Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey Browns fans.
This is your chance to join the company of some of the Browns all time greats on the first ever Browns fan cruise. Picture this for five unforgettable days, you're sailing across the beautiful caribbean sea, reliving the Browns'greatest moments, getting autographs, snapping photos and celebrating on the beach with your favorite Browns alumni like Josh Cribs, webster Slaughter, Aaron Metcalf and a dozen others. Book now and take advantage of our easy, budget friendly payment plans on this once in a lifetime, all inclusive cruise adventure. The clock's ticking, Browns fans. To book your cabin and for more information, visit brownsfancruise.com or call 216-284-6472 today Browns fan cruise, where diehard fans and Browns alumni come together for the trip of a lifetime. Don't wait. Secure your spot today and go Brown.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Media football. It's time.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Time for the Burning river sportscast. Break out the good stuff because your Cleveland Browns have punched their ticket, fanned their fanny and crossed the river sticks right into the 2024 playoffs. That's right, a team with 25% of their starters on IR, a team missing a generational talent at a running back, and a team that had to start four different quarterbacks during the season is not only going, but is poised to make some noise in this postseason. No other team has faced this much adversity and overcome so much that they are as battle tested as can be. And with the resurgence of Joe Flacco at the helm, this team is as dangerous as they have been all season long. For all things sign. That's right, old times gone by. And for just the third time since 1999, your browns are in the playoffs. And maybe for the first time, they reek of a team of destiny and a team that no one wants to play. And we'll break it all down for you. Next on the Burning river sportscast.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: And the legend of Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco continues to grow the greatest of all time. Anthony Schwartz, your old pal.
There was a tweet that gave like a series of events and said basically the tweet said Anthony Schwartz drops a pass on whatever down to cost them the game. Leads to this, leads to this, leads to this, leads to Flacco being the quarterback that the Browns go to the playoffs. Anthony Schwartz retweeted it and said, don't say I didn't do anything for you, Cleveland.
What a dick. That's a fair I can't really fight back.
Why does my co host have to be so sharp?
[00:03:02] Speaker C: I'm the sharpest mother crew alive.
[00:03:04] Speaker D: The thing with Cincinnati, though, is they're all fair weather fans. When they're winning, everybody's a fan. It's all who days. It's everything else. When they're losing, it's crickets down here.
You don't hear anything. I ran into J. W. Johnson while I was at Joe Thomas's introduction. He was like, what's it like being in hostile territory? I was like, it's only hostile when.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: They'Re winning, but for now, I'm the king of the north. So suck it. Everybody can suck it.
[00:03:29] Speaker D: That was the most electric and fun game I have ever been to since 1999. When we came back, that was an absolute. The atmosphere was insane. What they did with the laser light show and your cell phones, and that was amazing.
It was great. And then we jumped out in front of them real fast and just pretty much ended the game in the first quarter and said, we're done. This is how it's going to be.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Next up, we got the Browns traveling to the southern tip of Ohio and taking on the Bengals. Some may call it Kentucky.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: It's basically Kentucky. There's no airport there, ace.
[00:04:04] Speaker D: And then to watch him hop over the barricade and down somebody's beer, which I was like, I don't know if I would have done that, but I wish I would have known that.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Sure, he's got a fine coming his way.
[00:04:14] Speaker D: I'm sure he's got enough said stomach coming in his way.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: I want you to blow my mind my mind I want you to blow my mind.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: I'll make out with you, you make out with me I'm a dump on that orgy. Orgy everywhere.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:04:43] Speaker C: Happy new year and welcome into the burning river sports guest, presented by tapid media and brought to you by seaside events as the official cruise event provider of the Cleveland Browns and organizer of the Browns fan Cruise. I'm Kenny Thunder, elated as can be joined by future Cyborg and the Sultan of the Seas, red hot running jams on the board today. The original ferry, the Big Bone, man Bone. How does it feel to have started such a fast growing international movement that has people communicating in animal noises and going number one and two in litter boxes around the world?
[00:05:12] Speaker E: I honestly never thought it would come on. I did it just to get my wife.
[00:05:17] Speaker C: It was just an inside joke.
[00:05:18] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Nice. Back to red hot. Two questions on this episode of the Burning River Sports guest. Who can our fans look forward to us talking to this week?
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Well, they can look forward to us talking to the greater Cincinnati Browns backers.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: Browns backers. Nice. And number two, where can all of our listeners find all of the Burning river sports guests? Exclusive interviews with Browns backers and former Cleveland Browns players all season long in preparation for what is going to be the year's most salacious sale put on by seaside events as the official cruise event provider of the Cleveland Browns. Yes, the Cleveland Browns fan cruise.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: They can find our podcast wherever they get their podcasts. I'm talking Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, podcast, Castro, good pods and so many more. And don't forget to subscribe on YouTube. The only place that you can find our video podcast and the video version of all of these interviews we're doing. And check us out on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Our handle for all those, including YouTube, is at Burning River Sportscast and we are on x, the artist formerly known as Twitter, as well with the handle at Burning river pod. While you're at it, check out our merch Ww thetavenmedia.com backslash shop click on show specific click on our show I've got all kinds of stuff in the shop, cruise line, chub line, cold weather gear. It's all there. Get it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it. Buy it now.
And we'll constantly be adding more. But the Browns are on a four game winning streak now, and this past Thursday, they officially did it.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: I've done it, Jim.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: I'm Jim. They clinched a playoff spot for just the third time since the team returned in 1999. Joe Flacco was slinging it again and the defense absolutely dominated in a game that was literally over by halftime, leaving no doubt about whether the Browns would make it in this year or not.
And we'll talk about all that in the next 2 hours, give or take an hour, usually give this is a pretty long show, but today we've got the week 17 recap of the beat down we put on the jets, an interview like you mentioned, with the greater Cincinnati Brownsbackers. We do not have an interview with the Browns alumni that will be joining us on the Cleveland Browns fan cruise in March of 2024. In the second half of the show this week, we'll pick that up again as soon as we can nail down these last two interviews in the series. Schedules are crazy, man. It's hard to get some people.
[00:07:42] Speaker C: It was the holidays.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been wild. We don't fault to anybody for that, but we will get those last two and we'll get them out as quickly as we can. In the meantime, go back and catch a few of the old interviews. Lots of great stories to be heard.
