Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam, it's time.
Time for the Burning River Sportscast.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Can it not be time for the Burning River Sportscast?
[00:00:51] Speaker A: No, it's. It's time.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: It's time. It's always time for us. It's.
It's the Browns that got me pissed off. I'm sorry I ruined your introduction. Just keep going. Say what you're gonna say.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: I'm Kenny Thunder. He's red Ironic jams. Let' just get into it.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: You can find our podcast wherever you get your podcast. Talk at Apple Podcast, Spotify, stitcher, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora, Iheartra Radio podcast, Castro Good Pods. We're number one ranked football podcast and so many more. And while you're at it, please leave us a review on your preferred podcast app. It really helps us grow and get seen. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube. The only place that you can find our video podcast. And check us out on Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok. Our handle for all those socials is at Burning Sportscast. And we were on X as well with the handle at Bernie River Pod Pod. And while you're at it, check out our merch. Www.thetappinmedia.com backslash shop all kinds of stuff in there. Check it out. Before we get started, quick shout out to some of our sponsors. Topath Distillery, Topaz Stiller and award winning craft distillery located in Akron, Ohio. Topath focuses on high quality spirits carefully made in small batches.
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[00:02:18] Speaker A: Still rhymes.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it does.
But on today's show this is what you can look forward to. We got a recap of today's week two loss against the Ravens and it was ug our nominees for dog of the Week because we like to find a silver lining even though when there is none, what can we what we expect the rest of the season and I'm sure there's gonna be so much more. But let's go ahead and get things started by reminding everyone to call the burning of a sportscast Hot take Hotline.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Take hotline.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: That's right. Don't forget to call leave your hot takes on the hot take Hotline. These are hot takes. We want hot takes. Everybody should be angry after this loss. I mean, I don't. If you're not angry, you're probably disappointed, I guess. Which is also a good reason to call the hot take hotline.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Fair.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: 3302-2780-8133-0227-808-1330, 22781 call now. All right, let's get into it. Kenny. Week 2 recap.
Where to start in this one is the big question because it was just ugly all around.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: We're really bad.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know, coming into the season, I had.
I wouldn't even call it high hopes, I think. What did I predict? The record at 9 and 8 was like, I think is where I ended up, which was. And I even said at the time that was probably generous. So it's not like I had high hopes. I didn't expect this to be completely out there.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: You and the bone, man, you. You thought we were doing big things.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: I. I didn't expect this to be complete ass if I had to revise it. Right now we're winning four games tops. Max. Like absolute max. And even that, I'm. I don't know if I'm feeling that.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: I think it.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Lost 41 to 17. The whole world disrespected us as a 12 and a half point underdog. And we went and said, hold my beer.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Not. Not a lot to write home about today. It was one of those feel bad days.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, we'll. We'll just start with our offense, I guess. Joe Flacco, 25 of 45, 199 yards, one touchdown, the worst interception you've ever seen. He attacked a couple times. He had a QBR of 30 and a rating of 65.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Let's talk about the interception real quick though, because while the thrill was Joe, what was Joe Flacco's fault?
The play was Kevin Stefan.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Oh, yes, you're right.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: They should have challenged that. The play before was a catch and replay would have showed that and then it would have.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Like they. They had so long, they ended up running some clock or whatever they were doing at that time. Like they had so long and they didn't even look at it to say it was clear he had the ball, he was inbounds. You would have been third and inches.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I put that. I put that int on Stefanski all day long. I mean, Joe's old enough to know you can't make that throw.
I think Initially, he rolled out and thought, hey, I'm going to scamper for a couple, and then ended up realizing in the heat of the moment, there was no way he was going to be able to outrun anyone that was chasing him coming in, tried to make a play, and, you know, stuff happens. But that's. That's all on Stefanski at the end of the day.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I think.
I think maybe Joe Burr or Joe Burrow. Joe Flacco. Joe Burrow is also hurt, but, you know, we'll get to that. Joe Flacco, I think.
I think it was a little bit of a. Well, you, Kevin Stefanski, you're throwing the challenge flag. This one's going the other way.
Did.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Did Joe Flacco turn 49 this week? Like, I don't know what happened over the course of one week?
[00:05:50] Speaker B: He looked out there, Kane.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: It looks slower and stiffer than usual.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah, he was. He. He did look slower. He looked stiffer. He looked like, legitimately, like it took everything in him to get out of bed and come to the game today.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that feels bad saying that. Like, listen, guys, we love Joe Flacco. We're always gonna have the legend of Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco from a few years ago, but this ain't it.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Yeah, but here's the thing, and this is why. This is exactly why I was against bringing in Joe Flacco from the start when they did it this year.
It's a. It's a year late and a dollar short. Last year was the year to do it, and they didn't. They passed it up, and there should have just been an outright quarterback battle between him and desean and camp, And.
And that would have been the way to handle it. They. They owed it to the fans to bring him back this year because last year was such a disaster. But I've been against it this whole time because, look, I have very fond memories of the legend of Joe Flacco.
Joe Flacco came in and was just an absolute lightning rod for this team. We watched a lot of really fun football at the end of that season, and, you know, he exceeded expectations for sure for a guy that, you know, they called on a whim and finally got him into the lineup. Like, those were all good memories. And now this is how I have to watch Joe go out is.
