don't think he has a touchdown this year.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: You're always stealing my thunder. I was going to touch on him. Sorry I threw it to you. So it's my fault. I walked in this one.
[00:53:31] Speaker A: You threw it to me.
[00:53:32] Speaker B: Mitch Trubisky has been subpar, 76.1 rating so far this year. I mean, he's just kind of there.
He's not playing terribly by any means, but he's not playing good either. Yeah. And he's just kind of there.
[00:53:45] Speaker A: Speaking of finger pointing, and that's where I think this week is really interesting, is there has been a lot of talk this week around what's to blame for the struggles on offense for the Pittsburgh Steelers and is it quarterback, is it scheme, is it the offensive line?
I think the general consensus is it's probably a mix of Matt Canada's offense and Trubisky not.
Not wanting to go down the field, but I think there's been some.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: He knows he's Mitchell Trubisky.
[00:54:30] Speaker A: I think there's been some internal finger pointing there, too, where Mitch came out and kind of said, hey, I'm executing the plays. As you know, people in Pittsburgh are not happy with Matt Canada. I mean, I think they've wanted him.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: His last name is Canada.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: I think they've wanted him fired since he came in.
[00:54:48] Speaker B: His last name is Canada.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: But, yeah, I think it's by design that offense is cautious. I think Mike Tomlin is a conservative guy on offense. He's a defensive minded coach, and it.
[00:55:03] Speaker B: Served them well for a long, long time.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the thing that was even before him was good for them in the past was that they had the compliment of Ben Roethlisberger, who kind of would be like, okay, well, now we're too conservative and I'm just going to go rogue and I'm good so I can get away with it.
[00:55:18] Speaker B: Let me just throw the ball like 40 yards downfield seven times in a row.
[00:55:22] Speaker A: But, yeah, a lot of questions there on scheme. Pat Friarmouth came out and said they play their best football when they play up tempo.
So just a lot of internal discourse or discord that just is probably worrisome.
[00:55:40] Speaker B: For, and it's OD to hear it out of a Pittsburgh team.
Well, yeah, you just never hear that.
[00:55:47] Speaker A: But the offense has just been so alarmingly bad.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: Well, speaking of which, they have not been able to get Najee Harris going all year long. Obviously, he came in with a foot injury to start the season. Seemed like he aggravated it a little bit. I'm pretty sure it was the same foot in the first week and he was able to make it back this week, but he still really didn't do much.
So, I mean, they've had trouble getting him going.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think he only has 25 carries this year for 72 yards or something.
He did have five catches last week for 40 yards. So I think they're always a threat with him. They know. Right. They're trying to get him involved, but lack of possessions, not being able to convert on third downs, that offense has not been good. I think the other really interesting, just point of note is George Pickens, excuse me, hasn't done anything this year widely talked about as maybe the best wide receiver in the draft.
[00:56:49] Speaker B: Reaching. I mean, they are reaching. I know you didn't say, but yeah, he really hasn't done much, but I will say so. I mentioned Najee Harris.
[00:57:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:57:03] Speaker B: Not getting going.
Some big injuries this week for the Browns. That will probably help him out.
Clowney is out with an ankle chase. Winovich is out with a hamstring and he actually got sent to IR. So he's out for at least four weeks.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: They're going to have to pull me in on the defensive.
[00:57:23] Speaker B: Able, are we going to be able to apply pressure? Not to mention you just talked about Miles. Garrett now has a neck issue. Hopefully he's still able to play, but he's going to be double teamed pretty much the entire game.
[00:57:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, are we at that point yet where we're making our picks for this week? Because that's going to be a problem.
[00:57:43] Speaker B: We're getting there. We're getting there. So we'll make those when we get into King of the north player to watch for you. Who you got for me?
[00:57:52] Speaker A: It is George Pickens. I think there is so much talk in Pittsburgh.
[00:57:55] Speaker B: Kenny's picking Pickens.
[00:57:57] Speaker A: Picking Pickens.
Don't say that a bunch of times fast.
There's been, there's been a lot of talk this week in Pittsburgh about his lack. I mean, he's got two catches, I think, on the year. That's pretty.
And they expected him to be a huge part of their offense. So I think just if nothing else, to quiet the concerns of the fan base and try to quell some of the noise of like, hey, our coaches and the scheme have got to change something.
I think it's going to be George Pickens's involvement in the offense. And we just got burned by Garrett Wilson last week. So I think there's a plan, a blueprint out there for the types of plays that they can run to get him involved.