[00:07:54] Speaker C: Heck yes.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: And then finally we round out the show with the week 18 preview for the game against the team from the city that my co host hates the most, Cincinnati. So if you smell a delicious crispy smell during the show, it's not your computer or cellular device overheating, it's a little bit of burning river sportscast.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: Shake and bake, shake it bake shake.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: It back, shake it bake shake it bake. Now let's get things started with the Burning river news story of the week. This week, the XFL and the USFL have announced that this week that they will merge and form the, quote, premier Spring Football league that will be known as the United Football League or the UFL. It's supposed to be a 50 50 split. Russ Brandon is going to be the president and CEO, Darryl Johnston to be the president of football operations. I think those are both, if I'm not mistaken, USFL guys. It does sound like the Rock and Danny Garcia are taking a backseat moving forward compared to what they were with the XFL. I although I would assume that they will keep the Rock as the face of the entire league. With his social media following and all.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: Of that stuff, it sounds like it's a five part ownership group. So Danny Garcia and the Rock are still a part of that ownership group?
[00:09:20] Speaker B: They're still a part of it, but it sounds like they were very outfront and vocal about the XFL. And it seems like, like I said, I would assume they would still have the rock do that, but it seems like Danny Garcia is kind of going.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: To just cash and checks.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah, just snapping necks and cashing checks.
But anyways, if you read between the lines here, it does sound like the league is positioning themselves to align with the NFL and form kind of a farm system for the league.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's a little bit of quid pro quo. I think both teams probably were cash poor by the time each season ended last year in terms of the investment it took to bring both of them back after the pandemic. So sounds like this is a way to maintain sustainability for both leagues as opposed to both leagues burning through cash quickly, trying to keep marketing and things.
You know, hopefully it's a good thing.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: For long term for the, you know, we're big proponents. We really like the XFL. I didn't really get into the USFL as much, but the XFL I thought was really good for football. So I'm hoping that this continues and they can continue to make strides and grow that league and really kind of form something that's there to stay.
[00:10:35] Speaker C: What I like about it primarily is that it is a disruptor to the NCAA because the NCAA has become so corrupt and power hungry that they have ruined programs over the course of the years.
And to have now kind of this private equity brought up to have a spring football league that you've seen a number of guys from the XFL, from USFL, get signed to NFL rosters, especially the XFL. If we could do away with the need to have to go to college in order to play professional football, I think it's a good thing because there's just some people that are better athletes, right? I mean, that was always a trade off, was you get a college education, but to be honest, not everybody needs to go to college. So if you're that good and dwayne asks on it here to play school, you just want to play football, why shouldn't there be a route for you?
[00:11:29] Speaker B: The other thing here is what I think is lost and kind of goes with what you're saying right now. Is the NCA anymore with the NiLs and things like that? I mean, they're basically a business entity of their own. Not basically, they are a business entity of their own. And they're more or less a farm system, a farm league, than they are college programs. Putting kids through college like these guys transfer left and right. They do whatever, which we can go down a big rabbit hole with this because I actually think Nil is great. These early years have been rough because they're trying to figure some things out. But I think it's great for college football itself because I'll use Ohio State this year as an example. Right. So you have Marvin Harrison, who has not beat Michigan, who has not competed for a national championship. The fact that he was even contemplating coming back when he's a top three pick speaks to what the NiL can do. Because he's like, I don't have to jump to the NFL to make my millions now because I can do that while I'm in college and I can do both. I can have the best of both worlds. Yeah.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: I mean, honestly, he could almost probably make.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Based off of what he's making or the estimated, because they don't have to disclose them. The estimation of what he's making in Nil deals would be more than a rookie.
[00:12:41] Speaker C: So again, it's disruptive to the NCAA, which is what I like. I think anytime we have a chance to put cash in people's pockets. It's a good thing. It benefits everybody.
So this is just one more way to do that, to give these guys a path forward to playing professional football. So it does sound like this thing is set to kick off still on March 30, they're going to have the Arlington Renegades and the Birmingham Stallions. That would have been the winner of the XFL and the winner of the USFL.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: What an awesome way to kick the season off, too, to say, let's just put the champions against each other.
And then I will say this. I want to point out one more thing. Another big thing coming out of this is that ESPN and Fox, you mentioned a five entity group that's investing in this, and ESPN and Fox are part of that group, which probably means huge tv rights deals and a chance for this thing to really be mainstream and give it the staying power that it needs to get.
[00:13:38] Speaker C: Agreed. So, yeah, I think overall this is a good thing just for those of us that want to watch football all year long.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Bone, thoughts?
[00:13:48] Speaker E: I've never watched the XFL or USFL, so listen to you guys talk about it. I'm curious to watch some games this year and just see if it does catch on. I love the NFL way more than I do in CWA football, so it's like to lock in enough people to make it successful. I'm skeptical because all the failings in the past, but I think that's. I give it a shot.
[00:14:12] Speaker C: What's hard is for people to really latch on, because when you latch onto an NFL team, you're latching onto a city, a tradition, the colors and the mascot and the history and even the players themselves.
Each one of us could rattle off a bunch of personal details about probably 90% of the Browns roster. Wyatt Teller wrestles alligators.
Those are things that you know about those players.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Miles Garrett has a big halloween party at a quarterback graveyard.
[00:14:40] Speaker C: Yeah, you're having to learn those things about anybody that's in this new football league.
[00:14:44] Speaker E: I will say this, if they're able to somehow tie a team to a team like the Browns, you know how the Guardians have the rubber Ducks? I'm interested in the rubber Ducks because they're local to us, obviously, but it's also tied to our baseball team.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: Yeah, if you could grow this thing, to me, 20 teams, and you had a local farm system where you were like, yeah, let's go down to Youngstown or wherever it is and watch the minor league Browns game.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: To me, that's what they're starting to position themselves as being. They're like, our league's big enough that we can support this many teams and be able to give each team or you combine two teams or whatever to make one farm team for those NFL teams. I think it's getting there. I think the other thing that's hard. Just to your point, Boney, you said you've never watched USFL or the XFL. I think it is a little bit difficult because we're all NFL fans here, right? We love the NFL. That's obviously the premier football league in the world. So it's the top talent, the top tier, everything. You got to understand when you go into watching an XFL game and a USFL game, the talent level isn't going to be quite the same as the NFL, but you can still have a lot of fun watching the game.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: But it's a lot like college when you watch Ohio State play. Akron.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: No, it's probably about the same level of the big time college. It's probably a little bit better than the big time college football leagues, college football teams.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: The other thing, I don't want to belabor this forever, but the other thing that is nice about I think having a spring football league is you now have this kind of middle ground. That's not college that we've seen guys like AJ McCarron go back. They left the NFL to go back to play in the USFL or the XFL and have success there.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: His story is so good, too, because he's like, I just want my sons to see me play football.