Look, I think here's the problem with Joe.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: He's old.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: It's not even that he's so much older or slower or has lost zip on the ball. Like, it's Just a matter of.
By all accounts, this is likely Joe's last stop. Right? I mean, he's what, 40, 41 years old, and he's played the NFL for almost two decades. Like, he's not going to get a starting job again.
This is kind of the last rodeo. And I think Joe is, is playing a very different brand of football right now, which, when he came in two years ago, it was kind of like, what the hell, let's just do it. And it was reckless abandon. It was fun. He was just airing it out, playing his game. And I think right now he is pressing into the mold of what Kevin Stefanski wants him to do. We want to take care of the football. We want to play this kind of slower plotting run game. And, and, and I think he's trying to be overly cautious because he knows, you know, the clock's about to run out on him and he wants to play and be a starter as long as he can, and he's playing overly cautious to try and maintain his job as opposed to just coming in and being that lightning rod. That guy is just gonna let it fly and see what happens. And I might throw four touchdowns, but I might throw four picks. Who cares? The Browns.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Let's see what happened.
Yeah, I agree with you. You know, you know what? You know what? Joe Flacco is for the Cleveland Browns, and I agree with you. We should have. We should have left it with the legend of Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco.
We should have left it with the legend of Cleveland, Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco. But instead, we did bring him back. And so now you know what he is to the Cleveland Browns. He's the tale of two Joes. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Source of times. So right now is the worst of times.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the worst of times right now. So it's, it's tough to watch right now. And I don't put that all on Joe either. We have a terrible offensive line. We have.
You actually mentioned the run game just a second ago. And the run game was fairly effective today. They averaged 5.2 yards carry, 22 carries for 115 yards.
Which brings me to my next thing. Why do we throw the ball 45 times a game? Like, we threw it 45 times a game? And I, I made the comment before we got on here. We're. We're airing it out to the tune of 208 yards.
Good job, guys.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah, it's a lot of, A lot of attempts. Not a Lot of production.
Well, and it doesn't help too, when your receiving cord doesn't catch the ball. I mean, you know, guys like Jerry Judy gotta come up with balls when they're throwing their way, when they hit.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: How many drops did he have today?
[00:09:50] Speaker A: I don't know.
Just two, maybe from our statistical standpoint, but you gotta have those. And look, I just think this receiving core and this offensive line, to your point, just a second ago, like, they weren't heavily addressed in the off season. I know they brought an Isaiah Bond at the end of. The end of the camp there and with everything that happened there. But.
But there wasn't meaningful time. Free agent moves made, veterans signed, guys drafted that were going to be impact players. And some of that has to do with what capital you had to spend, which wasn't necessarily a ton. Right. They. They filled in gaps in some other places and it. You can't rebuild the whole team in a year, but now you're sitting at 0 and 2 and you're looking at what's going well and what's not. And part of what's going wrong right now is that offensive line is. Is showing its age. And, you know, Jack Conklin didn't even play today.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: We just think they're going to play forever. Let's just leave them out there. Something's going to happen.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Djuan Jones was in and out a little bit. I'm not sure Djuan Jones is really going to be the future tackle for this team, to be honest.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: They talked him up before the season started and I even mentioned that. They talked a lot about how good he. How he turned a corner and he was playing better. But through two games, he doesn't look good.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, he's certainly not a stalwart. He's certainly not a guy.
Does he look better on this guy?
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Does he look better or worse than what we had last year?
[00:11:17] Speaker A: I don't know that he's meaningfully better.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: You know, I think even on the ball that Joe Flacco fumbled, that was. That was Dawn's assignment and he. He kind of chipped him early in the play and then let him go. And then he came back inside and. And hit Joe Flacco and caused him to fumble the ball.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: I guess somebody should have picked that guy up.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if you finish the block on that guy, he's not in the play.
You're bigger than everyone on the field, like that should be.
You know, you should. You should be able to do that. So you can't Be, you know, not finishing blocks.
And I just, I just don't know. And, and he was in and out of the game. So like, I don't know what's bothering him exactly. I don't know that they said on the, on the broadcast exactly why he was out. But this team needs a lot of work on this offense.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: They need a lot of everything.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Realistically.
Look, and I hate to keep going back and, and beating the dead horse on this, but look, this is what I said all off season long, which was I didn't understand the Joe Flacco move. You drafted two rookie quarterbacks. This team is not going to contend for a title this year. So you may as well see what you have in these two young quarterbacks to see for next year if you're spending draft capital on a quarterback early or if you think one of these guys has the tools necessary to be your starter. And I can tell you right now, I have no doubt in my mind that Dylan Gabriel or Shador Sanders could also be 02 right now.
I think the big difference is, and look, I think, and I think a lot of the fan base is kind of like after today, after you get pummeled in Baltimore, it's kind of like, okay, let's make the change. Imagine how different that change would be if Dylan Gabriel and Shador Sanders were getting all of the reps all off season long. They'd be so much further along.
Joe Flacco didn't need the practice. Joe Flacco was Joe Flacco, whether he practiced one day or all every week during camp. He wasn't going to learn anything new.
