Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: It's time.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Time for another very special live edition of the Burning River Sportscast.
Christmas didn't come early, but it did come and the Browns get a win 136 over Pittsburgh.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: I came late.
I thought Santa wasn't coming.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: He showed up.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: He's here.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: No, no sat, no sack of toys, but he showed up.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: You know who's not jolly? Aaron Rodgers. That guy looks pissed off at all times. Yeah, yeah, he has to have, I saw the joke today. He has to have the highest blood pressure in the entire NFL.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: He, he's, he, he's got good emotes. Yeah. You know, the camera cuts to him on, on the field.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Speaking of him, before we really get into things, I just real quick so I don't forget this. I liked at the end of the game when he. The last incompletion for the game and, and he was trying to like draw out the defense and they were just like, just giving it to him. They're like, no, you suck. You're old.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Yeah. You're washed.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So anyways, you can find our podcast wherever you get your podcast. I'm talking app podcast, Spotify, stitcher, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora, Heart radio, podcast, Castro Good pods. We're number one ranked football podcast.
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[00:02:53] Speaker A: You name it, they frame it.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: You don't get excited for like anything on our show except for that they provided all our giveaways this year. So we really Appreciate that.
And today on the show, this is what you can look forward to. Recap of today's Week 17 win over the Steelers. A closer look at everything. Offense, defense, special teams. Our nominees for dog of the week, Miles Garrett wasn't able to get home and get it done versus the Steelers. We'll talk about that QB and coaching talk.
Because even with the win, these are the hot topics right now, and I'm sure there's gonna be so many more. But let's get things started by reminding everyone to call the burning of a sportscast hot take hotline.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Call that. Call that. Hotline.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Call the hot take hotline.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Rolling in.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah, James. Frank, make sure you're calling in the hot take. Hollad. I. I've tried to get you to call before, James, and you have not, so I'm disappointed.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Sounds like you might have called.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Oh, we got one. I called him out and instantly he's like, wait, I called?
Yeah. So make sure you call in. I know that. I know our boys from North Jersey are going to call in. They always do. But we need more. Cliff, if you're out there, a few of these other guys that have called in before but we haven't heard from in a while. We want to hear from you. Yeah.
Number on that. 3302-2788-1330-2278, 081. Pull it up there again. 3302-2781-8081-8081.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah, call that. Call that. We'll kick you in the Haslams right in the Jimmy's.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: All right, so let's go ahead with the Week 17 recap. We'll start with special teams. Was there, was there any major blunders on special teams today?
[00:04:29] Speaker A: That last punt return wasn't good with the game on the line, but luckily the defense kind of bailed everybody out today, so no big blunders. I actually texted you guys during the game, just not in special teams at all, but, but just around, like, all year long, I've kind of waffled on Andre Schmidt. Like, I don't know if he's. I still don't know if he's the guy I want making a clutch kick. But, like, it's time to put some respect on his name. I mean, you know, he had a rough start here, but, you know, rookie. Not a rookie, but a first year, you know, NFL player.
And yeah, he's. He's afforded himself really well this year. He's made. Made all his kicks again today.
So I just think you know, for. For better or worse, like, he's. He's at least a passable NFL kicker at this point. So I'm no longer worried that that's a huge gap for us.
I mean, I guess we'll see if we ever get into a high leverage situation. How he fares.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: I was going to say, how often do we have a game on the line type kick? It's just like, once. Maybe once a season.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. But. But to this point, like, not that we owe him any kind of apology, but he's. He's. He's done well. He's had a nice season.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: No, he's. Yeah, I, I agree with you, and I don't think we owe an apology. I mean, early on, we were hard on him for missing the kick.
There was a kick with the game on the line early in the season that he missed. I think it was like game one or two.
I think it was the Bengals first game, wasn't it? Yeah. So we did get on him about that. He came back and kind of redeemed himself. He kept hitting kicks throughout the season, and we.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: We.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: I think we kind of were steady with it. We were like, oh, he's playing better. He's been better. He's been better. He hasn't, you know, he's. Hasn't done anything stupid.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Well, I think after today, I think he's like 22 of 25 on this season.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: So, like, it's pretty good.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: It's pretty good. You're making 85 of your kicks. And, and, you know, he certainly doesn't.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Today. He hit one from 50 if I'm not.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah. It doesn't struggle with long kicks. So, you know, I know someday we'll play in a dome, but that day is not today.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Maybe you'll hit from 70 when that day comes.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Having. Having a big leg to be able to. To get the. The drive on it necessary to kick field goals in December in Cleveland. It's a good thing. So.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And I know we're not at the part of our show where we beat up on Kevin Stefanski, but I'm gonna go ahead and go there already because I will say, what the hell was the point in going for it on fourth down at the end of the first half when it was. That's the timing, right. It was the end of the first half, and we had just. Just like less than a quarter before that. He had hit from 50 yards. Going the other way.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah, you hit from. From 50, and then that one would have been from 51, and apparently that was the cutoff for today. So we ended up going Forward on, like, 4th and 7.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: There's terrible play that was drawn up.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: And not very nice outside, but.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a terrible play that was drawn up. I know the. You know, the. It wasn't.
It was not a great route, not a great pass.
But regardless of. Even if those two things would have went well, there was a defender all over our guy, and they would. We threw it. We needed. It was fourth and seven, you said, and threw it for five yards. So.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it just didn't make sense. In. In.
It was pretty clear early on, like, that this was going to be a bit of a struggle to get points.
And, you know, in a close game, three points matters. I mean, I would at least have rather taken the crack at points and turn the ball over there, you know, if you missed the field goal. But.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Yep. Just a heads up, Kenny, Our. Our crew from Glass City has joined us on Facebook, so. Nice. Glass. Glass City Browns backers. How you doing?
And in a true.
You know, their. Their own style, it says was kicking Glass. Yeah.
Taking names and kicking Glass. But anyways. Yeah. So the special teams.