[00:16:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like he wasn't going to have the chance in the NFL as a starter, but he could go there and start because he was the top tier talent and they had a great season out there in St. Louis, wherever he was. But, but it's just like you kind of have this linear progression of you go to college and you go to the NFL. Well, for some of those guys that go to the NFL and maybe aren't quite ready or don't catch on with that first team, now you have kind of this second avenue to track yourself. Like used to only be canadian football. Now you can kind of go back, you can say, okay, they got stupid rules. Maybe I can reinvent myself in the XFL and then get a contract somewhere else. Yeah, UFL, whatever the hell it's called.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: CFL has stupid.
It's cold there. Yeah, it's cold, but yeah. So potentially big news.
[00:17:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's big news.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: We'll see how this season goes.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: But that'll take us to the week 17 recaps. Beat the shit out of the jets this week.
[00:17:32] Speaker E: Hell, yes.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: So you guys, listen, I have a theory. Okay? You want to know what I think happened here?
[00:17:36] Speaker C: Let's hear it.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: I think Zach Wilson came town. He's like, I'm hunting for milks, right?
Well, what happened was while he was out there looking for his milks, he accidentally hit on Joe Flacco's wife.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: Oh, bad move.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: You know, she's about the same age as some of these younger players moms.
[00:17:50] Speaker C: She's nice looking.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Yeah, and she is nice looking. So I think that's what happened is Zach Wilson rolled up on Joe Flacco's wife, and Joe Flacco did not like that.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: And she is a mom.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: And he said, I'm going to throw over 300 yards in the first half.
Almost. In any event, the Browns dominated, 37 to 20 was the final on this one. As I mentioned before, this thing was over by halftime. And a good thing it was because nobody showed up in the second half. But we'll start with our opponents this week. The New York jets. On offense, Trevor Simeon. Zach Wilson didn't play. He was just looking for Mils because he had nothing to do this week. He was busy. But Trevor Simeon was 32 of 45 for 261 yards, one touchdown, one interception, four rushes for 13 yards, and completely stifled by the Browns defense all day.
[00:18:36] Speaker C: I would say that Trevor, for being put in that situation to play a tough defense, played as well as Trevor Simon can play.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:18:43] Speaker C: He wasn't great. I'm just saying I think he put forth the professional effort and didn't embarrass himself.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: I agree he had more yards than most quarterbacks have had on the Browns team this season. But I think more of that has to do with they threw the ball 45 times. I mean, they had to. They were down the entire game a lot. But yeah, I mean, I would say it was respectable is what I would call it.
Next up for the Jets, Bries hall. 13 carries for 84 yards, nine catches for 42 yards and touchdown. I'm going to say this, I'm sure a lot of people realized how good Brice hall is in this game because before this I was like, is Briece hall? Is whatever.
He looked really good this game, I thought.
[00:19:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I wasn't sure because he tore his ACL last year and so I wasn't sure how he would come back this year. He looks really good.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: He looked fantastic. He was explosive when he touched the ball. I was a little bit nervous every time. I was like, what's this guy going to do?
[00:19:39] Speaker C: Yeah, he's a special player. I think he's one of those guys. You're going to continue to hear his name for the next 510 years.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
Next up for the Jets, Garrett Wilson, former Ohio State receiver. Five receptions for 50 yards and then rounding things out for them, Tyler Conklin, five receptions for 45 yards. So their offense didn't really have a whole heck of a lot going on. I would say Briece hall by far was the standout for their offense. And then on the defensive side for them, one sack, three turnovers forced, one interception and two fumble.
You know, everybody kind of forces turnovers out of the Browns. That's not really a new thing, this.
[00:20:18] Speaker C: But yeah, we love to just hand the ball over.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a thing. And then on special teams, Greg Zurline, two or three field goals, two or two extra points. So he was there, Greg, the leg. Yeah. Which will take us to the Cleveland Browns. We'll start with our offense. Joe Flacco, 19 of 29 for 309 yards, three touchdowns, one interception. Most of that damage, as I said, coming in the first half, which we'll talk a little bit more about later, but Flacco is just balling out there again, man. Especially in the first half. He's just slinging it, dude.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: Just keeps slinging it every week. You think he probably won't throw for 300 yards again and then he does.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: I'll say it's pretty impressive that this week he did it on 29 throws instead of 45, which he's been getting the last few weeks.
[00:21:03] Speaker C: Agreed. Yeah, he was much more efficient in this game.
He just looks more and more comfortable every week.
And obviously, we'll talk about matchup coming up this week, but they're going to have some time off. So I'm anxious to see when this team comes back after Joe Flecco probably.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Needs it after he's like 40 years old.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: Sure. After a couple of weeks off where he's not going to rush into a game plan, I'm interested to see what kind of wrinkles they can add, but I expect him to look even sharper when they hit the postseason.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:34] Speaker E: One thing I wanted to say is this week, like all the yards after the catch, I think he's got some really good rapport because in previous weeks he's getting the ball to his guys. But they were getting tackled. I felt like after they caught it, I mean, there was some touch on the ball this week.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: It was Joe Blacko like I'm going to hit a guy in a window. Exactly. And just pinpoint this pass.
[00:21:51] Speaker C: He was just going to get hit.
[00:21:52] Speaker E: As soon as leaving his dudes open just to run down the field.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: But now it was.
[00:21:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. And I think you hear that in the press conferences and things during the week and after the game. I think he's said almost as much that it's really easy to play the position when you have great receivers catching the ball and making things happen after the catch.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: I think the biggest thing he does is unlike some of the other quarterbacks that have played for us this season, force is not a good word.
He sees the entire field so he just takes what the defense gives him. He's like, whatever. If you're going to leave in Joku open and give him 30 yards to run, sure, I'll pass him the ball.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: And he's so accurate that he'll throw into your natural turn to start running up field. The guys aren't struggling to catch balls that are behind them, above them, below them. They're in stride on their route and they can carry that momentum straight through the catch well.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: And Jerome Ford's the next guy we're going to talk about and I'll get to him in just a second. But the perfect example of that was the one pass where he scrambled and found Jerome Ford for the touchdown.