You know, these guys, though, are the future and, or, or at least possibly the future and you have to see what you have in them. But I just think we've done, we've completely mismanaged this whole thing from this, from the start, right? Drafting two rookie quarterbacks to begin with, but also then bringing in Joe, making him a starter. Either one of these guys would be so much further along in their development, their maturity, the way they handle the game, the way they handle pressure and high leverage situations. And if they had been the guy all during camp and the other was getting number two reps. Yeah, you can't tell me that. I know they talked during the broadcast about, oh, Kevin Stefanski is, has pro forma laid out and a plan for each one of these guys.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: I heard that I had my second all during the season.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: So they give and they give Shador.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Sanders 8 to 10 reps after practice.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: 8 to 10 reps after practice every day. I mean, that is not developing a young quarterback.
So I just, again, talk about this from the start.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I really wanted to get into this tonight. So Kevin Stefanski, I mean, he has this. He has his reputation. Well, he did have this reputation to be this quarterback whisperer, and it was all solely based off of Kirk Cousins having some of his best years in Minnesota. But now that he's.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: He's been in Cleveland, Case Canaan was there too. Right. So he also.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: I'm just saying. But I'm just saying. I'm saying, like, since he's been in Cleveland, how many quarterbacks has he had and how many have actually performed?
[00:14:50] Speaker A: I think maybe he's yelling at them, not whispering.
That's what it is.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: All the other teams be better and he's there. Like, we want you to whisper at us.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, here's a hot take. This team is. Has now not won a game since what Thanksgiving of last year.
We might be. You know, I don't think this team's going to go 016 or 017 this year. This team's better than that, but not by a whole lot.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Four games. You may. You may very well go a full calendar year now without winning a game.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: And again, we have this conversation. What are the things that have changed? What are the things that are the same? We just talked about the fact that the front office has mismanaged the quarterback situation. You didn't address the offensive line. You didn't address kicker in the off season. You barely address the wide receivers. And you wonder why this offense is putrid. The things that are the problem with this football team right now, I can tell you there's two guys at the head of it. His name is Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Barry that, you know, for whatever reason survive, you know, the end of year cuts every year. We bring them back and we go, we think we're building something here. We got a plan. Let me tell you what that plan is. The last eight games the Browns have lost, and they've averaged a little over 13 points a game during that span. In the last eight games, the Browns offense, regardless of who was playing quarterback, regardless of even who was calling plays at the time, because we went with Ken Dorsey and Stefanski a little bit last year, has averaged 13 points a game. We've been all over him for last year. They averaged what, 16.2 points a game or whatever. And the last eight regular season games, this team has averaged 13 points a game. What is what are the things that are the same?
Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry. And when you go back to what little success the Browns have had was back when you had Baker Mayfield, who at this point I think has proven he's one of a very small number of guys that has taken two teams and one playoff games with them. Is one of a very small number of guys that has thrown for more than 40 touchdowns in an NFL season. I think he's proven that he's a pretty darn good player.
And at the time you had a Nick Chubb healthy in his prime. So you had two of the best, you know, two top 10 type talents that you were winning in spite of Andrew Barry and his foolishness and Kevin Stefanski's inability to call a game. So don't. Like you can miss me with like we're building something here and I trust these guys or they're Ivy League smart, they haven't done anything. And the little success that they do have came from guys that don't wear orange and brown anymore.
That we, we have this quarterback whisper that couldn't figure out how to top talk to a top eight talent in the league.
Can't deal with them, can't win with them. I don't know.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Should I. You want me to sign off for you to be the Kenny Show?
I just let you go.
That was a good rant. I liked it. I liked it. The Kenny Log.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Well, it's not a good rant. It's depressing. It's frustrating.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Oh, it was very depressing team.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: And, and, and I live for football Sundays. Like I, I love the, the Cleveland Browns and they've taken it and they've just thrown this whole thing into the trash. This team we just talked about again, wide receivers, offensive line needs remade. You still don't have a quarterback. Like this team is multiple drafts, multiple NFL drafts away from competing on offense. By the time you get that figured out, this top tier NFL defense is also going to need to be addressed because Miles ain't getting any younger. Denzel ain't getting any younger.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Like this team is got hurt again.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Is going to be a perpetual cycle of. Well, once we get the offense figured out, then we're going to have to readdress the defense.
It's an absolute waste of all of our time.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Throw in you're talking about Miles Garrett and their prime and whatever.
Jim Schwartz is the defensive coordinator. You think he's still going to be around for that?
No.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Why would you be?
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Right? So you actually, I mean you, you went Into Andrew Barry jumped the gun before I could even get there. I wanted to still talk about Kevin Stefanski and the fact that we had this argument on social media and people were like, no, Kevin Stefanski, his offense is good. They just need somebody that can run it. Well, here's the deal. We've now had how many quarterbacks and not a single one's been able to run your offense at some point, if you walk in every single room and it smells like you think the problem's you.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. The only quarterback that did, we said, it ain't good enough.