See how that works. The special teams is actually okay, and we can be competitive.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: It didn't cost us a game today.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
So let's go ahead and go to. We'll actually go to the defense first because there's not as much to talk about. I mean, they were pretty good today. I say not much to talk about, but it's because they did their jobs.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, there was. It was a really good effort. I mean, the defense. The defense carried the day, and. And frankly, Miles Garrett carried the day. I know he didn't. He didn't light up the box score and we didn't get the. The sack, but frankly, I mean, what an embarrassing effort by Pittsburgh's offensive game plan.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Oh, good God. Like, look how embarrassed. That's. That's the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen that you would. You're so worried about a player breaking the SA record against you that you literally only game plan for him. And you lost the game, which was for the division. This was your best chance to win the division. If you won the division today, you're good to go. Now you got to play Baltimore next week, and I'm picking Baltimore in that because head to head. I like Baltimore every day.
And. And you lost it today because you were so worried about a defensive end breaking a record.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Well, and regardless of what happens next week, you had a Chance against a three win team today to close out the division.
So just was, was an embarrassing, pathetic effort.
You know, I expect that sort of thing from Pittsburgh. Look, we've been high on Mike Tomlin obviously. 19 seasons where they've been above. 500.
Impressive. Good work to be done. We've always kind of said tongue in cheek like we would like Mike Tomlin here in Cleveland.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Oh, they fired Stefanski in the off season. I take him after today.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Some, some just really, really baffling coaching decisions. Starting with the game plan being at all costs, do not let Miles Garrett break the sack record.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Well, it was so evident because they threw like three yard passes all day, screens, everything.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: They were getting the ball out in even tough situations. He was flipping the ball around to guys shoveling passes out that probably should have just not been done just because they were high risk, low reward.
But starting with the offensive game plan and then the fourth and one where they threw the fade to some backup wide receiver that's a hundred years old.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: So bold choice. Let's see if it pays off.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: And then the decision at the end of the game to throw at Denzel Ward three times.
Three times you go at the time.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: One of the best corners, if not.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Best defensive player outside of Miles, and you throw the ball at him three times.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: That's your plan to win, like legitimately. He might be the best man to man player in the league. The only reason he doesn't get more respect is because he's hurt so often.
But he's. When he's healthy, they. I would put him up against anybody in the league, man to man.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: So I mean, what did the Browns have this year? Two Pro Bowlers. I think it's him and Miles.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: I mean, Miles, it's.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: It's not like you had DK Metcalf out there, right? I mean, you've got Marquez, Valdez, scantling, I mean, you know, in a retread role. So just made no sense. So whatever respect that I did have for Mike Tomlin coming into today's game, just questionable decisions all over the place. And the most embarrassing thing is that they clearly, clearly were concerned so much about Miles that they weren't worried about anything. I mean, that was the game plan today. The one thing they wanted to accomplish was not let Miles get a sack. Well, congrats. You did that and you put your playoff hopes in jeopardy.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Yeah. A couple of, a couple of comments real quick before we move on Glass City Browns backers, we've got Stefanski, the Polish prince of ups.
That's a good one. These are coming from Facebook, so I can't, I can't screen, screen like put them on the screen like you can. So from YouTube and X, but.
And then Meyer Lansky, hopefully I'm pronouncing that right. Uh, coming in from Toledo, he said Baltimore's gonna sweep them.
And he said this was so embarrassing. I thought Vegas was behind the loss.
And he said is, is Tomlin's tenure coming to an end? Yeah, I think they're firing him after. I really do. I think they would. I think they're probably going to do a, one of those mutual decisions to part ways after the season if they don't make the playoffs or even if they do make the playoffs and lose in the first round. I think this is the end for Tomlin, the Steelers.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Well, after watching today's game, you got to think the guys lost the plot a little bit.
I mean, geez, you were coming into to Cleveland to play a bad three win football team, starting a rookie quarterback. Not only rookie quarterback, rookies everywhere, all over the team that rookies. More rookies have taken snaps on this team than any other team in the NFL this season by like a thousand plays.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: So this was a game that a good team should walk in and beat you like Chicago did a couple weeks ago.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: I'd have to look it up. I don't, don't take this for, for gospel here, but I'm pretty sure I read this week that they are to like the record of most close to or have the record for most rookie playing time like ever.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: It's gotta be. I mean it's, it's all over the field. I mean even our backups are rookies. Right. Raheem Sanders was in there today toting the rock. He's a rookie too. So they signed some other guy off the practice squad this week to play tight end that caught a pass today.
I don't even know if he's a rookie or not, but he's a young guy that I've never seen play in an NFL game before after Harold Brandon went down.
I mean this team is young, inexperienced, has nothing to play for and you had everything to play for.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Everything.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Especially if you're Aaron Rodgers, right? You're, you're kind of in the twilight, right. I don't know if he'll play, if this will be his last year, if he'll play another year or two. Doesn't seem like he's, he struggled too much this year. I mean he's, he's been about average but so he obviously still physically can play, but who knows what, you know, his, his long term projection is for, you know, how long he's going to hang around. All I know is very well could have been your, your swan song.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Yeah. All I know is if he doesn't play anymore, the NFL just got a lot nicer because he's just always angry.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: I'd be angry after today.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: I mean I'd just be angry if I was Aaron Rodgers. He probably has no idea which way is up.
Listen, so that was, that's the defense that I, you know, we pretty much talked about most of it. Miles Garrett was not able to get it done. Oh, I did want to touch on this. Anybody that, that don't, I don't want to hear it out of anybody. And we, I know we talked about this at length in our, you know, our weekly episode.
I don't want to hear it out of anybody about Miles Garrett and the whole. It took him seven because he's, I'm assuming he's going to get it next week, but it's going to take him 17 games instead of 16 games to get it.
We talked about this on our show this week. I'm pulling it up right now so we could just uh, re talk about it here.
But his efficiency numbers this year are absolutely off the charts.
