Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam, it's time. Time for the Burning river sportscast.
I don't know. The Browns are really bad.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: That's what you're going with? That's the opening. I've never been.
I've never been less turned for a podcast ever.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: This is the worst team I've ever seen.
Look, I guess I'll just apologize now. I mean, if you were looking for any kind of optimism or any kind of good, good vibes on the Browns, like, it's just not happening. It's not here tonight. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. They're really bad. They're trash. They're. They're awful.
Just not playing competitive football right now at all.
And they're really bad.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: It's. It's not good. I'll give you that.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: I've been saying for two years that, that Joe Flacco.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Wait, don't get into it. Yeah, we got a lot to go through before we get into all this stuff.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Fine. I won't open the show. Just do your thing.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah, you can find our podcast anyways. Yeah, you can find our podcast wherever. Each podcast, talking Apple Podcast, Spotify, stitcher, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora, iHeartrad podcast, Castro Good Pods where we are a number one ranked football podcast and so many more. 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 you can find our video podcast. And check us out on Facebook, Instagram and Tick Tock. Our handle for all those socials at Burning for Sportscast and we are on X as well with the handle at Burning River Pod. While you're at it, check out our merch www.thetappinmedia.com backslash shop all kinds of stuff in there. Before we get started, shout out to some of our sponsors. Topat Distillery. Topat Distillery. An award winning craft distillery local located in Akan, Ohio. Topath focuses on high quality spirits carefully made in small batches. Topaz Distillery. Handcrafted, award winning small batch local and family owned in prime time sports and framing. With locations in Hartville, Streetsboro, Belden Village, Great Northern and Kent. They are easily accessible wherever you are in Northeast Ohio. With the best selection and autographed collectibles and a world class framing operation. They are your go to for officially licensed memorabilia, primetime sports and framing.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: You name it, they frame it.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: You get excited for that.
And they also provided us with the Miles Garrett autographed game day poster that we are giving away right now. I'll talk more about that in just a minute. So keep that handy, Kenny. Yep, there you go.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Handy.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: But today on the show, this is what you can look forward to. We got a recap of today's Week 4 loss against the Lions.
Our nominees for dog of the week. What are the Browns even doing out here? What we think they should be doing out here and. And when we'll see the rookie QBs because I know that's going to come up as well, but I'm sure there'll be more. I don't know. Let's get things started by reminding everyone to call the burning of a sportscast.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Hot take hotline Hot take hotline.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Remember to call and leave your hot takes on the hot take hotline. Everybody should be pretty pissed off. We say this every week. I'm pretty tired of saying it, but for. For years now you should just be pissed off.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: We got a couple already. Let's keep them coming.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah, call and leave your hot takes on the hot take hotline. We will play those in our episode that comes out on Thursday.
We'll, we'll listen to them, we'll talk about them. Might even talk about you. I don't know. We'll see what happens.
But yeah, we want hot takes. 3302-2780-8133-0222-7808-1302-2780-8131.
Call us now.
And one last thing before we get to the recap. I just mentioned it a second ago. Kenny, pull that thing up again. We got an autographed Miles Garrett game day poster that we're giving away. If you haven't heard, go to our socials, check out the posts, follow all the directions to get entered.
The winner will be chosen chosen on 1026 closes just before the game starts on 1026. And then we will announce the winner on our live show that evening. So you can also just just a quick reminder, you can earn 50 bonus entries if you're subscribed to our YouTube at Burning River Sportscast. And if you don't have a YouTube account, make one. Takes about five minutes and you'll really help us out. So yeah, I guess now we can talk about the Browns.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Now we can talk about the show.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Yep. Go ahead.
Now that I submarine your whole, your whole opening. I didn't, I didn't want you to get everybody depressed before I told them about the good things we have going on. But go, go ahead.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: I've been saying, you know, since Joe Flacco was here the very first time, Right? Two years now that Joe Flacco is the best quarterback to ever don the orange and brown period was as good as there's ever been since 99.
And only Kevin Stefanski could turn that guy into the worst quarterback that's ever donned the orange brown.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: So he's both. Now you're saying two years ago he was the best quarterback that's ever been a Cleveland Brown in our lifetime, and now you're saying he's the worst.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: He's simultaneously the best and the worst. This is exactly why I was against bringing him here, because I knew that the second time, because I knew that this wasn't going to go well. I. I had fond memories of Joe Flacco, the legend of Browns quarterback Joe Flacco. The run that we. That we had. It was a lot of fun, and I didn't want that to be overshadowed by what is now just consecutive weeks of ass, which is where we are now. I mean, look, the. You look at the box scores and just take the.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: The.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: The name out of it. You wouldn't be able to tell me whether that was desean Watson or Joe Flacco.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: No. No. Well, and. And to me, okay, now we're. Now we're already getting down the path where I knew this was this evening was gonna lead at some point or another, which is.