It looked like he.
[00:23:05] Speaker C: That's not even a play that you think Joe Flacco has in him.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: No. Also, he got punched in the face on that play and they didn't even call the roughing the passer. But anyways, that's a perfect example of what you're talking about in their natural turn because it looked like he threw it behind Jerome Ford. But I'm sure he did it on purpose because Jerome Ford was getting to the sideline and he was going to have to stop anyways. So he planted that foot and the way that he turned opened everything up for the touchdown. If he would have turned the opposite way, he would have just ran out of bounds. So it is pretty awesome to watch. His accuracy is next level for sure. Dare I say elite?
[00:23:42] Speaker C: So elite. Yeah, he's the most elite quarterback I've ever seen. Cleveland, I'll say one more thing about Flacco, and I texted you guys this after the game, which I love, the fact that Flacco has come in here and understands the situation. He's not trying to blow smoke up anybody's asses. We know that he's going to retire a raven and that's who he made his career with. He's not here to say, oh, dog pound, or trying to be fake or phony about any of this. He's happy to have the opportunity to play, happy to have the opportunity to.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Lead a team, happy to be embraced by the city.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: He's acknowledged the city has embraced him, which is great, but he hasn't been fake about it to where it's, oh, I just always wanted to play in the dog pound. A lot of guys come here and that's the first thing they say, oh, dog pound. Flacco has just been so real and genuine through this whole experience that it just makes me like him even more.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Well, and I know when we talked, you said he's still going to retire to, his legacy is in Baltimore. I said, well, he's going to sign a one day deal and retire with the Browns after he takes us to the Super bowl, wins the Super bowl, wins Super Bowl MVP, and we put a statue of him out.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: I mean, maybe because we're going to treat him better than Baltimore ever was.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: If we get him a statue before Baltimore gets him a statue, he's definitely retiring.
Truthfully, is he going to be the first player to play for the Cleveland Browns that we give him a statue while he's still playing?
[00:25:01] Speaker C: I'm ready for it. Wrecked you right now. I agree. Yeah. I mean, truthfully, Baltimore did force him out, so I guess things could end on a happier note here.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: See, I'm just saying, joe Flacco moves.
[00:25:12] Speaker C: His whole family to Cleveland.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: I'm just saying, let's make it happen. But next up for the Browns, we'll go to their running backs, Jerome Ford. Twelve carries for 64 yards, two receptions for 57 yards and two touchdowns.
Look, I'm going to say this. It's clear to me. I mean, he had a better day rushing. I know there was a couple of plays. He had some chunk plays in this one that kind of made his rushing yardage and yards per carry look a lot better than it actually was.
I think that Jerome Ford, I've been saying all year, I don't think he's the number one back that the Browns think he's going to be eventually. However, I do think he's very valuable as a pass catcher out of the backfield or even as like a slot guy at this point.
[00:25:52] Speaker C: Sure, his value is when he's in.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: So if we keep slinging it like we are right now, he's a shifty runner.
[00:26:00] Speaker C: That said, he had a better day on the ground.
He had these numbers in a half. I think he finished the first half with 58 yards.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Almost everybody on the Browns had their numbers in a half.
[00:26:09] Speaker C: So if he finished with six more yards at the end of the game, but this team just didn't need to really play in the second half.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: My point being with him and his value as a pass catcher is you hear them talk every week about how some of these passing plays, these short passing plays, or these swing passing plays are more of an extension of the run game. I think that's what we have is we're not going to have a good running game the rest of the season. We're just not. We don't have the personnel to do it in the backfield. And I think that you run a lot of those plays to do the extension of the run game and get Joe Flacco up over 300 yards every game.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: I do think that with Flacco over 300 yards during the game, if you can put a running game together like this one in this particular, this was.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: The best run where it was a solid. They at least had over 100 yards.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: Between the three backs. You have over 100 yards rushing. That's enough to get your wins in the playoffs because you could choose a little you needed to.
And it absolutely keeps them honest because they were doing just enough on the ground that they had to respect that running game.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So moving on with their running backs, Kareem Hunt, ten carries, 31 yards and a touchdown. And then Pierre strong, four carries for 29 yards, again, did put the ball.
[00:27:21] Speaker C: On the ground, though.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: He did put the ball on the ground, which him and Anjoku both, but.
[00:27:26] Speaker C: He was getting carries until then, like.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: The Browns always seem to do. They overcame both of them.
But, yeah, like you said, the big thing here, the big takeaway here, is that the running game actually showed up in this one, which has been lacking since.
[00:27:41] Speaker C: And we've been calling for Pierre strong to get more carries all year long, and he continues to look fast when he has the ball in his hands.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm hoping that they don't hold that fumble against him too much and he's able to continue to get carries.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: He hasn't had that many.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Uh, but that'll take us to the wide receivers here. And as always, I include David and Joku in the wide receivers. I know he's a tight end, but he looks and plays like a wide receiver, a really big wide receiver, but he was the leading receiver again in this one. Six receptions for 134 yards. And we'll get back to David and Joku. I'm not going to talk about him too much here because we're going to talk a little bit more about him here shortly. You guys have anything you want to say before we move on?
[00:28:27] Speaker C: Just that he continues to be a bright spot for this offense, obviously. I think the Amari Cooper news was a little bit of a shock to everyone that he wasn't going to play this week.
So David Njoku, as needed to, stepped up and kind of carried the load this week. And just goes to show again, we've been talking about is he, what class is he in as a tight end all year that I think he's officially in that category as an elite pass catcher in the league?
[00:28:54] Speaker B: I mean, with Joe Flacco as a quarterback, he is. Sure. That's for sure.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Bone, you got anything to say about Njoku?
[00:29:00] Speaker E: Yeah, he looked great. I mean, obviously. And his yards after the catch were just unbelievable. He just looks like a giant out there. We say it like every week, but he's just cute.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: It is funny. He stands next to like middle linebackers and stuff and he still just towers over him. I'm like, that's insane. Next up here, though, Elijah Moore. Five receptions for 61 yards and a touchdown before he had that terrible concussion. Everybody did, clearly a concussion. He was knocked out. He had somewhat of a semi seizure triggered on the field. Just a hard thing to watch.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: Yeah, never good.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Hopefully it's not as severe as it looked because concussions are weird sometimes. They're actually not that bad and they look really bad.