And I think that that offense is going to be more aggressive than it has been. So I look to see them try to get him the ball early and often.
[00:59:02] Speaker B: Fair. And I usually go with the Browns player, but I actually have Steelers player to watch as well this week and it's Najee Harris for me. We talked about how he hasn't gotten going and if we can continue that trend and we could slow him down, I think that that's probably going to be the main recipe to success for us. We talked about their lack of success through the air thus far this year.
Really the main way for them to beat us is going to be with Najee Harris. So if we can keep him contained, I think we really set ourselves up to be able to win this game.
[00:59:39] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. I think similar to George Pickens. Right. They know that they haven't got him involved the way that they need to and that's how they're going to win. So.
[00:59:51] Speaker B: All right, so this takes us to King of the North.
[00:59:54] Speaker A: King of the North.
[00:59:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Let it breathe there. Good job.
[01:00:00] Speaker A: You let it breathe.
[01:00:01] Speaker B: I let her breathe. So let's give you a reminder of the tally thus far.
I have a record of four and three on the season.
[01:00:09] Speaker A: I have a record of four and three.
[01:00:12] Speaker B: While Kenny is sitting at a meager two and five.
[01:00:15] Speaker A: I will have the power to get rid of you.
[01:00:18] Speaker B: Okay, so let's do predictions here. AFC north picks Baltimore at New England. Who you got?
[01:00:26] Speaker A: Hold on, I'm scrolling. You go first, Mike.
[01:00:28] Speaker B: All right, so I'll go first for Baltimore at New England. Baltimore did blow a big lead this past week to Miami, and New England squeaked by Pittsburgh.
I think that this is kind of a big game for both teams, but I think in the end it's going to be very close. But I think Baltimore squeaks by. Just.
[01:00:56] Speaker A: Think.
I think New England, we talked about it a little bit. I think New England looks a little bit like Pittsburgh right now. I think they're a little bit rebuilding a bit, but they're scrappy. Belichick plays tough, great coaching, keeps you.
[01:01:12] Speaker B: In games all the time.
[01:01:13] Speaker A: But I think Baltimore is good, which I hate to say, just like Pittsburgh. F Baltimore.
Everyone in Baltimore.
[01:01:24] Speaker B: Cincinnati, too. You guys get out of here.
[01:01:26] Speaker A: F Cincinnati. F Baltimore.
[01:01:27] Speaker B: F them all.
[01:01:28] Speaker A: F them all.
But I do think Baltimore is good. I think you saw that in the game with Miami because I think Miami is starting to put some separation between themselves and the rest of the NFL to show that they're for real.
So I do think that's a very good Miami team. By all accounts, Baltimore should have probably won that game. You're up 30 514. Epic collapse.
But I don't know if that's so much a reflection on is Baltimore bad, is Harbaugh in trouble or was it just an outstanding performance by Tua? Those Dolphins wide receivers had just massive, massive monster games. I think Baltimore wins this game. Lamar is just playing too good.
[01:02:12] Speaker B: All right, so we both got Baltimore Bengals at Jets. Now, the Bengals lost to a bad Dallas team. Well, at least they looked really bad the first week you mentioned. They did look much better this week, but they lost to a Dallas team that was playing with their backup quarterback. On the flip side, you got the jets, who were, depending on perspective, they either made an insanely incredible comeback or they were completely gifted. A win by the Browns, they were gifted. I would go with that opinion myself, but that's for each man to decide.
But I stand by my opinion that the jets are trash. I know they just beat us and we had to eat our words this week pretty bad. There's some videos out there in case you guys haven't seen those of us just really destroying the jets, and then they came back and made us eat it. But I think the Bengals get on track here and I think they get a win pretty easy.
[01:03:05] Speaker A: Here's the deal. The jets are trash.
[01:03:08] Speaker B: Let's just keep it going.
[01:03:09] Speaker A: Christmas came early in New York.
You may not win another football game while you're, you're trash. You're absolute trash.
[01:03:16] Speaker B: They're going to go one in 16. It's going to be against the Browns.
[01:03:19] Speaker A: It's trash.
[01:03:20] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[01:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah, they're trash. Bengals win, and then that brings us.
[01:03:25] Speaker B: To the Steelers and the Browns.
I'll let you go first on this one.
[01:03:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Worried about this game. Certainly some emotional hangover from Cleveland after the way that they lost that game. We talked about the finger pointing. That locker room is not in a good spot right now. Really worried about that. As far as play, as far as talent, as far as.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: Brown should win.