Like it's not even close. The guys that he's close to in this record took far more passing snaps, passing plays to get their record than he did. So even though it was in 16 games. TJ Watt, his record tying year, 618 pass plays, 22 and a half sacks. Michael Strahan in his record year, 567 pass plays, 22 and a half sacks. And Miles Garrett this year before today it was at 437 pass plays, 22 sacks. I'll update that on this week's show. But you're, you're sitting it because Aaron Rodgers threw 40 times. I think whatever it was, I don't know how many of those Miles Garrett was actually in on.
I'd assume probably all of them. So even if you give them all.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Of them, but even if you give them all of them, even if you.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Give them all of them, it's 39. We're adding 39. So you're at 476 pass attempts and 22 sacks.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: And it's of course a byproduct of the fact that teams haven't had to throw against us a whole lot.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: So that's fair.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: But he's nothing that Miles can do about that.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: I don't. Did Miles miss a game this year? James Franks? I don't think he did this year.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: I think he did.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't think he missed a game this year, but yeah. So I just, I. Regardless, I don't want to hear it about the. He did it in 17, not 16. He's far more efficient than all these guys.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: I mean, look, at the end of the day, if he gets the record next week, the NFL record book is going to say Miles Garrett, period. So moot point.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Just while we're finishing up on the defense, though, concerning injury to Carson, Carson Swishinger, he clearly was. Was hampered. I mean, you know, Dog doesn't want to come out of the game.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Dog.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: But I mean, at some point, like what are. What is the coaching staff doing?
I mean, especially at the end of the first.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: Letting him play on it where.
Clear liability.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Yeah, he couldn't. He couldn't.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: To the point where even the announcers are like, get this guy out of here. What are you doing?
[00:17:00] Speaker A: I mean, just more dereliction of duty by Kevin Stefanski and that coaching staff to let a guy that is clearly injured keep playing. Like, well, what.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: What if.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Nine tackles today. So, I mean, whatever.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: But like, what have we said all along is. Is when you take Kevin Stefanski off the offense, he gets to pay attention to everything else. Then bad things.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Everything else gets worse.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So the, the who attention to injuries and it's all bad.
Yeah. I just, I agree with you. He should have come on. You know, he's. He definitely should have come off a lot sooner. Did he even come off? Did he finish the game?
[00:17:32] Speaker A: No, he finished the game. I mean, he came out.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: I couldn't remember if he finished again, if he is in at the end like a clear liability, though, and that's also another thing. You're talking about the Steelers not being able to win this game. You have a guy that can't even move in the middle of the field and you still don't go at him. But you know, whatever.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Meyer Lansky on. On Facebook, a couple things here real quick. He said that Carson Schwessinger had said, I don't know if this is post game press conference or went. But he said that they were going to have to carry him off the field. Yeah.
So Dog.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: And they all do that. And fortunately for him, like the play that lost in the game wasn't on him. Right. Like, that would have been a really bad look if, you know, you're injured and that's Your mentality is they're going to have to drag me off and then the coaching staff does nothing about it. Like, and then they would have completed a pass on him or something like that would have looked really bad.
So fortunately, like, that didn't happen today, which is good.
But it just. What do we do? I mean, this is a guy that's going to be an all pro linebacker for the next seven, eight years pretty easily. Do you want to have him out there hurt in a game that really doesn't matter?
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Well, Kevin Stefanski was coaching for his life today.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Well, that's true.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: We'll get to that.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: I also just thought the secondary. I mean, I know the receivers for Pittsburgh are kind of garbage, but I thought the secondary played really well today. Tyson Campbell looks to be a really competent addition when for. For the Greg Newsom trade.
That definitely seems like one that, that we won. So I guess credit to Andrew Berry there. But.
But he was a dog today. I thought he played really, really well and really across the secondary. I mean, Grant Delpit had a big day making tackles. I think he led the team.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: He had the big sack in the middle of the game.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Big sack. Yeah.
And we talked on our preview show this week about, look, if there's going to be a lot of attention on Miles, and we know that there.
We know that there was going to be a lot of attention on Miles, then the rest of this defensive front really should. Should eat.
And so Alex Wright was a guy that, you know, came up with a bit, a timely stack today and a tackle for loss. So, you know, credit to that defensive line, too, just for. For kind of sticking with it. And look, it's December football.
It's. It's really easy. We talk about this every week, the box score Warriors. It's really easy to kind of look at a box score and go, okay, nobody did anything. But this is. This is the reality of the NFL in December in Cleveland, like, they just. It's just not. You're not going to blow people off the page with some of these number.
They were impactful plays all around on that defense today.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Well, the biggest thing today was they eliminated the big play that's killed us for the last three weeks.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Correct. Yeah. I mean, they didn't really let that. That running game get going, you know, too. Too much. I mean, Jalen Warren had, I think, 65 yards or so, but he only carried the rock, I think, 10 or 12 times.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: I love James Frank's energy just going through. He's just. He's so excited about everything. I love it.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: He's just. We're in week 17.
You know, we've won four games all season, and he's just bringing it right now. People get pumped when we beat the Steelers.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Look, this was a good. This was a good.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: I mean, I feel good today.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: Anytime you beat Pittsburgh is good. I don't care what kind of season you're having, if you beat Pittsburgh, that's a good day.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Yep. Let's. Let's go ahead and go over to the offensive side. Meyer, this is where we'll get to your question that you had earlier. I'll throw that in here in just a second.
We'll start with Shador, because obviously that's, you know, the big one.
In my opinion, he played well. I know. I know people were gonna try and on me for that, but in my opinion, he played well.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: He had a thought that said at Rusty Boner.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: No. Rusty Bonner. Bonner.
But yeah. So if Wishador. These are the good things that I saw. He had a great first half, especially the first quarter. He was efficient all day.
They won the game. That's the big one.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: And then.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, he. Like I said, the efficiency was. Was way better than it has been because he was 17 of 23 today. So the accuracy was there. Uh, obviously the bad. I'll just throw them out there. Now. The second pick was terrible.