[00:29:40] Speaker C: I saw one report this week that the doctor said he should retire after that.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: Yeah, but to me it is. Let's talk about that for a second, actually, because every single time there's like a head injury in the NFL, you have these independent neurologists come out last year. They need to retire right now. And it's like, dude, you're just writing this thing up and making this story in this video for not. While you may be an independent neurologist and know a lot more about the human brain than I do, there's a reason why the NFL doctors and some of these other people that see these injuries specifically with sports time after time, aren't like, you should retire right away.
[00:30:20] Speaker C: And I think we've talked about this with some of the players we've had this year. We talked to John Greco about it and he said, look, you're getting paid a lot of money to be professional athlete, and there's an assumed risk that comes along with that. The way that we treat these athletes sometimes is amazing to me and I understand it because of the business and the investment involved. But we don't coddle firemen or police officers or soldiers. The same way you get a head injury, we just throw you right back out there. Because we need somebody to patrol the streets. We need somebody to go on secret missions and recover hostages. You don't get to just sit out because you had a head injury.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: It is crazy too, because the past players, they all seem to be on the same page too, for I would say at least 90% of them. Everybody we've talked to that this has come up. Gary Barnage was another one. I was just like, yeah, I mean, that's what happens.
[00:31:16] Speaker C: To their point and to guys that have made it an issue, it's more to do about the league's inability to provide access to healthcare for players afterwards. And it is so much.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Which again, same conversation with Gary continues to be an issue is that nobody gets help after they retire from the NFL. Right?
[00:31:35] Speaker C: So those are two separate things. But yeah, these neurologists that come out every time somebody gets a concussion, it's just like, do you watch MMA or boxing the same way? How many dudes got punched in the face by Mike Tyson?
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Right?
[00:31:48] Speaker C: That was the one in UFC.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: How many times do you see a guy have again, the same seizure, twitching afterwards and everybody's just like, they cheer for it. He'll be fine, he'll be back to play again or fight again in a few months, like no big deal.
[00:32:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know. It baffles me the way that we look at head injuries in this sports.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: And we're not saying they're not a big deal, they are a big deal. But it really irks me when you get these independent neurologists who just because they're head doctors, brain doctors, that they think that I'm going to go on here and make this video for all these clicks and people are going to believe me that this guy should retire.
[00:32:31] Speaker C: The truth is probably nobody should play football, right?
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah. If you want to boil this whole thing, everybody should retire because football is not a safe game, dangerous game. At any given time you can be knocked out.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: A quarter of our team is on the injury reserve.
[00:32:45] Speaker B: Anyways, I digress. Let's move on to the defense real quick.
[00:32:48] Speaker C: I will say it was disappointing that Elijah went down at that point because he was actually having a really good game.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: That's kind of when it seems to change as mean. The offense came to a standstill after he went down.
[00:32:59] Speaker C: He had a bunch of momentum going. And I know Joe kind of touched on this after the game, was that he kind of felt like Elijah wanted to be more part of the offense. Last week when Amari was getting all the looks and all the catches and he could feel like Elijah was like he wanted a piece of that. And so he had some momentum going in this game. And then obviously the head injury.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: Hopefully he's okay, though, and is able to make a quick recovery and be back for the playoffs because I know his time with the jets, he didn't get to really do that, but at.
[00:33:32] Speaker C: Least he did get a touchdown on the jets.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: He did, yeah. But again, let's go to the defense here. Defense looked good in this one, especially in the second half, which, I mean, I will be honest, both teams made some adjustments at halftime. Really tightened up, and this was one of the most boring second halves of football I've ever seen in my entire life.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: It was terrible when Stefanski came out of the locker room, he says, new half for us, and I was like, I like that mentality. Like, I'm hoping something's going to happen here, but it just ended up being the most boring half of football.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Yeah. If that's what the mentality was, it didn't get through the players because in the second half, he had a three three tie and it was just terrible. Like nobody could get anything going. But anyways, the defense had two sacks, two turnovers forced. Miles Garrett finally got a holding call and the crowd went absolutely bonkers when they called.
Was it was that exasperated? Just like, oh, thank God, they finally did it. And he only got one, though. I mean, he was held like seven other times in the game that they showed, but he got one. So we'll start with him as we always do on the defense. He did get one sack in this one. And like I said, he got that holding call.
He does sit at 14 sacks this season. He did not become the third player to have 90 sacks in their first hundred games. He finished his 1st 100 games with 88.5. So just shy.
[00:34:58] Speaker C: Still good company to be in. I mean, you look at that list, that's Reggie White at 105, TJ Watt at 91 and a half, and then Miles, there's third all time in your first hundred games at 88 and a half sacks.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: And we've talked about this. JJ Watt after that, we've talked about this. I don't care what people say about TJ Watt and thinking he's better than Miles Garrett. They're different styles. And to me, as far as, like a team game. I would take Miles Garrett every day because he wins his matchup and opens things up for other players far more often than TJ Watt does.
[00:35:29] Speaker C: Sure. And like I said, I mean, you're still third all mean.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Let's be real. What does that come out to?
[00:35:36] Speaker C: I mean, if I could be third all time, separated them, I'd be pretty excited.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: That'd be pretty cool.
Pizza eating competition.
[00:35:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd take that third all time. Most pizza ever eaten.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: That would be awesome.
[00:35:51] Speaker C: I ate the third most pizza ever.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: That's pretty cool, but yeah. So next up here, isioni Takitake. He got the start in this one because of the injuries and he did not disappoint. 16 tackles in this one. One pass defense.
Yeah, I mean, dude was everywhere.
[00:36:09] Speaker C: He's a player that's come a long way this year. Yeah, he was kind of one of those tweeners. Kind of like, is he good enough to be a starter this year? He has really stepped up and played really well, I think, all year.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: Absolutely. And bone. I know if anybody sees bone right now, they probably don't understand that. It's a real weird thing we got going here. Kenny used to be a receiver in a corner. Bone used to be a linebacker.
[00:36:36] Speaker C: Now he's a furry.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's real weird, but no bone. I mean, you were a linebacker, so you can appreciate his mean. Do you have anything to say about Taki in this?
[00:36:46] Speaker E: I mean, he was everywhere. He was tough, seemed to win at the point of attack. I don't know.
At the end of the game, when I saw the set that he had 16 tackles, I was like, whoa.