It all points back to Kevin Stefanski. Stefanik. I'm officially going back to Stefanik with this guy. I don't respect him enough to pronounce his last name correctly. Like, seriously, how do you. How does it not matter what quarterback we have? They're always going to throw it 45 times for 160 yards.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Is that not a recipe for success?
[00:07:11] Speaker B: No, it's a recipe to fail every single time. Every time, though.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: They're doing a good job at that recipe.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, and by the way, it doesn't matter which quarterback you have, he's going to complete 56% of his passes.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Look, I was really optimistic heading into this week. In fact, I picked the Browns to win this week. That was.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: What an idiot.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Because I was under the impression that we would see the best Cleveland, the best version of the Cleveland Browns offense in. In this iteration of whatever this team is, because they had been so bad all year and that they were going to make whatever changes and come out with a fresh energy. And Joe Flacco would know that he was up against it because this is kind of his last chance to redeem himself as a starter in the League. All these things, right?
And that first drive was a thing of beauty. Joe Flacco was. Joe Flacco was.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: I'm sorry, I'm laughing at comments coming in.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Joe Flacco was on, you know, making throws on time. We were able to run the ball a little bit. We marched right down the field and scored. And I thought, yes, like, where has this team been hiding? Where has this offense been all season long?
And literally in a matter of seconds, they reverted back to everything they've been doing all year, which is just.
Ass.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's.
This is my actual reaction right now. I just don't have words anymore. I can't just keep saying the same things over and over. Like, it's been bad for. It's not like this just started.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Right?
[00:08:44] Speaker B: It's been bad for a while.
And here's the deal. Like, yes, sorry, I'm reading some of these comments here that Judkins did care. He's the only offense we have. So anybody out there.
He's the only offense we have. You're 100 correct. And we understand that. And it's all in here, too. We're going to talk about it, but I think the main thing we need to talk about is that Kevin Stefanik has no stones, just stoneless.
Why. Why did we go into halftime?
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Yeah, that's.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: With a completely stagnant offense with Joe Flacco throwing the most embarrassing interceptions I've ever seen in my life.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: I don't even know what that was. Right? Like, I expect Joe to air mail a few, you know, like, you know, punts on third down and long, like. And you just throw them down the field and whatever happens, happen. That's fine. What the hell was that? It was just a floating duck. He just popped it up. Like, what was. What was that?
[00:09:35] Speaker B: I don't know. And so when the entire world is like, okay, it has to happen, right? It has to happen at halftime. You got to go to the rookies because Joe Flacco once again comes out and looks like.
Like he's 85 years old.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: And what do we do? I. I texted you at halftime. I said. I said, this is it, right? This is it. And you said, nope, no stones.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: No stones. Dude doesn't have any stones. He's not. He can't make that call. That's two weeks in a row that you should have made a change at halftime, if nothing else, to signal to the rest of your team that what we're. What we're doing right now isn't good enough. We have to at least change it just to give us a shot to see if there's anything different we can do. Yeah, if it's worse, it's worse. But it's the only shot you have at different. And right now different is better than ass.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that's, it's an interesting point you bring up because I know we talked about this a little bit off air before we got on here and I keep hearing all these people, we've said, go to the rookies, go to the rookies, go to the rookies. And finally it sounds like everybody else is on board, which I'll talk about that later. But here's the deal. Everybody with the argument, with the arguments of the rookies aren't ready or you can't throw them to the wolves like that. Our line's terrible. Our receivers aren't catching the ball. A couple things. One, the line and the receivers aren't getting any better this year. So if you're not going to do it now, you're not going to do it later, like, don't. That doesn't, that doesn't even make sense. And two, you want to talk about tanking confidence or throwing them to the wolves or whatever, what do you think it's doing to Gabriel's and Shador Sanders confidence sitting on the bench and Kevin Stefanski telling them every game you can't score 10 points because that's how many points we can score. We don't, we are not confident in you scoring 10 points.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that's a real slap in the, in the face there. I can't do as good as this guy's doing, who's doing absolutely nothing.