So. And. And he's. And he's certainly been good enough elsewhere. So.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: With. With Andrew Barry. Just don't even get me started with Andrew Barry, because the only reason he has an NFL job is because he's really good at moving numbers around on a piece of paper. Sure, he's a great.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: He's a cap guru. I'll give him that. I'll give him his flowers there all day long.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: I'm not gonna give him his flowers. I'm not giving him his flowers. Because guess what? Most NFL teams have an entire team of people that does that for them. So the general manage. He doesn't have to.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: So they can focus on talent evaluation and building a team.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: You know, the thing that Andrew Barry doesn't know how to do? There's no talent evaluation. Like, all the guys that are still here playing meaningful minutes and. And giving us good football or are from Dorsey. So, like, what are we doing here? None of them are. Andrew Barry's like.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And look, and again, I know we're talking about, like, a quarterback change and stuff here. Like, I want to be very clear, I don't think changing the quarterbacks right now is going to make you better.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: We ain't going to win games.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: That's not the point of this. I want to make sure that we're very clear on that, because I think that's the question that's going to come out of people's mouths is what does that get you? What does that do for you? It doesn't do anything. For this year, you're not going to be good, but you have to at least see if either of these guys can play. I will say, if there is a small chance that this team does turn things around and has a good year, it would be because Dylan Gabriel comes in or Shador Sanders comes in and, you know, out of nowhere lights it up. You know, if one of those guys is the truth, that's the one chance you have. Otherwise you're going to develop and see what both of these guys have. And both of them, or either one of them might not be very good, or maybe you find some, some things you can hang on to or some games you feel like had good performances in. But you have to at least see because you're, you're looking at, especially with now the Jaguars looking, you know, like they're kind of trash. Like you might have two top 10 picks in the, in, in the NFL draft this year. Are you going to package those together to get a quarterback? Are you going to be the number one overall pick? Are you going to take a quarterback? Arch Manning looks like he's just struggling, but I think this, the whole thing is that we always overthink the whole quarterback conversation. There's two quarterbacks playing right now in this Sunday Night Football game. You have Michael Pennix and J.J. mcCarthy. Neither one of those guys was the first overall draft pick. The guy that was the can't miss player, Drake May is starting in New England is winning football games. Bo Nix is playing in Denver. None of these guys were the guy. They weren't the Arch Manning. They, they weren't the number one, can't miss prospect of a generation.
You find a guy that can run your system and you build the team around him a little bit. Like what you did and what you had with Baker Mayfield.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And I talk about Kevin Stefanski not, not playing to the talents of his, his players that he brings in, his quarterbacks that he brings in. And the biggest example of this played right across from you today was Baltimore, the team that they are right now. Before Lamar Jackson came in. No, not even close. They didn't look anything like this. Remember, they had our guy and they were just airing it out every game. Yeah, but what did they do? What did Harbaugh do? Because he's a great coach. He adjusted to his player and he said, I know I usually run this offense, but there's nuances to this offense. And I think there's things that we can do better with Lamar that we couldn't do with Joe.
And that's what you do as a coach. You don't sit there and say, well, you know, Joe Flacco ran this offense successfully for years. So, Lamar, you're going to do exactly what he did and you're going to like it.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: And you want a Super bowl with Joe Flacco.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: And Lamar Jackson is the NFL leader, the NFL leader in quarterback rating and has the most rushing yards of any quarterback ever.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: In case anyone's wondering, it was 128.6. Today is 19 of 29 for 225 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions. Oh, and he added two rushes for 13 yards.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. Look, this defense actually was played way better than I thought they could today. Right. They held Derrick Henry in check. They held Lamar Jackson in check at.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: The very end, too, when they were gassed. I mean, of the. Of the 41 points, 21 of them came in the fourth quarter when the defense was like, we can't do this anymore.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Well, yeah, and they all came on Lamar's arm. I mean, he just was, like, chucking balls up and his guys came down with them. So.
Yeah.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: And going back to Dylan, just the Dylan Gabriel thing, because you said, let's be clear here, and I fully support what you said. As far as the Browns are not going to be good this year, like, just. Just strap in because it's going to be a hard season. It's not going to be fun.
We're going to win three to five games. That's the range I'm looking at right now.
And it's going to be very difficult football to watch. But you know what we're going to hear all this week because he went three of three for 19 yards and a touchdown is how great Dylan Gabriel is. And you know who's actually going to be pushing it the hardest?
Like the Browns and Kevin Stefanski and those guys. Like, yeah, he looked fantastic. Whatever. He might come in this week and say, we're not ready to make a change yet, but, oh, yeah, we all know it's coming.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: Already said that he's not making a change this week because of course he has. Because every time you ask Kevin Stefanski a question, we don't make the wrong answer. Instead of. Instead of saying, you know what, we're going to think about everything this week. We're going to evaluate where we are. We're 0 and 2. That's not a good place to be. Everything's on the table. He says, I'm not even thinking about a quarterback change.
Why would you rule that out? Why would you rule that out? Why would you at least not just say, of all the times that you could have said, we're going to check the tape, we're going to think about everything.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: We're going to, you know, your. Your boilerplate answer, you didn't go with it.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: We're going to go, nope, definitely not making that change yet.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: It's reminiscent. I'm not comparing the Two, because Joe Flacco in every aspect of life is, is head and shoulders better than deshaun Watson.
But it, it reminds me of last season when yeah, he came out every single press conference and lied to Browns fans faces and said DeSean Watson gives us the best chance to win. DeSean Watson didn't give anybody the best chance to win last year. In fact, he probably made your chances worse almost every time he was in the game.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Well, and I could even, and I could even get behind Stefanski this year saying Joe Flacco gives us the best chance to win. The reality is though, does Joe Flacco give you the best chance to win five games this year and what does that do for you?
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Yeah, like my window is three to five. With a combination of Dylan Gabriel and Shador Sanders, we win three. With Joe Flacco, we win five.