I don't know why he threw that ball, but that comes with, you know, he's a rookie. Big mistake. It happens. I'm not saying it's excusable. I'm saying he's a rookie. And even if he wasn't a rookie, people throw interceptions, but those are the kind of interceptions that you. That you clean up as you're in this league for a little while.
And then number two, the one that should have been pick six, was really, really bad.
But again, you know, overall, he played well outside of those picks. Maybe another play here or there. He. Like I said, he was 17 of 23. There was only six passes that were incomplete, and. And two of them were the picks. So technically, there was only four passes were incomplete.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah, Concurrent had a really good day. Look, I know every mistake that guy makes ends up under a microscope and people want to shred him for it. Every time he throws a pick, the. The Twitter feed goes wild with, see, I told you this guy sucks. This is the worst quarterback I've ever seen.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: It's the most annoying situation I've ever been a part of.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: He had a really, really good day. Outside of really three throws.
And really one of those was kind of a fluke. Right. The first pick, this guy's had really bad luck. It seems like every ball that gets, you know, swatted or batted ends up 6ft in the air and somebody runs under it and catches it. So that one was kind of fluky but you know, counts as an int. Bad throw.
The one where you're rolling out and throw the ball cross body, not defensible. I mean, right. That's a, that's a bad throw.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: You know what that was to me? That was the, this is what I did in college because I was, I was better than a lot of people and I just could do whatever I wanted. But you learn fast in the NFL and hopefully he learns from this that you can't just, you can't play hero ball like that all the time.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: And frankly, I don't know what the play call was supposed to be because to me it looked like whatever was supposed to happen there, I don't know if it was a dialed up screen or something, whatever was supposed to happen didn't. And he panicked. And again, inexcusable, not defensible. You can't make that throw. You can't throw the ball across your body in the NFL pretty much ever. You know, Josh Allen maybe gets away with one of those in a season, but you just can't make that throw.
And then the one obviously that was almost a pick six.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: I mean again, going back to nice.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Throw as well, but, but otherwise like he played a really good game. He was efficient, he played within the offense which again the offense is what the offense is at this point and it's not going to get markedly better at this point in the year. Kevin Stefanski, still your coach Tommy Reese's call plays. Those guys seem to be in lockstep like it's a trash scheme.
He's also playing with maybe the worst supporting cast I've ever seen on a professional football field.
The fact that.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: And the best one went down in the, at the beginning of the game today, they, they, they marched down the field. He threw a touchdown pass to him and then he was done.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Well, yeah, well in the offense changed considerably after Harold Fannin went out because there was no other threat to catch the ball. Thankfully Jerry Judy showed up and at least played today.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: He did a lot of taunting today, which was silly because he's. These are like his first five catches of the year.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: He did do a lot of taunting, which to be expected I guess with him but, but really this offensive Receiving room, this wide receiver room is really, really bad.
You know I talked about like there was a tight end out there that had never taken a snap in the NFL today that caught a ball like the, the supporting cast is poor. The offensive line, I don't know. We've had a running back average over three yards of carry in about eight weeks.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: We don't know what that means.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: I mean you're well under 100 yards again today, I think is it 78 and you had about four different guys carry the rock.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: Dylan Sampson 11 for 27, two and a half yards per carry. Raheem Sanders 8 for 21, 2.6 yards per carry. Travion Williams 2 for 10, five yards carry. And Shadore Sanders 4 for 25 yards carry.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: And even when Q was healthy, I mean he was, he's had struggled and.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: It wasn't even, we just barely broke the two yards or the three yards of carry threshold. We had 25 for 78.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Yeah, great. Well and Shador was 20 of those. So.
But even Q wasn't like really effective much past about the midpoint of the season because this offensive line is in tatters and he led the league in in contact yards, you know, because he's.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Getting, because everybody contacted behind.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: So like all those things still apply to Shador. So all things considered, you beat a team today that is a playoff caliber football team that's won what, nine games on the season, like they beat a good team.
You know, he didn't get any credit after the Titans game because he had a good statistical game but they lost.
And then you'd say, well yeah, he had a good game against a bad football team. Well today he had a very solid game against a good football team and they won. And not only that, it's a division rival, it's your primary rival in December at home. I mean that was, it was, it was a very good performance.
Again, he made mistakes today, but he still is showing growth every week. He's stepping up in the pocket, he's making on time throws, he's taking his checkdowns, he's playing smart football for the most part.
You know, again, some bad throws there. The final thing, my final criticism right now of Shador Sanders is I'm still waiting for him. I'm still waiting for that legendary moment, right? I'm waiting for one of those last two drives that Cleveland had the football and you're thinking, geez, if they can put three points on the board here, if they can, they can march down the field and score. A touchdown. Tony Romo said in a broadcast, he's like, you know, this might be one of the last times that they really get a chance to touch the ball. If you put a touchdown on the board here, Pittsburgh can't score like the game's over. I'm waiting on Shador to do that. And I. It's hard with the supporting cast right now, but I'm waiting on that. That show me you have it at the end of the game, because we really haven't seen that. He's. He's kept this team around. They hung with the Bills, you know. You know, they hung with Tennessee and.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Made some magic next step.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: But I need to see that next step, and not that I need to see it, because to tell me whether or not he should start next year, I fully believe that. But whether or not I believe in him really long term beyond that, I think when you see that once or twice and you go, look, he checks almost every other box, you got to clean up a few things. He needs help, a lot of it. But if you clean up a few things, like, he has enough talent to play in this league.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And that's actually a good segue. The question for Meyer was, as far as Shador, you guys think he's the starter next season? You already, you just said it. You said 100%.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: You.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Well, you said you would like to him to be. Do you think he's the starter next season?
[00:28:42] Speaker A: Look, I was thinking to myself this week, like, the best thing Shedor can do to make sure he's a starter next year is to win one or both of these next two football games. Right. If you pull your. If you push yourself back in that draft order behind, you know, obviously Las Vegas needs a quarterback. The jets need a quarterback.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Who is he?
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Who's the other one that I'm thinking of? Because it's Washington and Tennessee, but they have quarterbacks.