Can I go back to the interception again real quick? The whatever that pop up was because I, I guess it was kind of waved off as like, oh, it's got to be a miscommunication. What play is drawn up for us to just toss the ball as high as possible into the air and hope somebody runs under it. Like that's not. Even if it was a miscommunication, I've never seen an ethical quarterback make that throw. That was a 60 degree wedge, right? Like that was a flop shot.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: That wasn't Floppadopoulos.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: That wasn't a Hail Mary. Just throw it down the field.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Joe Flacco, nobody wants to see your Floppadopoulos.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: What the hell was that?
[00:12:06] Speaker B: That was.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: But, but agreed. I mean, I.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Look, if, and here's the deal, here's the deal. To add on to what I was saying, we're not getting any better. As a matter of fact, we actually keep getting worse. So two games ago, we were averaging 13.2 games over the last eight, and then last week we scored 13, so now we went down to 13.1 points over the last nine. Well, guess what? We scored 10 this week. So now we're at somewhere around, I don't, you know, math's not perfect, but right around 12.8 points a game over the last 10 games, we're getting worse.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: So you're telling me that the rookies can't do at least that and the.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Only consistent variable there is Kevin Stefanski because, yeah, play callers in there, you've had Ken Dorsy, you've had Tommy Reese, now you've had different quarterbacks.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: But don't talk about. It's not Kevin's problem. It's not Kevin. All these Cleveland fans. And don't get me wrong, I love all you guys out there, but all these Cleveland fans still want to preach on, on Kevin Stefanski as an off offensive guru. And we use that. That's a tongue in cheek term because nobody in Cleveland media, besides the, the media that is basically owned by the Browns, nobody thinks Kevin's an offensive guru. Nobody thinks that Kevin Stefanski is this quarterback genius, this quarterback whisperer. Like, we've seen enough quarterbacks be terrible. We've seen the offense be terrible. Like, but. But there's still the people out there that'll tell you, like, he knows what he's talking about. We got to keep him in there. He's a good coach.
What evidence do you have of this? I want to know. I want to know.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: The evidence they point to is the fact that he's two time coach of the year. Kevin.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Yeah, the first one, Joe Flacco played out of his mind six games. Like literally out of. He's never played that way before or since.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Well, that was the second one. But the first one. The first one was with Baker.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I just, I'm going back from like now, like back in time. Like the first one, most recent one, and then after that. Yeah, the Baker one, you know, when the guy started to be pretty good before we shipped him out.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Oh, and by the way, Kevin Stefanski was sick with COVID when we won a playoff game and then when he came back, we promptly lost. So, yeah. Who couldn't stop Chad Henny?
[00:14:22] Speaker A: The real coach of the year was that Mike Prefer that coach that game.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Yeah. We couldn't stop Chad Henney to beat the Chiefs that year. In case anyone was wondering, Chad Henney. Chad Henney, that's the guy to get to.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Go back to my original point, though, which was they point to this Coach of the Year.
I think it's time that we just stop naming a Coach of the Year because in recent history, Coach of the Year really hasn't done a whole lot for anyone. Who was the Coach of the Year last year?
Kevin o', Connell, a guy with zero playoff wins, who wanted the year before Stefanski won it in 23. Brian Dayball. Anybody think he's Coach of the Year this year?
Then you have, before Dayball, Mike Vrabel, who promptly was fired for his performance. And then you have Kevin Stefanski again.
And then you have Matt Nagy in there in 18 or 19. So, like a bunch of guys that, like, nobody wants to coach your football team. That's what reporting. He won that award. Okay, great.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Yeah. You know the guys.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: He won the Day Ball variable Nagy Award.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: You know the guys who don't get Coach of the Year. The guys whose teams are consistently good because they're just expected because they're always winning. Yeah.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Every year.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Yeah. You win Coach of the Year because you take a bad organization and you get lucky one time and you get him in the playoffs. If Kevin Stefanski had kept it. Stefanik. I'm. I gotta keep reminding myself I don't respect this guy. If Kevin Stefanik would have kept them in the playoffs since that first playoff appearance, he'd only have one.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah. He wouldn't be Coach of the Year. Yeah.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: But he hasn't.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: So I just, like, the game was so bad. I, like, I'm still processing. Like, I haven't even collected my own thoughts.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Sorry, you can't see the. Sorry, I gotta tell you this. The. Your, your. Your comment about Joe Flacco and throwing the interception on Facebook. We got a comment and the guy said, Joe Flacco said there's a DB down there somewhere.