That's what we get this year.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's not going to be pretty.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: I need to go back and revise my, my schedule game and just say loss, loss, loss. Let's check, let's add that one on loss.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: I mean, think about how bad this offense has been. In two weeks, Dylan Gabriel has scored 20% of the Browns points.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Yep.
And another year of, of like you said, I mean, over the last eight games, 13 points. But 16 and 17, that's what we've opened the, the season with.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Yeah. You're still averaging 16 points a game.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: And, and let's be real, seven of those were in garbage time.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: Dylan Gabriel. So he had 10 today. Really.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: True. Those guys didn't care. That defense didn't care.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: No.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: But yeah, I, I just, I, I mean, I don't know what else to say. I think that the Browns need to take a hard look in the mirror. I mean, I don't, I don't know.
Does this legitimately. The fact that they have been skating and they do get a pass. I'm talking about Andrew Barry and Kevin Stefanski here. The fact that they're. What's their overall record now? They're like eight games under.500 in, in five years or whatever they are.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: It's not great.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: The fact that they're still here, I think actually speaks volumes to our owners being garbage because I think that it's the free pass thing. It's the. Well, we made you take Deshaun Watson. We made you do this. We made you do this. And if that's the case, this is directly to the Haslams. Get your hands out of the frickin front office. Quit making Decisions. You guys don't know anything about football. Like, what are you doing?
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Well, and again, it just goes back to everything we do. It's like we act like it's rocket science. We're like, you know, with the quarterbacks, like, I just went through a whole list of guys that weren't can't miss prospects, but are playing games and winning games and teams are building around them. It's the same thing with head coaches. Dan Quinn came in last year to Washington and totally changed everything that was going on there. Like, you see these retreads of coaches show up and have success in places like, you don't have to find the greatest coach that's ever lived. He doesn't have to necessarily be the guy that's going to be the head coach for the next 20 years. Here it's very rare to find Bill Belichick and have 16 to 20 years of competitive football.
Can you bring in a guy that's going to be here for the next three to five years that's going to take you back to being a competitive football team?
That's. That's where you got to start. And those guys shouldn't be that hard to find.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Well, and here's the thing is, you don't go into it thinking you're going to find a Hall of Fame coach. I mean, you, you hope that. That's always the hope. Don't get me wrong. But do you think. Do you honestly think when the Steelers promoted Mike Tomlin that they were like, this guy's going to be our coach for 25 years?
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Well, no. Again, Mike Tomlin and Harbaugh, like, those guys are the absolute anomaly. Look, I think a lot of people would say Andy Reid is maybe the. One of the best coaches in the NFL today. Andy Reid got fired in Philadelphia, like, when he couldn't win and take, you know, get to the super bowl or win a Super Bowl. They wanted him out of Philly, they ran him out. So, you know, just because you reach a certain point somewhere, you plateau somewhere, doesn't mean you can't have success elsewhere. And there's plenty of those guys that have run competent organizations in the NFL before that. You don't have to again, finding talent, unexpected places. Like the, the, the end result is Kevin Stefanski has been in over his head since he started here. He's in over his head now, and he's not going to get any better.
Like, we can keep playing this game every year and you can keep winning, you know, five. Five games. But for stability's Sake. But this we got.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: We got a comment on the record. AJ.
AJ is who commented in and said 1752 and 1 the five years before Stefanski.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: And.
And again, I just. And I just went through, though, the fact that the games, the success that they had was with Baker Mayfield, who is by all accounts a top 10 quarterback in the NFL today, and Nick Chubb, who was in his prime. And those guys covered up a lot of things that were going on. You had some young defensive talent and Miles Garrett, Denzel Ward, like, that defense was pretty good, and the offense was. Was an NFL offense. But since then, what quarterback and what running back and what wide receiver has really looked all that good in Kevin Stefanski's off?
I mean, they got really lucky to win some of the games. They did with DTR as a starter, with PJ Walker as a starter. DeSean won a couple of games that year before he got hurt.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: I mean, I think the words you used were.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: Were.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: They were winning early on in Kevin Stefanski's tenure with the Cleveland Browns. They were winning in spite of what.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: We were doing, because you actually had some talent. And I don't think it was schematic or anything else. It wasn't about the offense. It was. It was about the fact that you had some actual guys that could play. I mean, Nick Chubb, like, I know he's not here now, but, like, he was really, really good, I think, to the point where we're questioning, like, has this offensive line ever been that good? Because Nick Chubb was just that damn good.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And we've talked about that a lot on our show, and I. I think that the answer is that he covered up. He. He made them look a lot better than they were. I'm not saying that they're trash, even. I'm just saying that one, like, right now, if we're talking about right now, that offensive line is way past their prime. But two, on the tail end of their prime, Nick Chubb made them look way better than they are.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: And don't be wrong.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: Why?
[00:31:04] Speaker B: You know, there's a couple guys on there. We got. We got one hall of Famer on the offensive line. So I'm not taking anything away from him. I'm just saying overall, like, we were winning in spite of the coaching and what we weren't doing right in the front office.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: And I don't think you can overstate how good Nick Chubb was because again, Kevin Stefanski's offense predicates itself on that zone run in the play action game. So, yeah, Baker was finding a lot of open guys because they had to respect the run when Nick Chubb was. Was in that offense.