There's somebody else that's shit in that lineup. If you end up picking six, you can do yourself some favors. And you can maybe by just the default of there not being a quarterback available on the board when the Browns pick, you can kind of cement yourself as that guy for next year. Yeah, today I think Shador did what he needed to do. They win the game. I think they're sitting at 6 right now in the draft order. So assuming a whole lot doesn't change next week, you know, I think. I think there's a very high probability that they'll look at this team in the off season and Say Shador should at least get the off season to work in and if nothing else, have an actual competition during camp. And whether that's with Deshaun Watson or another rookie that they bring in, I think there's. I think he's the probable starter for next year.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Yeah, and I would agree with that. I think at this point, I mean, I, this is just me personally, I know there's a lot of people that are high in Mendoza or the dude from Oregon, more like, none of these guys do anything for me.
To the point where I think we should draft a quarterback and once again ignore everything else, because that's what you got to do if you want one of those guys. Like we're in a point now. No matter what happens next week, in order to get one of those two guys, you're most likely trading your other first round pick along with the one that you have to move up to get one of them. And I'm not okay with that because here's the deal. We've got way too many holes. You talked about it today. We literally just try, we do our best to throw an offensive line out there every week, but we don't even really have one.
And to me, Shador has shown enough to say let's give him next year.
Let's just give him next year. See what happens. You'll still have, I hate to use this name here, but you still have desean Watson as, you know, the backup next year.
Even Dylan Gabriel, like that, that was Kevin Stefanski's guy. Not that I ever want to see him play again, but that was Kevin Stefanski's guy. So you still have those guys as backups, but go into the season and give Shador Sanders the nod and say he's the guy going into next season and see what, see what happens? Because you've said it a million times. I know we've talked about a lot on the show.
You end up winning three games next year. Well, guess what? You're right there for another quarterback the following year. You go all in. But you know what you have now? You now have probably a solid top tier offensive lineman and possibly a receiver to put around them.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So I just, I don't understand the infatuation with some of these guys that are playing college football right now.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: James Frank, get out of here with your, your USC receiver. Get out of here. I'm not. We're not having this this week. We're not doing this discussion again.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: I don't understand the infatuation with these guys because I Think if Shador Sanders was playing in college this year and had his final season over again, is he not the Heisman? Is he not the Heisman? He threw for a thousand more yards, he threw for more touchdowns, he completed 74% of his passes in college.
Would he not be the Heisman with the year that he had against these guys?
[00:32:18] Speaker B: To be fair, Julian saying through for like a thousand more yards and he didn't win it.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: So but even, even, even Julian, his, his season total started with a three.
Well, shoulder started with a four and so in, in shadow, three or four more touchdowns.
The only thing saying had on him was completion percentage.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I, I mean I, I agree with you. I was, I'm just saying like it doesn't probably not because they love Mendoza because Indiana was actually good this year. So that's, that's where they were.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: The Mendoza one bothers me the most because to me that guy has never been truly.
Okay, not true, not never. But has been tested in very limited windows that, that team, you said the team was good, that defense was good. It's got good receivers. Like they were up in a lot of games. The defense that I hear about Mendoza's numbers is that he didn't have to play a lot of games in the second half because they were winning all of them.
That's the guy that you want. The guy that has, his mettle has never been tested.
I mean even the Ohio State game, it wasn't like he went off. He made like three good throws in that game.
Yeah, it was a very underwhelming performance.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: I think it was two actually. I think it was two. I think I counted them. There was two, two decent throws there in the fourth quarter. I think that was it.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I just don't understand it. So I mean, and the thing I hate about taking a quarterback next year is, is this idea then that like, okay, you're going to start over with a rookie next year.
All the things that Shador is doing bad now you're going to watch that.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Except it's going to be from a first rounder, not a fifth rounder. You're probably going to.
The weirdest thing about that is most people will give him a pass and say he's a rookie. Like I don't understand this whole.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Yeah, like that's because he's a first round pick. They're going to go, well, you got to give him time to develop where. And again, apparently Shador doesn't get that luxury.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Just because you're a fifth round pick, you need to be good right now. That makes sense.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: I mean, people forget that he was. He was graded out as a first rounder or maybe a second rounder by the most harsh of critics. But like, this was a guy that was expected by most analysts to go early in the draft. It was kind of a weird, you know, scenario Murphy's Law for him on draft day. But, well, and, and just talent.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: Yeah. On, on that front, like kind of as we were just leading into is. Is. I'm sick of this discussion with, with Shador Sanders. I think we try and be pretty objective. Like we're just like, we watch the games. We'll let you know. I just told you he did a few things that were really bad today that he needs to fix. That's fine, whatever.
But this whole.
When it comes to Shador, it's either you love him or you hate him. And we get killed from both sides because we don't either love him or hate him. We think he should start next year, but that's the extent of it. And I don't get it. Because the people that love Shador, you know, they, they think that he's already one of the greats, which I don't think that. I think he needs to prove himself. On the flip side of it, you got the people that hate him and they'll sit there and break him down at every single turn and say how he. Nothing, no matter what he does, it's not good enough. And they expect him to play like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or whoever right now. And the, the problem that I have with that is he's a fifth round pick. And you could sit here and say, yeah, but he was like we say he was. You said he was great as the first round pick, but the fact is he went in the fifth. So you have to judge him as a fifth round pick. You can't judge him as a first round pick. Like, you can't sit there and say if he was so good, why didn't he go in the first? And then like argue with me about how good he is. Like, it's just he went in the fifth. You have to judge him as a fifth round pick.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and I think this is the ultimate reality, which is that if you draft Mendoza or whoever early next year, you are punting on next season to be competitive. Yep. There's, there's very little chance that that guy is going to come in and be the savior of your franchise right away. So you are saying we are going to do this all over next Year. And let me tell you this, this defense all year long has been hanging around the top units in the entire NFL. They can play with absolutely anyone. All this offense needed was some competent quarterback play, average quarterback play, the ability to score any points at all and this team would have been mildly competitive this year. And Shador really didn't get that chance to play until the season was all but gone. And at this point you're playing with an entirely reserve cast and it's the depleted of what little talent was on this offensive unit to start the year.