Shout out to James on that one. James Frank with. Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: But honestly, I mean, all three phases of the ball, you know, putrid, putrid, putrid.
I know people were on Schmidt a little bit about missing the kick, but that was like a 60 yard, a.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: 56 yard field goal. Like, if you're lucky, you're 2 of 7 from 56.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if you're kicking. If you're making half of those, you're doing pretty good. Like, I don't. I don't have any animus against Schmidt this week. He made his other kick and made the Extra point. So like he was fine. But the rest of the special teams, that punt return was a disaster.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: That's another guy. Bubba Ventrone's gotta go.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Zero coverage at all going on there. I just don't even know what they were doing.
You know, the, the defense played fine again. Right. Like, they played well enough for this team to win. They only gave up 277 yards or something. A total offense. So. Yeah, they didn't. Big sack game like Miles didn't have multiple sacks or anything. There was nothing. But there were, but they were disruptive. And outside of Jameer Gibbs getting loose a couple of times, you know, they, they stopped the run for the most part. I think David Montgomery, who's a 4.2 yard per rush career rusher, averaged 1.2 yards of carry today, so.
And Jameer Gibbs didn't break a hundred, so they were right around 100 yards total.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah, total. The Lions, and this is another one of those high powered rushing offenses.
Yeah, The Lions had 109 yards. Like, I, I, if you would have told me before the game that they would have 109 yards rushing and Jared Goff would only have 168 yards passing, I was like, we're probably in this game.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
Lose by 24.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: No, no, but we did, but we did.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: We found a way.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So just back to your comments, especially about the special teams like Bubba Ventrone. Like, I, I know people are probably not wanting to hear this and we're talking about you know, just basically fire sale at this point, but the organization is terrible, top down. So like let's, let's be real here. Stefanik has to go. Bubba Ventrone definitely has to go. I mean, our, our special team since we, since we signed Bubba Ventrone as the special teams coach, they've got to be the, and I, this is anecdotal, I admit that, but they've got to be the worst in the league. I can't tell you the number of times one, our kickers have all been asked, every single one of them.
Luckily, Schmidt's starting to hopefully turn it around again. I agree with you. I don't put the 56 yarder on him like it's a 56 yard field goal.
But the, the kickers in general have been bad.
We've given up. We have no return game over the last few years. Absolutely none.
As a matter of fact, if anybody doesn't recall last year we spent half the season just trying to figure out somebody that could catch a punt.
So, and then now, you know, we're giving up returns. So what exactly does Bubba Ventrone bring to the table?
[00:19:12] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Do you know?
[00:19:14] Speaker A: I mean, I mean, I think their problems are far greater than Bubba Ventrone, but he is one of them.
But, yeah, look, I mean, we. I've been saying this all year, like there was a lot of hope and optimism, you know. You know, this year is. To me, this is my favorite. My favorite movie growing up was Dumb and Dumber. I watched it religiously. I watched it every night before bed for a long time.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: You still quote it pretty much every day.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: Quote that movie in and out, every single line, all the way down to the, you know, size in between words.
And when they said they were making a sequel to Dumb and Dumber, I was like, yes, this is gonna be great. And then the sequel comes out and, you know, it's not even the original actors and it's really a terrible movie.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: You're talking about the first sequel before they really did make a sequel.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And then years later, there's like, there's going to be another sequel and it's actually going to have Jim Carrey and it's going to be great. And then it comes out and it was just one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Like, that's what this season is like. I had a lot of hope and optimism for, you know, a new Browns season, but at the end of the day, like, what we got was a crap sandwich that came out. Like, that's. That's what this year is. This team's not going to win a lot of games.
You got two rookie quarterbacks on this roster that you need to, you know, see what you have in that. Stefanik is, is clearly against trying to evaluate either one of these guys. I think it's because he's terrified.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: He's. He's hell bent on going into next year. Let me just slap some, some people with reality that say we don't need to evaluate him right now. He is hell bent on going into next year with two second year players at quarterback and a rookie, none of which have seen any playing time. That's what he's. That's what he wants to do next year. You think that that's, that's a recipe for success?
[00:21:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what we're going with.
I mean, I don't, and I don't know, like, who's impressed right now by this quarterback crop. Like, Arch Manning has been underwhelming. I'm hearing a lot of talk about Lenora Sellers. Who has four touchdowns on the year and one pick.