So that offense worked pretty well because you had a generational talent at running back.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I.
And I don't. I guess to add one more thing on. On Kevin Stefanski just because it really bugged me at the end of the first half today, you know, we got a chance to get some points and then go in the half. Whatever.
What is. Why don't we take timeouts?
Like, why do we always end the game or end a half with. With either three or two timeouts? We're like, ah, clock management.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: Never heard of them.
[00:32:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. Every time, like the whole time I'm sitting there watching the clock tick down and, and it's like. And the, the announcers even said they're like, I got plenty of time, which don't disagree necessarily, but then you're like saving all these timeouts. Then we end up with two timeouts that we just completely burned going into the half. Like, we didn't. We didn't even use them and we.
I don't know. It just drives me nuts. It seems to happen almost every game. I can probably.
If that's a stat somewhere, I wish somebody would.
Would find that stat of. Of at the end of a game. Like, how many times have we left three town. Three timeouts on the table?
[00:32:46] Speaker A: Yeah. There's an analytics guy somewhere crunching the numbers.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: Yeah. A.J. you're getting it now. So each. A.J. i mean, I'm sure you knew that before, but A.J. said even with elite talent, Barry has not been able to fill out the roster, especially at qb. Exactly.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: And that's the problem. Like, you. Do you have Miles Garrett, hall of Famer Nick Chubb. If he wouldn't have gotten hurt the way he did, arguably a Hall of Famer.
I mean, you got Denzel Ward, arguably a Hall of Famer like Joel Batonio. Joel Batonio, hall of Famer. Like, there's, there's elite, elite talent on this team and it's just completely being squandered every single year.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: And.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: And look, I like what they did a little bit this year, right? There's. There's hope for guys like Dylan Sampson, for Judkins, Harold Fannin. Like, those guys look good. The question is, what do you have in these quarterbacks?
[00:33:37] Speaker B: This was actually the most impressive draft I think they've had yet.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Yeah, because you actually.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Besides when it got into the later deal and then we took two quarterbacks that that messed it all up. But.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean that's going to be interesting. I mean and Mason Graham looks, looks okay right now too. So.
Yeah, like I just. Again, it's. This team though, still is so far away from competing at a high level. They can compete right now. They can compete, but they can't win games.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: And you so far one like we did against the Bengals. The Bengals news flash to everybody else that's, that's, that may be watching or around the league. The Bengals aren't good.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's what's really frustrating. Right. Pittsburgh came down to earth today.
Cincinnati is going to be without Joe Burrow now for potentially weeks or months.
Whether bad turf toe things or Jake Browning is going to get the start there.
This, this division, I mean outside of Baltimore being really good, but Baltimore isn't infallible, you know, for, for this Browns team.
They're going to beat them. But, but like it's not like Baltimore is going to win the rest of their games. They're going to win a lot of games. But, but this team, absolutely. You know, if, if you had a head coach that could coach and a solid team around you should be competing again. I go back like I hate to go keep going back to Baker Mayfield. If Baker Mayfield were still the quarterback here, you had all the draft picks that you gave up for Deshaun Watson and all the draft picks that you've used on quarterbacks since Baker has left. Imagine where you would be. Imagine where you would be as a team. You'd be in the AFC playoffs every year and, and you'd at least be a competitive playoff team. It's a very worst, worst case scenario.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and you know, you say imagine where you'd be. I just imagine how much fun I'd be having as a Browns fan versus where I'm at right now. And that's what hurts the most, is like I'm like, what hurts the most.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: Was being so close and watching Becker walk away.
And I didn't think we were going here being better than Josh Allen over the last 22 games.
I don't know. Did you see that one flying floating around today? The last 22?
[00:35:49] Speaker B: I don't like to think about it.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: I don't like Josh Allen versus Baker Mayfield. Baker Mayfield's throne for 5,700 yards to Josh Allen's 4, 900. Baker's throne for like 15 more touchdowns, less interceptions. And his completion percentage over those 22 games has been over 70 compared to Josh Allen's 63.
So everybody respectfully would say, Josh Allen's one of the best in the game today. I think Baker has proven he's at least as good as those guys. And if you can't win with that guy, that's an indictment on your coaching staff in your front office. That's a real problem.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: And I talked about this back when they. Back when, you know, we were in the middle of Deshaun Watson, like, him being on the team. And I think my quote, I wish we could go back and find it right now. I wish we had a whole team looking through our old clips so that I could pull it up. But I said, this is never going to go away. This whole discussion is never going to go away unless DeSean Watson steps up and plays like they all promised us he would. And the fact that he didn't. And he didn't.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: So he went the other way, the opposite direction.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Yeah, He. He so spectacularly did he fail that it's like you can't help but have that conversation every time you think about the quarterback room in Cleveland. Like, you have to because he was so bad.
And it's like, like you said, you gave up all that. All that draft capital, everything, and here we are, struggling to find a quarterback four years later.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And look, I don't know that Baker. Baker may. May never win a Super bowl, but it's hard to win a Super Bowl. But I can tell you that Baker is going to be a competitive quarterback for the next few years.
And, you know, that's more than I can say about this brownsteam because they're just so far away right now.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's. Let's wrap this up. Kenny. I think we've. I think we've beat this dead horse as much as we can. The Browns are really bad.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Poor horse.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: Yeah, the. The Browns are really bad. We're not gonna win a lot of games this year. We were disgusted by this effort.