I read that it was like Joe Schobert, maybe like in 2016 is the last time a Browns player had 16 tackles in a game. So it just kind of speaks to what he did.
[00:37:07] Speaker C: It's a huge performance. I mean, those are the types of games that guys like Roquan Smith have.
You need that somebody to step up and be able to play that way.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: And with the playoffs approaching, now's the time.
Next up, J-O-K. He has been talking about players that have come a long way this year. And the second half of this season, he's looking like, I think he's graded out as starting to go into one of the league wide star on defense.
[00:37:34] Speaker C: He's graded out, I think, as the first or second in his position in second half of the year.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And so he had eleven tackles in this one, two tackles for loss, which was phenomenal. Again, he was everywhere. And then this one, I'm pretty excited about this. Ronnie Hickman, former Ohio State guy, got the start in this one because all of our safeties are hurt. And he had an interception return 30 yards for a touchdown, which was awesome.
You could just see it on the defense. Like everybody was so excited for him in this.
[00:38:02] Speaker C: Yeah, Ronnie was one of these.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: He's got a great name, by the way.
[00:38:05] Speaker C: Terrible was one of these guys that was a bubble guy during camp and the offseason, wasn't going to make the original 53 man, then got called up. So, yeah, great for him. He had the opportunity to play due to injuries and he has not disappointed. I feel like we talk about him a little bit every week where he showed up in at least one big play that's changed the course of the game. So good on him. Happy to see an Ohio State kid do well.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: And the rest of the secondary, they looked okay in this one. They did get beat a few times. There was quite a few passes of 20 yards or more in this one. But I mean, the jets had to throw the ball the entire game, so it was bound to happen at least a few times.
[00:38:42] Speaker C: And I felt like that defense played softer in the second half. They probably played a lot more zone than they normally do where they're generally a man in a blitz team.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: All they were doing was, I mean, let's be honest, even though they gave up some yards in the second half, the name of the game was just to not give up any points. Like, you already had a big lead, just try and give up zero points.
[00:39:00] Speaker C: As long as we don't give up 25 points, we won't lose.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd agree with you. I think they probably softened up a little bit, but then tightened up in like the red zone or like anytime things started to get over the 50 there. But special teams, Riley Patterson, our newly signed kicker, because our hero, Dustin Hopkins, is down with an injury right now. One for one field goals, four for five extra points. That's right, he missed an extra point. The dude is no Dustin Hopkins, but he did play fine in this one. So can't be disappointed that we had.
[00:39:30] Speaker C: A guy that could kick the ball.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's better than not having a guy that could kick the ball, that's for sure.
[00:39:35] Speaker C: Speaking of, I know we talked last was last week when both specialists went down about having an emergency guy. Did you see Odell Beckham kicking field goals before their game?
[00:39:47] Speaker B: No, I did not.
[00:39:48] Speaker C: But he was doing. He was spinning like a top and kicking them from like the 20 just.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: To let you guys know I could do it.
Yeah. I mean, I don't even know if the Browns went in with an emergency guy this game, if they learned their lesson or not.
[00:40:02] Speaker C: I mean, I think they were just hoping Riley Patterson didn't die.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: Who did their punting?
[00:40:08] Speaker C: Some guy named Hawk. Matt Hawk.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: Oh, Hawk. Yeah, that's what it was. I didn't even write him down, but, I mean, he did fine.
[00:40:14] Speaker C: Uh, he kicked the ball anyway.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: Yeah, we had guys that could kick the. So, um, coaching in this one, listen, we kind of go through one by one every week and talk about the coaching. The Browns won again. Everybody's hurt. We're in the playoffs. Size. Kind of have Stefanski, Schwartz and Ventron all lump together and say they all did well in this one.
I mean, it was a pretty dominant performance.
[00:40:39] Speaker C: Performance layering that stuck out in this game. This game was, again, you're missing a bunch of guys. You got backups playing that you signed this week at your kicker and punter.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: I would say that I guess we should point out Ventrone a little bit in that one because four for five extra points, you didn't have any. One of them. Pretty solid for a guy that just signed with the team this week.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Yeah, but look, at the end of the day, this was a game to clinch the playoffs.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:06] Speaker C: They came in that this jets team could be a little bit squirrely, could play, could exceed their potential and their ability at times. And they have a decent defense. More than decent. This is one of the top ten defenses in the top three as far.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: As yards per game. It was number three.
[00:41:25] Speaker C: It's a good defense they played. And this team just came in and left. Absolutely no doubt.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: This was the third best team in the NFL in yards per game. And Joe Flacco hung 296 on him in the first half.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: First half, yeah.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: So, I mean, that just speaks to how dominant it was. And then, honestly, the game was. We already mentioned it, but the game was over at halftime, so all the wind was out of everybody's like, including the jets. They were like, well, we lost. The Browns were like, well, we won. And they just kind of coasted the second half.
[00:41:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it was one of those things. If the jets were still playing, they're out of the playoffs, playoff seeding. They might have.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: No, they were out.
[00:41:58] Speaker C: No, I'm saying we might have had more action in that second half, but I think they came out and got lamb basted in the first half and they were like, we don't have anything to play for, like one two, three. Can't coon.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And the Browns were like, we sealed our playoff. Yeah.
[00:42:14] Speaker C: Like, let's start resting now.
[00:42:16] Speaker B: Even if we're not resting, start taking it easy a little.
[00:42:20] Speaker C: We could almost make this a three week break. I mean, the nice thing is, because they played on Thursday, you kind of have that mini, and then you're going to play this week against it again. It doesn't matter if you can rest your guys then, and then you have a whole week leading up to the playoffs.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: It's the best situation for a Browns team that is historically unhealthy.
[00:42:35] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: But anyway, so overall on this one, total yards. New York Jets 360. Cleveland Browns 428. 1st downs? Jets 17, browns 20. Time of possession? Jets 31 51. Browns 28. Nine. Penalties? Jets twelve for 74. Browns four for 26. And turnovers? Jets two, browns three. So a couple of things here. We've mentioned multiple times how the first half was the exciting part and the second half was terrible and he probably could have went to sleep.
This was the first game in NFL history where two teams combined for 50 plus in the first half and no one scored a touchdown in the second half of the game. So we went into halftime and I was like, God, this is going to be a blast to watch the rest.