Who's the. Drew Aller just got beat by Oregon this week, like, and he didn't play.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Well, the best part about Drew Aller, too, is, is they say going into the game, they said the big story was how Drew Aller is going to fare against the big game narrative and the fact that there's, like, all this talk already that he can't win the big game, and then he promptly lost the big game, so.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: And every game in the NFL is a big game.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: So that's.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: That's a problem for that guy.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: You know who. You know who Drew Aller reminds me of?
[00:21:49] Speaker A: The Dumb and Dumber sequel.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: No. Brady Quinn.
Brady Quinn never won a big game at Notre Dame, and everyone touted him as this. This top.
This top talent, and he just wasn't good. He had really big arms, but he wasn't very good.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: The biggest arms. He had great hair.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah, but he wasn't good.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: But he wasn't that good. No.
So, yeah, like, I don't know that. And. And look, we were counting on, oh, we might have, like, two picks in the top 10. Jacksonville's three and one right now. So I don't know if you guys have caught that.
You can say goodbye to that pick. Maybe being in the top 10 could.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Be a. I just hope they lose.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: The rest of their games, you know, so it's funny because I've heard a lot of talk about, oh, you know, Mason Graham's been so good inside thus far, and Travis Hunter's been, you know, not. Not all that great. And, yeah, the Browns won the trade and all this. Well, Jacksonville's winning the war because they're 3 and 1 and you're 1 3. So.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I just have to point this out, James, on Facebook's, you're talking dumb and dumber. He said, there's all over the wall. It's everywhere. How do you get on the ceiling?
James, you gotta listen to the closing of our. Of our normal shows that come out on Thursdays. Just go to the. You know, I don't even care. Just go to the end and listen to the closing of the show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm with you, though. It's just. It's. It's a terrible scene. It. It's. It feels really bad that the predictions that we made are coming true before the season. Because that was the thing, right? Is, you know, we. This is what we do. We're making a podcast about the Browns.
We don't want to say these things. We don't want to predict that they're.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Going to be terrible.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: I don't want them to be bad, but they are. And it feels even worse when we're right.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: It's bad for our business when they're bad.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Because people truly don't listen. So, yeah, we want nothing more than the Browns to be good, but they aren't.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: They aren't. They aren't. And if that wasn't enough, just to add some insult to injury, Cedric Tillman out with the hamstring injury. So he's probably gonna be silent for at least a month.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: See you later, Cedric. Yeah, Isaiah Bond played okay today.
I mean, it wasn't great. He had what, three catches for 50 yards?
[00:24:07] Speaker B: We'll get, get there. Yeah.
I mean, I don't you have anything else about the game? There's really a sandwich is what you said, so pretty much sums it up.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: It's just disappointing to like be excited for a game on Sunday and then to realize that every time the offense has the ball, like just nothing's going to happen. Like you can just tune out, take a nap, like you're not going to miss anything.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: And that's the biggest thing. Again, go back to the rookie quarterback conversation and why are they not playing when we.
It's not.
If the fans are seeing it. And the whole world's, not just the fans, the whole world's seeing it. Every time the offense steps on the field, they're just inept. They, they can't do anything. So you're going to tell me that a new guy in there isn't going to give him at least a little bit momentum, a little bit of excitement? Especially if he, if he does come in and he, you know, what if he goes down and scores a touchdown or two in this first few series and then all of a sudden the offense was like, okay, we'll play for this guy.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Well, let's, let's play this out, right? Like, let's, let's, let's see, here's, here's the options. If you switched quarterbacks at halftime, Dylan Gabriel comes in and completes zero passes for zero yards and you lose the game, okay? So the result is still the same. But you also know Dylan Gabriel completed zero passes. So you're starting to get a feel for the fact that he's not very good, which is good for the long term prognostication to determine whether or not he can be your starter or if he comes in and plays really well and changes things. All of a sudden you're like, hey, maybe we have something here. Maybe we have a chance to even win this game.
Both of those things are better than the purgatory that we currently find ourselves in, which is watching Joe Flacco go three and out on every offensive series.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah, here's another team that wasn't getting anything out of their veteran quarterback was the New York Giants. They started a rookie. How'd that, how'd that turn out for him?
[00:26:00] Speaker A: All of a sudden Brian Dable has new life in New York.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: I think they, they gotta, they won.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Yeah, they did win.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: The offense actually moved, so.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Yeah, but then they lost Malik neighbors for the year, so.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Well, that feels bad. But I mean I, I'll say it, I'll say I wasn't gonna say it because if Jerry Judy went down for the year, I mean, are we really going to miss his 14 drops?