Hopefully we can come back a little bit happier when we record the. The episode later in the season. But, you know, the Browns aren't very good, and they're playing the packers, so.
Who are pretty good right now.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, they're okay.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Silver linings. It's time for those silver linings that I talked about earlier. We're gonna try and find them. It's time for the Burning Sports. Burning River Sportscast Dog of the week nominees. We'll start with you, Kenny. We'll let you go first. Who do you got?
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Dog of the week. I'm gonna go. Andre Schmidt.
Because he was quite literally kicking for his job today and went across the board. So, you know, did he have, like 14 kicks? No, he, you know, kicked a field goal and two extra points, but hey, that's five points. And when. When your team has only scored 30 all year, that's a pretty good percentage.
So I'll go Andre Schmidt, because, you know, not that he totally redeemed himself, but he at least showed up today and did his job.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: That's fair. He had. He had five of the 17 points because that's all we can score. That's all we do.
I'm gonna go with Miles Garrett another. Another game out of him. And. And this. I actually said this at the beginning of the season. I said, we might be really bad, but Miles Garrett's gonna break the sack record this year.
And he had another one and a half sacks today. So just through. Through two games, he's sitting at three and a half sacks. So that's pretty good. It's a pretty good start, and it's kind of what we've been missing. I. I don't know if anybody remembers last year, but last year I feel like it took seven games before he started, you know, regularly getting to the quarterback. So in.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: In this defense, again, it was really good.
They played really well.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: 41 points is a farce. Like, that's not the deal. That was not the defense. I mean, Flacco at a.
Yeah, I.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Mean, what was it, 20 to 10 at the end of the third quarter?
[00:39:32] Speaker B: So, yeah, it was 20 to 10 at the end of THE third quarter.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that fourth quarter just got away from him there because, you know, you just not going to last that long in the NFL playing a good team.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: But we just gave him the ball, and we either just, you know, turned it over for a touchdown or we gave him the ball in our own territory I don't know how many times tonight.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: So, yeah, and, you know, this. The. The defense did contain the run game, which I think was the. The bigger threat. Right. Derek Henry and Lamar together are pretty much. No one slows them down, so they did at least do that. And I thought Miles had another phenomenal performance where he was creating pressure and creating havoc in the backfield, penetration and a couple of sacks. I mean, that's a great day.
I thought, you know, a number of other guys looked pretty good. Newsom is out there struggling a bit because, you know, he's just more a nickel corner. But I think he's. He's doing as well as he can, you know, provided the Circumstances. So this defense is. Is decent.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: It wasn't the defense. It was turnovers. And I'm just going to throw that out there because Bone, man, skeleton key to victory for two weeks in a row has been turnovers.
In both weeks, we've lost. In both weeks, we've lost the turnover battle. So, yeah, you know, what do we say? If you want the same takes over and over again, you come to the burner.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: Sports.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: Way to go, Bone. And speaking of bone, I'm gonna. Well, first of all, I'm gonna take Miles. I already said Miles Garrett is my nominee. So, you know, Bone didn't send his in. He was lazy.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: I'm gonna say he went Quinn John.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: I was gonna give him Devin Bush. He had eight tackles in a sack.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Because Quinn, Sean was his player to watch this week. So.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: All right, we'll give him Quin Sean.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: And he did have.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: It doesn't really matter. Neither one of those guys is winning it anyways. It's gonna be Miles Garrett. So, I mean, let's be honest. But we'll give him quinch on Judkins because it was his player to watch. That's fair.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: And he had a good game. I mean, for his NFL debut.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Yards of carry. And you know what I really liked about Quinshon was the fact that they said they were gonna. He was gonna be on a very limited snap count and they were gonna monitor his. His plays or whatever. And he's still had the most rushing attempts, and he averaged 6.1 yards carry.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: In those rushing attempts and a couple of catches, too. So, I mean, he was a part of the offense for sure.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Yeah, so.
So that's who you're gonna have to choose from. I'll get those up on our social so everybody can vote on them tomorrow. Andre Schmidt, Miles Garrett, and Quinn Sean Judkins.
Quinn, Shawn Judkins is actually another. Just another point. First game with the Browns, he gets a nominee for dog of the week. So it's hopefully sign of good things to come or not that we're going to win any more games or three.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: To five or it's a sign of really bad things that no one else is good enough to be nominated fair.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: And that'll take us to final thoughts. Kenny, you want to go first? You want me to take it?
[00:42:24] Speaker A: I'll go first because maybe yours is more optimistic than mine.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: No.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: My final thought is this Browns team went 3.0in the preseason.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: Last time we did it.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: In 2017, the Browns went 4.0in the preseason.
Then 2017 was the last time, this Browns franchise started.02 in the regular season.
So undefeated preseason.02 to start the season.
It's gonna be a long year, boys.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: What was our record at the end of that year?
[00:43:04] Speaker A: You mean the year that we didn't win any games at all? Yeah. Oh, oh, and 16.
You know, it would be worse this year if they didn't win because they would lose 17 games. So that would be a new NFL record.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: You didn't think the Browns could get any worse? Boy, do we have news for you.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: I don't think that they'll go, oh.
[00:43:22] Speaker B: Once again, the Browns say, I don't.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Think they'll go over this year, but it's not going to be pretty. It's going to be a long, long year. So just. Yeah, buckle up, Browns fans.