[00:43:22] Speaker C: Of the way for 600 yards.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: I could not be further from the truth. And what actually happened, it was terrible. And as you mentioned, Flacco had 200. And we both mentioned Flacco had 296 at halftime. And he finished with 309 yards. So he threw for 13 yards in the second half, which that part is not good.
But again, I think we were.
[00:43:43] Speaker C: Play calling changed quite a bit. I mean, they ran the ball. I think we were just really a little bit more.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: But I mentioned the fact that they threw for 309 yards in this one because he is now the only Browns player to ever throw for 300 plus yards in four straight games.
[00:43:58] Speaker C: He's the best quarterback in Browns history.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: And the legend of Cleveland, Browns quarterback Joe Flacco, continues to grow the greatest of all time. Every week, something else happens where you're like, holy shit. Like, what is going on here in Cleveland?
[00:44:12] Speaker E: Breaks another record.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's insane.
[00:44:15] Speaker E: Five games played.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: It's absolutely insane.
[00:44:17] Speaker C: I saw he's 71 or 72 yards from breaking Johnny Manzel's career yard record, which puts him like, 30th all time on, like, the Browns passing.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: I thought he did it in this game. I thought I saw a tweet that he did it in this game.
[00:44:32] Speaker C: Still 70 yards away. But Manzel immediately tweeted back like some records are meant to be broken.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I did see the response. There was also from Schwartz, Anthony Schwartz, your old pal.
There was a tweet that gave like a series of events and said basically the tweet said, anthony Schwartz drops a pass on whatever down to cost them the game. Leads to this, leads to this, leads to this, leads to Flacco being the quarterback of the Browns. Go to the playoffs and Anthony Schwartz retweeted it and said, don't say I didn't do anything for couple.
[00:45:07] Speaker C: At least he knows he sucks.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Yeah. A couple of funny tweets from some terrible ex Browns players this week.
[00:45:14] Speaker C: I will say this. I know we don't have this as a note or anything, but I want to talk about this now because it fits in the segment.
Amazon's coverage of the NFL I think is really good.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: Oh, it's really good. You know what drove me nuts in this one, though, before you go any further, did anybody else's because I had great Internet connection. So I know it wasn't my Internet connection, but the words kept starting to not match up on the broadcast with the mouths of.
[00:45:41] Speaker C: I did not have that particular issue.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: I had to restart it like three times and it might have just been the receiver I was using. We haven't hooked up the fire sticks yet. Middle of a move, all that stuff. So the only receiver I could find was this might be a Verizon problem. It was a Verizon has like a streaming device and we used that because it was the only one I could find.
[00:45:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I didn't have, but anyway, pixelated.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: It was driving me insane because I was like, after like 20 minutes, all of a sudden their mouths didn't match with what they were saying. It was like delayed by a second. I can't watch this.
[00:46:11] Speaker E: Was the game still on locally? I looked and it was supposed to be.
[00:46:15] Speaker C: I didn't look once I turned it on, but it was supposed to be. I know there was a whole. It was dust up about it because it wasn't on the channel guide.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: It wasn't on the channel guide, but it was on.
[00:46:24] Speaker C: It was still supposed to be carried. But just in general, Amazon's presentation of these games I think is done really well. I think they have a really good cast and crew to pregame and post game these things.
I think they offer good insights. I just think they've caught a lot of flak this year, last year, because the matchups weren't always great, but I think they do a really good job with coverage and I think one of the interesting things is when this switched over last year and Amazon did this and we talked about the very first game that Amazon did some of the cool things that they can do with technology because it's streaming and because Amazon is such a tech giant and thinking about the future of the game and what this looks like, I was really disappointed because what I noticed is what they've done with it and we should have probably seen this coming was the first technological challenge that they solved for was how do we create more immersive advertising? Every commercial now comes with. Click here to learn more. Click here to have Amazon send you an email about the deals at Valvoline. Click here to. And more about this new series on.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: How do you make the most possible money?
[00:47:36] Speaker C: Well, I'm saying we should have probably seen that coming because we were all excited last year when it started about the cool things that they were doing with statistics, the way they would pop up on your screen. You could see fantasy stuff. And there was some of that because they had the little red circle going where they were doing the AI on who's in the box and who's maybe not supposed to be there for quarterbacks.
I think there's more that coming, but it was just kind of like very consumerist and very funny to me. That's the commercial.
Let's help out all these advertisers to give you a more immersive way to like, oh, you know what? I do want a Toyota rav four. Let me click on that. Buy one right now online.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd agree with that. I would say that the things that we're saying we want is going to come a lot more when Amazon gets more into the fantasy football or sports betting type side of things.
I know they're not in that really right now, but I think that's for sure coming. Just like you have the ESPN platform for fantasy football or Yahoo or whatever you use. I think very soon, if not next year, you're going to get the Amazon platform for fantasy football and I bet it's going to be fucking dope.
[00:48:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I would love mean there's still good things about like I like the fact that if you were to go to the bathroom and miss a play, it shows you on the commercial break like hey, click here and you can.
[00:48:49] Speaker B: Watch this, the rapid replay or whatever they call.
[00:48:52] Speaker C: And they do have their own separate gamecast of the more in depth, what do they call it, next gen stats and all that. So they have that kind of as a separate piece.
But I just think the way streaming is today, whether it's YouTube and Amazon, I think it's just going to change the entire way we view this game because of all the different things you can do just with a controller on your hand versus having to watch it on cable. So very cool thing to do a good job. I was a little pissed at the fact that the biggest thing that they've done so far is make advertising more accessible. But I do think some of those other cool features that we talked about.
[00:49:27] Speaker E: You guys got the email this week, right? Talking about them adding advertising to the shows now. And you can pay $3 a month to eliminate that as part of the streaming.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: Money. Over money, over money, over money.
[00:49:40] Speaker E: Just happy.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: We're going to introduce these immersive ads that we make money off of and then we'll make you pay money to not have the immersive ads that we make money off.
[00:49:49] Speaker E: They put it so delicately. They're like, all your shows will still be there, but we're just going to be doing small advertising. And if you want, you can pay 299 a month to not have this.
[00:49:57] Speaker C: And you know what? Most of the time I do it.
We had a couple of movies on the free apps, but you have like eight different stops and the stops for commercials are like eight minutes long. And I'm like, jesus, man, that's not even longer than cable. All of a sudden, my two hour movie is a three hour movie. Because you're stupid ads. I'll just pay $3 for it.