So I think if you go into next year with Shador, who's got this half a season under his belt and a full off season, you know, potentially with a coach that believes in him and crafts an offense around him, with some more weapons and talent, this team could actually be competitive. Are they going to win the Super Bowl? That's probably not going to happen. Right, that's, it's tough to do. Only one team gets to do it each year.
But, but could this team fight for the AFC north just on that defense alone and an average offense? In the NFL we don't have average. This offense has been ranked 30, 31 and 32 all year long. It's really, really, really, really bad. If you extrapolate Dylan Gabriel's five starts and see what he would have put up for the year, it would have been sub 3,000 yards as a starter. Yeah, that's not good. That's not passing in the NFL. Shador, if you take what he's done, he's at least about 35 or 3,600, which for a rookie with no supporting cast, not all that awful.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Pretty good.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: So I just think he gives you the best chance to be competitive next year. And guys like I keep, I keep saying this like everybody wants the guy, everybody wants Tom Brady, everyone's Peyton Manning and, and everybody wants, you know, some legendary coach to walk through that door and be the guy. You just need competent guys.
I don't think anyone here is thinking Bo Nix is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Maybe he will be long term, I don't know. But if you were to rank them right now and say, is Bonix one of the top three guys in the NFL? You probably wouldn't say that. Justin Herbert maybe. I don't know. Like do people, people think highly of him but like what has he done with his talent to this point? Had another good year this year.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: Been a jerk to a reporter.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Another guy that's like, is he Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, is he. Drew Brees, I don't know. But he's above average. He's. He's a competent NFL quarterback and there's a. There's a long list of those guys. Jalen Hurts has won a Super bowl and Philly wants a new quarterback. Like, I. You don't have to have. You don't have to have one of those guys to be a competitive, serious franchise. You just can't have Dylan Gabriel.
That's the only thing you can't have.
If they put talent around Shador and he's average.
He doesn't have to be the second coming if he's average. This defense will win you games. This. These young rookies, Harold Fannin, Quinn, Sean Judkins, Dylan Sampson, like. And put some more talent and weapons around these guys, they will win you games. Yeah, it doesn't have to be any harder than that. We just. We want to. We're waiting for that. That lottery ticket. We're waiting for that 1.5 billion. You know, people don't play the lottery unless it hits a billion dollars. You know what? If you go play on any random Tuesday or Saturday and you win the lottery, $20 million is still $20 million. You don't ever have to work again.
You're doing pretty good.
[00:39:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. It is a weird thing here in Cleveland. It doesn't matter how close we get. It's. It's. Everybody's ready for a reset at all times when it comes to quarterback.
Yeah. I know James Frank said it earlier in his comments, but he said that if Shadora started from the beginning of the season, we'd probably be fighting for a playoff spot.
I don't know if we would, but we'd be pretty close.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: At least they would have won more games.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: We'd probably be somewhere at least around where like. Like Cincinnati is right now, you know, at least a game or two.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Delusions. I don't have delusions that we would be in the super bowl, but. But this division was bad this year, right? Pittsburgh potentially could win a. Baltimore could win with nine wins.
Could this team have had seven or eight wins? Realistically?
Probably, yeah.
[00:40:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So I. I don't know. I just.
Yeah. My. I guess my last thought with the Shador thing and whether or not he'll start next year. And what we want is this. This is what I got for you.
Just. Yeah, I'm ready to roll a Shador and, you know, look elsewhere for help.
But let's get into. I want to talk about Stefanski a little bit.
Just because I, you know, we talked about this a little bit before we started the show, but, you know, he won a game and he's officially above the. The 3 and 14 that Jimmy Haslam said.
He said that's not gonna. That's not gonna be okay. Well, what was his quote? He said that's not.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: That wasn't going to cut it. Yeah, it's going to have to be better than this.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And so he's officially above that. And so I guess I just want to ask you, Kenny, now that he's above that, I know you've been saying for a while that there's a good chance he's coming back, and I've been on the opposite side. I was like, there's no way. There's no way. I'm 100% sure he's not coming back. But that was assuming, you know, we've been so bad. I just assumed we were losing the rest of our games now that we won one.
I legitimately, I. I went from saying it's 100%. He's not coming back to, we're probably at like 50, 50 now.
That's how. That's how big of a shift this is to me.
And I don't know what your thoughts are on it, but. But I'm not looking forward to another year of Kevin Stefanski seismic shift.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Look, I've said since they move. Made the move for desean Watson that these guys have. Have lost it. They don't know.
They don't have a clue.
And so it's been a long time that I've been on the get rid of these guys, blow this whole thing up bandwagon.
I have said consistently this year, I don't think Kevin has been worried one bit about losing his job. I fully believe he'll be back next year, to which I've. I've got a lot of opposition to, especially in recent weeks. People are like, there's no way he survives this.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: I really, really think I said that until this week.
[00:42:48] Speaker A: Next year.
This week after today's game is the very first time that I've felt in any way personally conflicted on this, because I have wanted Stefanski gone for a while, but my desire to see Shador get a legitimate chance as a starting quarterback without having to bring in Mendoza or one of these other guys that I don't really believe in is high enough that I almost would prefer we don't make any big changes. You bring Kevin and Andrew back next year just to keep this nucleus intact. Running back one more time. With Shador.
Because I do think that as soon as you introduce a new coach, there's going to be questions of change, which I think this team, this franchise, badly needs. Because I think Kevin is. Has lost the plot too. But, but if it means getting to see Shador, at least play next year, I'm almost like, let's just run it back with Kev one more time.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: Don't say it. Come on.
Listen, if. Let me, let me just, you know, bring you back down to earth here.