[00:43:33] Speaker B: It was hard last year.
Yeah. So my final thought, it's time.
It's. It's time. And I'm talking about either Joe Flacco or Kevin Stefanski to be on. And Joe, I'll add Andrew Barry in there too with Kevin Stefanski, but it's time. Get rid of them all.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Joe Flacco could still be Joe Flacco.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: No, I mean, he could still be on the team, but it's Joe Flacco. I'm gonna focus on him because that's the main point I want to make, is it's time to let the rookies play.
We're not getting any better.
It's actually probably going to get worse.
Joe Flacco is 41 years old, not getting any younger. We have two rookies on the team that we need to see what we've got because there actually is a decent quarterback class coming in next year that we have have, you know, a couple different choices to make at the, at the top of the draft. You're going to tell me that you're going to have two second year players and a rookie and that's going to be your quarterback room. That's a recipe for disaster next year. So let the rookies play. And the biggest thing I'll say here in regards to this whole argument is Joe Flacco just doesn't have it anymore. And I don't even think that's, that's a, a knock on Joe Flacco. The dude still got a rocket arm. Here's the biggest problem with Joe Flacco's game today is I don't know if anybody has been paying attention to his defenses in the NFL. If you haven't and if you're living on a rock or you Just don't pay attention to that sort of thing. Like I understand, you know, it is what it is. But the two high safeties is like the new look in the NFL. Like everybody plays two high safeties. And what it does is it takes away all of the deep balls.
That's Joe Flacco's entire career. Like that's what he lived off of in Baltimore is he would just chuck it up to the end zone and one of those guys would get a pass interference call and he'd be like, ah, I win.
You can't do that anymore. You just can't. Because the way that they play the deep ball, you just can't do it. Somebody's all over it all the time.
And so I think that they took the one thing that Joe Flacco had going for him and they shut it down.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: It helps to have a really strong run game that forces teams to put eight guys in the box and forces them to play man up.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: And that goes back just to fans. Gets just. Another point is we actually had a decent run game today and we just abandoned it. We were like, I don't know, we don't want to do that.
20 to 10. It's still a. It's still a game that you're in and you're like, I. I don't want.
[00:45:53] Speaker A: Anytime you throw the ball more times than Joe Flacco is old, you're probably not gonna have success.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Not gonna win. So, yeah, it's time. Let's get, let's. Let's get the rookies in there and it's time to put grandpa Joe down.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: Put. Put Joe out to pasture.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Look, and I would just, just iterate too.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: Like, I love Joe Flacco.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: I just want to say, Joe Flacco, it's nothing personal from Joe.
Joe, I still agree. Gives this team the best chance to win. It's just. What are you going to win?
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Nothing.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: Nothing.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: Nothing. You're still going to come in last in your division. Maybe you might come in second to last now that Cincinnati doesn't have Joe Burrow all season, but you're still going to be really bad. So.
But with that, that's the final thoughts. Let me remind everybody to call the burning of a sportscast hot take hotline.
[00:46:38] Speaker A: Hot take hotline.
[00:46:40] Speaker B: Nobody's gonna leave your hot takes on the hot take hotline. Remember, these are hot takes. We want hot takes. We want hot takes.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: We do. We do. We do.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: What's that number, Kenny? Throw it up.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: There it is.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: 330-2278-081330-27808, 1330-22781 and be sure to check out our gear. Www.thetappenmedia.com backslash shop. That'll do it for us, Kenny. What can we expect this week?
[00:47:09] Speaker A: You know, we're gonna do our thing again. We'll get together this week and this week we'll Preview the Week 3 game against the packers, have our Browns backer interview and, you know, hearing the same takes over and over and over and over and over again. All the things you come to the Berner sportscast for, that's what we're gonna do.
[00:47:28] Speaker B: I can't wait to hear Bone say, oh, I'm gonna stick with turnovers until they. Until they could actually do it.
No, I love Bone. It's, it's, it's fair.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: I love bone. I love. I love book.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: I love lamp.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: I love lamp.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Don't forget to check it. Don't forget to check us out on social media. Tapping media is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. At the tapping media, I'm burning Response. That's this podcast on Facebook, Instagram, tick tock and YouTube at burning response and on X at burning Report. You can find our podcast wherever you get your podcast. I'm talking Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Pocket, Cast Castro. Good pods where we are number one ranked football podcast and so many more. And please, please, please leave us reviews on your podcast app of choice. It just helps us to be seen, helps us grow, helps us keep doing this. Our wives are pretty pissed off that we spend so much time doing it. So we like to keep doing it and give them a reason to. To let us keep doing it, you know?
[00:48:21] Speaker A: True.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: So keep talking about the Browns.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Yep.
We don't have Bones. Q. He's not here anymore to tell us it's time to go. He's getting tired.
I.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: Have an itch on my funny bone.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Bon appetit.
[00:48:40] Speaker A: Bone. Ape.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Bone. Ape. Tit.
[00:48:45] Speaker A: Don't just be a part of the problem. Be the whole damn problem.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: And only you can prevent river fires.
Burning river.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Burning rivers.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: Burning river.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Good night, Cleveland.
[00:48:57] Speaker B: Good night, Cleveland. Good night, Akron.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: Good night, Agram.
It.