[00:26:25] Speaker A: Like, probably not another bad one today. I mean, look, and, and look Joe, Joe has played bad. He didn't get any help from his team today. Blake Whiteheart had a drop, Jerry Judy had a drop. Harold Fannin had a drop.
But those were the ones that actually had a chance to be caught because there were plenty of balls that were air mailed thrown into the dirt, hot flies thrown to their team.
So it wasn't like Joe was on his game all day and these guys were making him look bad. It was just a collectively poor performance across the board.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Yep.
I don't know, I feel like we didn't talk about the defense enough. I mean, the defense played pretty well like you said.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, the defense was fine. Like this defense is good enough to win games in the NFL. In fact, it's good enough to win a lot of games in the NFL. But you have to get something out of your offense.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: That's the thing, right, is, is all these people that are talking about how good the defense is. And we said it last week, that was actually one of the, one of the reels I put out this week was talking about how can the defense sustain this. The answer is obviously no, because you can't hold teams to 10 points every year. That's just every week you, it's, you just can't do it. It's not the NFL we live in today.
And yeah, defense wins championships, but to your point, defense wins championships.
Assuming you have some offense.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah, you have to, you have to put some points, points on the board. I mean we were on them all year last year because this team averaged 15.2 points a game and that wasn't good enough. And they're Doing objectively worse.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: This year. So it's just not good enough. It's not an NFL offense.
I mean, something needs.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: I guess that's why we didn't talk about the defense because it just comes back to the offense being really bad.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And, and look, I guess like you're also in a tough spot because like, what are you gonna do? You're probably, you're probably not going to fire Kevin Stefanski in week four and make no stones. The interim head coach.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: No stones.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Have to deal with this guy the rest of the year. Because that's the decision that we made before the season, was that Kevin Stefanski was your coach and you were going to ride this thing out. And so all I can say is like, it's going to be a long year.
I think Stefanski is terrified to make this change. Stefanik is terrified to make this quarterback change. And here's the reason why, I'll tell you. And as much as they want to say Dylan Gabriel is so much further ahead than Shador Sanders and all this and that and he's a great whiteboard quarterback back and all these things, let's be real here. Like Shador is the more NFL ready body he is, you know, the more.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Oh yeah. And that ain't gonna change because Hawaii 59 is not getting any taller.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: The more battle tested of the two. Like there was a reason that he was projected to go much earlier than draft.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: For the most part, people did respect his talent. They weren't sure when exactly he was gonna go. And I think we're all pretty sure at some point that there was some kind of collusion involved in, in his drop because it's just highly unusual that a guy drops to the fifth round after being a first to second round projection.
And, and I know Shador didn't play well in that last preseason game, but he also played really well in the first one. So I just, I think he is the better quarterback. And I think. And I think Stefanik is terrified to make that change because it's just one more thing that's going to put another nail in his coffin when Dylan Gabriel comes out and isn't very good and Shador does eventually get a chance to play or hell maybe they trade him to another team and he plays and balls out there. Like, you know, the Browns will do stupid things like that, so I wouldn't put that past them. But I think they're terrified to actually put.
To put the wheels in motion there because it's just one more thing that's going to make them look bad.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, I think he's also terrified because, you know, the, the, the product on the field is piss poor right now and. But you look at, you know, we talk about both Andrew Barry and Kevin Stefanik and we kind of think both of them should go. But Andrew Barry, at least right now, short is very short term, small sample size, but all the rookies that he drafted are playing well and.
But it's not coming to anything on the field. So like now it's like, do you keep Andrew Barry and get rid of Stefanik? He's probably really starting to feel it. I mean, I know every week the NFL has him climbing the hot seat as far as rankings. I think he. A few. When the season started he was like number eight or seven somewhere around there. And I think just last week before this game he was at 5 and I'm pretty sure after this week he's probably. Probably three or two, so.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Well, it's right where he should be because he's terrible. So.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
So. Yeah, I don't know. Real quick, before we get done with the recap of the game, I just want to shout out my dad real quick. Actually. My dad is a big Detroit Lions fan. Has been his whole life was born up in either Cadillac or Pontiac. I always forget which one.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Big Jim.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: Yeah, Big Jim.
He texted me before. He texted me before the game. He says, let me get to it here. He says, you got a prediction?