If you run it back with Kevin one more time, you don't get a legitimate look at Shador Sanders. You get a legitimate look at the shit quarterback play that you always get with Kevin Stefanski.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: I know, but that might be the only opportunity Shador gets. And that's the problem, is that if they bring in a new coach and.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: The new coach goes, I like it.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: I got two first round picks. I need my guy. If we're going to build this thing from the ground up, I want my guy.
And that's a very real possibility.
You'd have to fire Stefanski and not only bring in the right guy, you'd have to find the right guy that believes in Shador Sanders as a starter.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: So it can be done. A chance to see you.
[00:44:42] Speaker A: It can be done, coach, probably.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: You gotta remember Andrew Barry is a big Shador guy, so. Which is evidenced by every time that he does anything, Andrew Barry's in his locker room giving him a hug. So.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah, but you hit the reality check on this earlier, which, which is Shador is a fifth round pick.
So as much as Andrew Barry wants to go, I think Shador has talent. A new coach can come in and that's a perfect trump card. What, you want me to build this franchise with a 5th round pick? Nobody in the NFL wanted him besides you in the fifth round. That's the guy you're going to give me. Yeah.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: No wonder it just goes back. It goes round and round because it just goes back to. You got to find that coach that believes it. And I think if you get rid of Stefanski, I really do think that somebody's going to.
They're going to look for somebody that's willing to at least play the hand they're dealt with with Shadow or Sanders and say, we're going to build the rest of the team. I think that's going to be part of the coaching search.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: Very possible. Or if Jimmy just pulls the plug on the whole thing and Andrew and.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: Kevin are gone, then you might never see Shador again because his Lifeline is gone.
But.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. Again, personally conflicted for the first time on this because now I'm almost like, you know what?
[00:45:57] Speaker B: My mind all twisted like. Like a pretzel.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: I don't think there's a pretzel in my head the Panski will ever win a Super bowl here. I think he's a shite, coach.
I. He's just not good. He's just really, really bad. He is not good. And it just.
But if. But if it gives me a chance to see Shador play 17 games.
What the hell?
[00:46:20] Speaker B: I can't believe you're saying this. I am extremely disappointed in you right now that you're selling out.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: I'm not selling out. I still don't like Kevin. I still don't think he's a good football coach.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: You love Kevin Stefanski.
You heard it here first on Burning River Sportscast Live.
Kenny Thunder is the number one fan of Kevin Stefanski. He loves him.
[00:46:43] Speaker A: It's not true.
[00:46:44] Speaker B: He said he's. He's advocating for another year of Kevin Stefanski and he wants him to call all the shots.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: I'm not doing it.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: That's terrible. That's terrible. Terrible. Take.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: Is there a chance that you keep Kevin and you. You and Andrew and Jimmy, force him to bring in an outside offensive coordinator or somebody to totally reset the offense here and say, hey, look, we got to go in a direction that fits Shador skill set, and we're gonna do this instead. And. And Kevin's not allowed anywhere near calling plays ever again. Like, is maybe that a possibility?
I don't know. Grasping at straws here, right? I'm trying to make. I'm trying to. Trying to rationalize this to myself, and.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: I just can't believe what I'm hearing right now.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: Makes sense to keep Kevin here, but.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: It doesn't make sense to keep Kevin here. That's the bottom line. He's had. What is. What Was the number? 14 different quarterbacks since 2021, and not a single one of them has worked. You want that guy? That's the guy you want. That's the guy you want coming back.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: If you're moving forward with the idea that Shador is the starter next, you're dead to me, Kevin. Look, Kenny Mack up in Ottawa said it on our show. He's like. Like it or not, fair or unfair, Kevin Stefanski is the head coach. If Shador is deemed suitable the end of the season that he's shown improvement, Kevin has a hand in that. Whether any of that's True. It doesn't matter. He's the CEO. He's the guy at the helm. Kevin's gonna get industrial credit for Shador's progress. And we said every week on the show, Shador gets better. He's been getting better every week Kevin's in charge.
You can't have. You can't have one without the other.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Yes, you can.
Yes, you can.
Why can you not? I don't understand.
This is. Yeah. This is what I'm talking about. Yeah. The Magic 8 Ball. Believe in the Magic 8 Ball.
Yeah, let's. Let's.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: Johnny believed in the 8 Ball.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's go ahead and move on. I think we. I think we talked about Kevin Fanski enough. I'm. I'm sick to my stomach right now and kind of want to jump through the computer and punch you in the mouth, but I just. I am shook right now with. With your take on this, and you even saying that you're. My take is.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: They both gotta go. They both gotta go. The failures of the Browns this year and last year are directly attributed to Kevin Stefans being a bad football coach and the Andrew Barry being bad as a gm. The talent he's assembled is just not good. Up until this draft class, which, you know, we've had this conversation a million times, but I'm not. I'm not going to rehash it. But. But they. They both got to go. They both got to go at some point for this franchise to be successful.
I think I need to see him one more year just so that I can see Shador.
I hate what I can tell you about, you know, we had the question of, do you think Shador is a starter next year? Year. What I can tell you is if you bring in a new coach and they ship out Shador somewhere else, let's say Shador goes to the New York Jets, Las Vegas, and the jets win a Super bowl next year.
I mean, you don't live that down as Jim. I mean, you can't. You can't live down, you know, Baker Mayfield, which Baker's falling off the second half of this year. But you can't live down Baker Mayfield, Deshaun Watson and Shador Sanders. If you screwed up all three of those, you just can't do it.
Yeah.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: With that, let's just go ahead and we're gonna move on here. Burning response Dog of the Week nominees. We'll start with Bone. He's not here. He phoned in Denzel Ward.
So Zell, obviously, with the. His was locked down all Day, including the last three plays of the game, were inexplicably, Pittsburgh decided that's the guy they're going after, the best cover guy on the team.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: So what's funny is Zell called it out in his press conference after the game. He's like me three times. That's. That's what you went with? Like, yeah, smart.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: It's a bold strategy. I said it earlier. It's a bold strategy. Cotton, let's see if it pays off for him, and then I'm gonna go. Grant Delpit, he had eight tackles today. He had a big time sack, and look, it was just all over the place all day. So I'm going. Grant Delpit. Kenny, who's your dog of the week nominee?