[01:03:55] Speaker A: Across the board, the level of talent and just the production that we've seen so far should sway in the Browns favor.
[01:04:02] Speaker B: Maybe not across the board, but they should win.
[01:04:05] Speaker A: I think across the board. I think the Steelers are trash.
Well, dang, that bit me last year or last week.
[01:04:12] Speaker B: Let's double down.
[01:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm doubling down. So I think the Steelers, if you go just position by position on paper, I think the Browns have a better roster.
But I'm really worried about the way they came out of that game. I'm worried about the divisiveness in the locker room. I think the Steelers have a lot to prove some people in the hot seat there. I think that they will get Naji involved. I think they will get George Pickens involved in the way that Garrett Wilson shredded us this week. I think we may see this is sounding bad. An encore position, an encore presentation this week.
I think George Pickens gets going and I think Browns probably lose this game. 2017 Steelers.
[01:04:56] Speaker B: Wow.
I mean, that's fair. Look, the Steelers have given up four sacks this year. They give up the most rushing yards per game last year, which both Bode well for Cleveland. Well, did until Miles Garrett is injured and our entire defensive line is injured now, too.
But they did give up the most rushing yards per game last year. And our running backs are the heart and soul of our team.
They did have seven sacks in week one and Mike Tomlin is a great coach. And that's the reason why those two things alone are why they stay in this game. They're going to get pressure. They've got a really good coach, and I think this one's going to be a nail biter. I mean, you said 2017. I kind of got it coming down to the wire as well. I got Browns winning. I put 1413. It could be 1714, whatever, just right around there. It's going to be a really close game and it may come down to Kate York kicking a field goal again.
[01:05:52] Speaker A: I think the one thing, like you mentioned the Browns have going for them in this game if they're going to try to steal a win here, is just that running game. I think there was a point in the end of the Patriots game in the fourth quarter where they just basically handed the ball off to Damien Harris and Ramondre Stevenson for six and a half minutes and ran clock at the end of that, if that's, if the Browns win, that's going to be how they win.
[01:06:19] Speaker B: Exactly.
[01:06:20] Speaker A: Control the clock.
[01:06:21] Speaker B: So with that, let's take another revenue break here before we get into the land.
[01:06:27] Speaker A: Rum.
[01:06:28] Speaker B: Topath Rum. Topath Rum is a silver rum made from the highest grade molasses distilled three times in a copper pot. Still, this rum is designed to be the backbone of a great cocktail so good you can drink it by itself. Topath rum.
All right, so let's get into for the land. For the land.
[01:06:54] Speaker A: So the guards don't even need a sounder there.
[01:06:57] Speaker B: The guards have been dominating for the last two weeks. They just took four out of five from the Twins and basically knocked the Twins out of contention. They are now up four games on the White Sox and the Magic number to clinch as of this recording. Is down to 1212.
[01:07:16] Speaker A: Look, I think the guards have been surprising this year.
[01:07:23] Speaker B: There's a lot I wish we started podcasting before baseball season, because I was telling everybody, everybody was acting like they're going to be down this year. They're going to be bad, whatever. No, look, I mean, they're fine.
[01:07:35] Speaker A: Francona doesn't lose a whole lot. If you look at his record in Cleveland, he's above 500 pretty much every year.
[01:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah, well, here's the deal, too. People like to bash the Dolans, but that is by far the most soundly run organization in Cleveland.
[01:07:55] Speaker A: Oh, it's the best front office in Cleveland, for sure, and might be one of the best. Might be one of the best in sports.
[01:08:00] Speaker B: Basically, what you can count on them to do is be above 500 most years. Every once in a while, you'll have a rebuild year, but you're going to make the playoffs the majority of the time. Probably six out of ten times you're making the playoffs.
[01:08:10] Speaker A: Well, even if you don't make the playoffs, though, they're in the conversation, right? I mean, you can.
[01:08:13] Speaker B: They're always in the conversation. There's very rarely seasons where they're not in the conversation.
[01:08:18] Speaker A: You can miss the playoffs by a game or two, but still be six games over 500 or ten games over.
[01:08:22] Speaker B: 500, especially playing in the Central.
[01:08:26] Speaker A: And to your point, the front office is probably the best run front office, maybe in all of the three major sports, and they do a tremendous job of developing talent.
[01:08:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:08:38] Speaker A: And if you look around the league, everybody came from Cleveland, and their coaches and front office personnel end up everywhere because they're like, there's something in the water there where they know what they're doing.