And he said 35, 14 lions.
And I said 21, 17 lions. I said, I don't think they get 35 on this defense.
But the Browns can't score, so the Lions will win for sure.
My dad comes back with the touchdowns are from lack of Brown's offense, short field and turnovers. Didn't even have to watch the game. I could have just listened to Big Jim.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Big Jim had. Big Jim had it figured out.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. You call him Big Jim to all of us around the family and everybody that's ever heard him have a nickname. It's Buzz, but it. Yeah, yeah, Buzz.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Big Buzz.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Buzz or Big Jim, whatever you want to call him. He called it. I shouldn't even have tuned in. I should have just had a better Sunday.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a bad Sunday. Feels bad.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Guardians are good.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: But the Guardians are good though. Shout out to the Guardians. Yeah. Thank you for making our. Our life a little bit more livable.
Our sports life, that is, yeah.
A phenomenal. I mean obviously everybody knows the story, but 15 and a half games back, they officially have broken the record in the MLB for the most games back to come. Come back and win the division. So.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: And how about that game last night? Like they kind of backed their way into the playoffs with the way that game ended.
[00:32:45] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that was like, that was like typical guards ball, just chaos. It was.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: But then to just put the exclamation point on the season with. To the. The end of today's game, bottom of.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: The 10th or whatever it was.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Or like. So, yeah, just so, like, just very Guardians.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Like, and, and it. I'm pretty sure if the, if I'm not mistaken, the timing of the games, I'm pretty sure Detroit had just lost their game. They're like, all right, walk off. See. Yeah.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean it's just awesome. That's. That's a team. We'll say we've said it probably a hundred times on our podcast is the Guardians organization. I know a lot of people give them and they want to say you need to spend more money. Whatever, whatever. The Guardians organ organization as a whole is the best run organization in all of sports.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: I'll say it again. In all of sports. They always, they're a small market team. They never pay out a ton. They. They stick to their principles, but they have a hell of a farm system. They bring up a ton of players and they are consistently in the hunt.
They'll have a few down years here and there where they don't make it, but overall they're consistently in the hunt. And we make a run every once in a while. It's gonna pay off.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: I think I heard since 95 they've been to the postseason 14 or 15 times. Yeah, I mean for a small market club, like, that's pretty good. It's really good.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty good. And in the last, I think, like, you probably want to look at like 15 to 20 years. I would be. I think almost all of those probably came in that time frame. I think there's probably only like three between 2005 and 1995 and 2005 or 1997 after the second World Series appearance in 2005.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Admittedly, baseball's not as fun as football, but.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: No, but.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: But it's at least nice that they're good. It's, you know, something for us to hang our hat on.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So real quick before we get out of here, Kenny, Dog of the week nominees.
I know we lost and it's terrible and the Browns aren't good, but we got to find a silver lining that's what we do, whether we like to or not. And I'll start with Bones, because he sent it in. Bone has nominated Isaiah Bond as his dog of the week. And so let me pull up the box score here. Three receptions, 58 yards.
Isaiah Bond, dog of the week, baby. Yeah, Kenny, who's your dog of the week?
[00:35:10] Speaker A: I'll go quinch on again. I mean, you know, for two weeks in a row now, he's been the only heartbeat in that offense, at least all.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: So 21 carries, 82 yards, a touchdown, and then a couple catches there, I.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Think at 30 yards and receiving as well. So.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: Yeah, four.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: Four.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Four catches for 33 yards receiving.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Very workmanlike effort on a poor offensive day.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: Yep. And then for me, I was tempted to go Ronnie Hickman just because he was flying all over the field today, and he's just a hell of a story with the fact that he's just kind of undrafted free agent. Was like, I'm gonna come on and play a lot of meaningful snaps, but I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna go with the other.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: It is odd that, like, he was so unheralded because, like, I feel like he was a good college boy. I mean, we saw. We saw a lot of them, but. Yeah, but I always thought he was really good. So, like, I was stoked when he ended up in Cleveland, and.
And he's been a good piece.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: I agree. So honorable mention for him, because I'm not going with him. I'm going with the other Buckeye on the defense with Denzel Ward.
He had the pick. He damn near got us some points, and we really need those.
[00:36:16] Speaker A: That was as close as we got to points after that first drive.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm gonna go with Denzel Ward for my dog of the week nominee.
But, yeah, final thoughts here.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Kenny, are we already to that point?
[00:36:33] Speaker B: Yeah, we're. We're there. Quick show. Browns are bad. You said it.