[00:50:44] Speaker A: I don't even know if he registered a single statistic today, but he was the single reason hands down, they won that game. And it's Miles Garrett.
[00:50:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if you're watching that game and you can't just see it happening, that they literally were afraid to go anywhere near him or let him get a chance to hit Aaron Rodgers, like you're blind.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: When you post the rundown for this week and the nominees to vote for and you post the box score and.
[00:51:09] Speaker B: The stats for each is a 01 tackle.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: Just put the threat of Miles Garrett. That's the stat. That's the stat line for today.
[00:51:17] Speaker B: Yeah, His. His actual stat line, in case anyone was curious. I'm not arguing with you one bit. I think this is a perfectly accurate nominee here, But Miles Garrett, one tackle, one solo tackle, one QB hit as a stat line, so.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: But the threat. The threat was enough.
[00:51:40] Speaker B: Yeah. It literally caught the. The threat potentially cost the Steelers the division in 2025. The threat alone.
So I'm with you. I like that nominee.
I'll get those up tomorrow for everybody to vote on. Final thoughts?
My final thought. We've already hit on it a little bit, but my final thought is I'm excited for the win. Real excited that we got the win. I hate Pittsburgh. I hate Pittsburgh just as much as anybody that's watching or anybody that watches the Browns in general.
But this does open the door for Stefanski to return, and that just. I've been sick about that all day. I've been happy about the win, but I've been sick about the fact that I. I think that this does it. Like, this is. Is where we're at now. And, you know, we're going into Cincinnati next week and all over them because they're in Kentucky, so.
Yeah. And then My other final thought just one more time should or next year should be the starter. Kenny, what do you got?
[00:52:41] Speaker A: I saw a lot of Steelers fans after the game lamenting that the last play call was clearly pass interference and that Zell never got his head around all these.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: You don't have to.
[00:52:54] Speaker A: Which is true. He was playing manned up and he was playing the receiver.
He didn't.
[00:52:59] Speaker B: You don't have to get your head around the NFL.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: And he didn't.
He didn't make contact early. And even if he was there a hair early, it clearly wasn't enough to.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: It's Pittsburgh fans. You know you got to take it for what impact.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: But to that I would also just say I saw personally today and in still shots after the game on Twitter like there were a dozen missed holding calls on Miles in this defensive line all day long. So like don't give me your weak ass excuses for why you lost the game. You lost the game because you looked past Cleveland and said our priority this week is not giving up the stack record to Miles Garrett and nobody should have accomplished. Nobody can say that on your side of the house because it's embarrassing as fuck.
It's the most embarrassing way to lose a game in the history of sports that we didn't want to give up a stat so we just stopped playing football this week. Yeah, don't give me your weak ass. Oh we. We got screwed on a call at the end of the game. Terrible, terrible excuse.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: I'll even.
[00:54:05] Speaker A: Terrible excuse for football football franchise.
Just, just disgusting.
[00:54:10] Speaker B: I'll even give it to him. Okay, pass interference. What the hell are you doing losing to the 3 and 12 Browns?
Like why were you even up 20? Yeah, yeah.
Just a piss poor excuse.
[00:54:25] Speaker A: I just. And I just hate the.
To your point exactly right. I hate the. We lost because we got screwed by the refs. There are various limited instances where you go gosh, that was like the worst call I've ever seen. And you see it on replay afterward and you go how did in the world did they miss that? How did they not review it? How did they not get this right? Those things do happen, but not this wasn't that everybody thinks they do and missed calls happen all day long in every game. Right. The old adage is there's holding on every play and there is. It just doesn't get called. So very rarely do rest truly determine the outcome of the game. And to your point, what are you doing losing to the three win Browns?
[00:55:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:07] Speaker A: What are you doing? You're playing for everything you are playing for a playoff berth and for the division.
What are you doing being down at all to a rookie quarterback and a rookie cast of nobodies?
Inexcusable.
[00:55:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And.
And I'll just go back to it. It wasn't pass interference, so.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: And it wasn't. I didn't. I thought it was pretty clean.
[00:55:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. So with that. That's, that's. We're basically at the end of the show. We're going to wrap things up here in just a second. Yes. Highlight that. That's what I wanted you to do.
Let me remind everybody to call the burninger sportscast hot take hotline hot take hotline.
[00:55:42] Speaker A: Call that.
[00:55:43] Speaker B: Don't forget to go and leave your hot takes on the hot take hotline. 3302-2780-8133-0227-808-330, 227-8881. Meyer, James, Glass City boner.
All you guys call and leave your hot takes on the hot take hotline.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: Do it or we'll kick you in the haslams.
[00:56:06] Speaker B: Right in the jimmies. Be sure to check out our gear. Www.thetepmedia.com backslash shop. That'll do for us, Kenny. What can we expect this week?
[00:56:15] Speaker A: You can look forward to our normal show that'll be out this week on on Thursday.
We had the delay last week with with Christmas, so it didn't come out till Friday. But we'll be out on Thursday. This week we'll, we'll Preview the Week 18 matchup with the Kentucky Bengals. Another Browns backers interview.
Maybe Tuscaroras on deck. We'll see.
And then all the other things. You listen to the burning of a sports guest for like the same tip.
[00:56:39] Speaker B: Over and over again.
You can find us on social media. Tapping media is on Facebook X and Instagram at the tapping media Burning Sportscast. That's this podcast. This podcast is on Facebook, Instagram, tick tock and YouTube at burning response and on X as well at the Handle I Burn.
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That's it.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: That's it. Browns win. Feels good.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: It did feel good.
[00:57:13] Speaker A: Beat Pittsburgh.
[00:57:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: Peace out.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: Peace out.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: Be a part of the problem. Be the whole damn problem.
[00:57:20] Speaker B: And only you can prevent river fires.
Good night, Cleveland.