[01:08:51] Speaker B: Very good front office. And I feel like it's almost every year, probably every other year. Everybody is so down in the offseason. Oh, we just took however many steps back. This is going to be a bad year. We're going to be terrible. And then what do they do? They come out, and at the very least, they're right around 500 and fighting for a playoff spot.
[01:09:08] Speaker A: And there's something to be said for doing the most with the least. But I think what is frustrating is that if you look at how well that front office is run, how much better could it be if we spent an extra $80 million each year?
[01:09:21] Speaker B: Dolan's can't afford that. That's the knock on them. But they don't got that money. We ain't New York.
[01:09:26] Speaker A: Do they not have the money to spend? I mean, you forget talking about like Dodgers payroll.
I'm talking about, can you get in with the bottom ten?
[01:09:35] Speaker B: Well, people, boy, act like they don't do it either. And we've tried it a couple times. And the last time they tried it, we were in the World Series. They can't afford to do it year after year, though, is what I'm saying. Every once in a while you could pay somebody, but you can't do it year after year. Billionaires shout out to Jose Ramirez. Taking a pay cut to stay in Cleveland. You're the man.
[01:09:51] Speaker A: We like Jose. We don't deserve Jose.
[01:09:52] Speaker B: No. There's so many athletes in Cleveland that we just don't deserve. Onto the Cavs. Still got Donovan Mitchell every week. Multiple All Stars, other rising stars. We still, we did have, we're going to look good.
[01:10:04] Speaker A: We did have the Donovan Mitchell press conference last week.
[01:10:06] Speaker B: In case anyone can't see me pointing to my hat, we were the champions in 2016, too, so we got that going for us.
[01:10:12] Speaker A: We did have the introductory press conference last week.
[01:10:14] Speaker B: It was good. He talked about how he's been a Cleveland fan his whole life. He has a picture from about, what is it, 15 years ago to prove it.
[01:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah, from the first time LeBron was here. Right?
[01:10:26] Speaker B: Everybody was a fan.
[01:10:27] Speaker A: Everybody's a fan.
[01:10:28] Speaker B: How could you not be?
[01:10:29] Speaker A: But we still have Donovan Mitchell.
[01:10:31] Speaker B: Got Donovan Mitchell. All right, so let's get into the closing here, Kenny, what can we expect next week?
[01:10:41] Speaker A: What you can expect next week is what you can expect every week here on the Burning river podcast presented by Tapin Media. Burning River Sportscast Burning River Sportscast. Let me try that again. Here's what you can expect next week.
The same thing you can expect every week here on the Burning river sports cast presented by tapping media.
A week three recap. Steelers Browns big rivalry week, short week, Thursday Night Football. A bunch of people bitching about Amazon should carry the game here locally so it shouldn't be an issue. But around the country, maybe some people saying, I didn't get to see the game. Get over it. Streaming's here.
[01:11:22] Speaker B: Fun fact about just streaming and local games and those things. I heard most of Youngstown got blacked out this week and had to watch the Steelers and they were not happy. Not because I think somehow Youngstown got sucked into the Steelers market and they're just part of the Steelers.
[01:11:40] Speaker A: Youngstown kind of is the Steelers market.
[01:11:42] Speaker B: I agree. But I have friends out there and they were pissed.
[01:11:45] Speaker A: Well, your two friends are the only ones that were for the Browns out there.
[01:11:48] Speaker B: How do you know, I have two friends out there.
[01:11:49] Speaker A: Because you don't have very many friends.
So we will recap the Browns Steelers game, hoping for a big win on Thursday night. We will preview and break down the Atlanta Cleveland matchup for week four and bring you any other sports news for the day.
[01:12:05] Speaker B: Yes. Don't forget to check us out on all social media, tap in media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, at the Tap in media, except for on Instagram, tap in media official, and then Burning River Sportscast. We're on Facebook YouTube. If you want the video version, you got to go to YouTube, but we're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, at Burning River Sportscast, except we're on Twitter. We're burning River Pod. You can also find the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Pocketcast, Castro, and so many more.
[01:12:45] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah. We're everywhere. Cabin Media.
[01:12:49] Speaker A: We're everywhere.
Yeah.
So let's hope the Browns win this week. Let's hope that the great Cuyahoga not found in flames once more like it was after that breakdown. Please know and we'll catch you all next week. Until then, don't be a part of the problem, be the whole problem, and.
[01:13:07] Speaker B: Only you can prevent river fires.
[01:13:22] Speaker A: Media close.