You pretty ice. You pretty much said it all. You know.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: My. My final thought.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: Do you want me to go first? Did you prepare a monologue? Nice. Okay.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: I didn't prepare a monologue. You can go first, though.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: I'll go first. On. On final thoughts. For my final thoughts, I just want to say, welcome, Browns fans. Welcome, Browns media.
Welcome to the show. We've been here for quite some time.
I know before the season started, Bone and I both kind of said, yeah, let's run with Flacco to start the season.
And we said, assuming he wins games, then you ride that as long as you can. Now I will say this, Kenny. Before the season started, he's been saying it all along. He said, you don't ever go with Flacco because what does that get you?
Now I see the error in my ways. You're right, Kenny.
But I was willing to give it at least that one week. Unfortunately, after one week, I could already tell that this offense was just going to be putrid.
So basically after the first week and us not moving the ball and looking like garbage, I said, yeah, give it to the rookies. Because this team, this team that we saw wins three to five games max. And the five games, if you stick with Flacco, the three games, if you go with the rookies, I'm gonna revise that and say we win three to four games max in the four games if you go with the rookies, in the three games if you stick with Flacco.
So, yeah, welcome to the shit show. We've been here a while. We know you guys are all. That's the hot takes this week. Oh, you got to go to the rookies. You gotta. You gotta bench Flacco. What is Stefanik doing? We gotta get rid of Stefanik. We gotta get rid of. We've been here. We've been calling for Stefanic and Barry's jobs for two years now.
Despite all the magic we had with Flacco last time.
And us, us, you know, just blind squirrel finds a nut.
Like we've been calling the nut, but.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: They can find the nut.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Yeah, we've. We've been calling for their jobs for a while because they've really shown nothing in the last several that says they should still have a job. I mean, I'll say it. I've said it a million times. I'm gonna say it one more time after this year. Assuming we win between those three to five games that I mentioned, Stefanik's gonna be right around 16 games under.500 in six years.
Under 500.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: 16 games that you will have said 1 million times is yes.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: So that. That's my final thought, Kenny.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: My final thought is I'm going to be the biggest Green Bay packers fan for the rest of the season.
I'm hoping that they win the rest of their games, win the Super bowl, go 16 and 1 and just run the table here. So I'm rooting for them tonight here against Dallas because that will be the only redeemable quality about this season is if we can look back and say at 16. One, that was us.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: That was us.
We got the one.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: Go pack, go back.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Go Go, pack, go.
Yeah. So with that, let me remind everybody to call the burning river sportscast hot take hotline. Remember, these are hot takes. We want hot takes. Call and leave them on the hot take hotline.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: Call us or we'll kick you in the jimmies.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Right in the jimmies. 3302-2780-8133-0227-808-1330, 227, 8081 call now. We're not standing by, but we'll put those on our show that'll air on Thursday. Be sure to check out our gear. Www.thetabitmedia.com backslash shop and that'll do it for us. Kenny, what can we expect this week?
[00:40:14] Speaker A: What can we expect this week?
So we'll have our normal show out on Thursday.
We'll Preview the Week 5 game in London against the Vikings.
Another Browns backer interview with the British Bu Dog Brown backers. This should be fun.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Special guest, Paul Brown. Yeah, Paul Brown. He's a fixture amongst.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: Not that Paul Brown. The, the. The other. The other Paul Brown that's popular in Cleveland.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Yes, there's lots of Paul Browns in Cleveland.
But that and all the other things. You listen to the Bernier sportscast for like the same takes over and over and over.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: We give them to you again.
Check us out on social media. Tapping media is on Facebook, X and Instagram at the tapping media and burning over sportscast. That's this podcast is on Facebook, Instagram, tick tock and YouTube at burning for sportscast and on X at burning over pod. You can find our podcast wherever you get your podcast. Talking to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Pandora, iHeartRadio podcast, Castro Good Pods where we are a number one ranked football podcast and so many more. And please, please, please, please, please leave us reviews on your podcast App of choice. Helps us grow and get seen and keep bringing you the best damn pod in the land.
I think we're done.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Man, they're so bad. Yeah, the Browns is really bad. And that's a problem. Don't just be a part of the problem. Be the whole damn problem.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: And only you can prevent river fires.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: Yes. Burning rivers.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Good night, Cleveland.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: Not yet.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: Good. Good night, Cleveland.
Good night, Cleveland.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: Sam.