[00:50:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
Anyways, we are not sponsored by Amazon in any way whatsoever, so we're going to move on.
[00:50:25] Speaker C: I think they are on the right track and I think that they do a nice presentation of the game right now.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: Fair. Fair. So another brown.
[00:50:31] Speaker C: I do think Al Michael's just starting to lose it a little bit because I think he's just like, what's going on?
Make, they make jokes about like betting lines and stuff and he's just, you know, halftime. Some people are real happy and they dance around it.
[00:50:48] Speaker E: Herb Street's keeping him in line.
[00:50:50] Speaker C: He's like keeping it going. Don't go there, Al.
[00:50:54] Speaker B: But anyways, in other Browns news here, as mentioned before, the Browns are in the playoffs. It was determined, yeah, maybe.
[00:51:01] Speaker C: Hell yes.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: It was determined on Sunday due to wins and losses of other teams that the Browns have clinched the fifth seed with the fact that their seeding can't change being known, the Browns plan to rest their starters for week 18 against the Bengals. I would assume the Bengals are probably going to rest their starters as well, to some extent because they're out of the playoffs.
And with this, the Browns are the first team to start four quarterbacks in the same season and make the playoffs. So pretty cool. And then Dustin Hopkins will presumably end his season with 123 points scored for the Browns. We've mentioned this before and we've been tracking it for quite a few weeks now. Single season franchise record for a kicker was previously 120 by Phil Dawson in 2007. So as we've talked about, dhop is your new franchise record holder for points in a season by a kicker. The single season franchise record for any player is 126 by Jim Brown in 1965. So how fitting because it's the Browns and Jim Brown is the greatest Brown of all time and one of the best football players of all time, that an injury forced dhop out. And most mean, unless they let him suit up and go for the record this week, which I don't think they will. Playoffs, bigger picture, all that stuff.
Jim Brown's going to get to hold his record and his name's still going to be atop the record books as most points in the season.
[00:52:22] Speaker C: I kind of said that last week. I'm not mad that Jim Brown gets to keep his name in the record books there. I think it's kind of mean the longer that Jim Brown's name stays on top of those lists, the longer that we have to keep talking about Jim Brown, which I think is a good thing.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And so regardless, though, fantastic season. A career season for Cleveland kicker and bone man's all time favorite, Cleveland Brown. Dustin Hopkins.
[00:52:44] Speaker C: I will say that all time, too. You mentioned just the first team that's ever made had four quarterbacks start in the same season make the playoffs. Also, out of all the ten win plus teams in the NFL this year, they're the only one that has started multiple quarterbacks at all. All the other teams won ten games, have only played their starter.
[00:53:04] Speaker B: Just speaks to how good this team is as a whole and just how.
[00:53:07] Speaker C: Good a coaching job.
[00:53:08] Speaker B: This is the team of destiny.
We'll get back to that, but that'll lead us to the burning river sportscast. Doll Louise, baby.
[00:53:31] Speaker D: Doesn'T matter, man. You got to play tough, people in.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: The National Football League. You got to be ready, and we got to be the dogs that we.
[00:53:38] Speaker D: Are every time we step on there on Sunday and be ready to attack and don't stop until we're in that locker room.
[00:53:54] Speaker B: All right, so this week's burning river sportscast dog of the week is David Najoku. Six receptions, 134 yards came out and set the tone early in this one. Most of his damage was done in the first quarter, helped the Browns race out to a quick lead that they never looked back from. He caught four passes for 113 yards in that first quarter, and it was the most receiving yards by a tight end in the first quarter since at least 1991, when they started doing quarter by quarter splits.
So that best the previous record of 106 yards held by Travis Kelsey, who accomplished his total on Christmas day in 2016. And so, to Kenny's point earlier in the show, we talk about him being borderline elite. Well, guess what? He just passed the most elite tight end of all time for the most yards in the first quarter.
[00:54:39] Speaker C: Dude's elite.
[00:54:41] Speaker B: This is wild. Every time he caught a pass in the first quarter and then had, like, I don't know, 40 yards after the catch, I was like, what is happening right now?
[00:54:48] Speaker C: I think your point, though, is pretty succinct, though. He's elite when Joe Flacco is the quarterback. Because before Joe Flacco, Joe Flacco has the vision.
[00:54:56] Speaker B: He sees the whole field. So he's like, you're going to leave David and Joku open underneath? I'm going to throw it to him and he's going to run it for 30 yards after the catch.
[00:55:02] Speaker C: Before Joe Flacco is the quarterback, he was kind of borderline. So I'm wondering if Deshaun Watson comes back next year and is our quarterback, is David Njoku still as effective?
[00:55:12] Speaker B: Probably not.
[00:55:12] Speaker C: Or just not.
[00:55:14] Speaker B: Here's the deal. I'm on board. You can't spell elite without Joe Flacco.
[00:55:17] Speaker C: Joe Flacco is the most elite.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: And he makes David Nanjoku Elite as mean. This was unbelievable. I mean, it was the most ridiculous first quarter I've ever seen. I mean, it was the most ridiculous first quarter of all time.
[00:55:33] Speaker C: Poor girl's name that interviewed him after the game. And she was like, you pretty much had about as good a first quarter as you could possibly have, right? And he was like, yeah. She was like, literally like, no one's ever done it.
He was like, okay, it was good. He's like, it could have been better, but she's like, no, no one's ever done it.
[00:55:50] Speaker B: She's like, you caught four or four passes for 113 yards.
[00:55:54] Speaker C: She's like, you're as good as it gets.
[00:55:56] Speaker E: Even on his fumble, which I don't mean to bring it up during dog of the week, but CJ Mosley, dude, what a dick. CJ Mosley made a nice freaking play right there.
[00:56:05] Speaker C: Straight out, too.
[00:56:06] Speaker E: And then he recovered it after that. So it was a badass play by.
[00:56:09] Speaker B: A good heaven, really good linebacker. Sometimes a really good player makes a good play on another really good player and it just happens. It can't be perfect.
No. But yeah. So once again, the burning river sportscast dog of the week is David Najoku. Congratulations, David. And that'll take us to the division roundup.
So the Ravens dominated the Dolphins this week, 56 to 19. Yeah, you heard that right. 56 to 19. And the only guy that was stupid enough to pick the Dolphins is me. So. Feels bad I was wrong in that one. You guys are both right.
Next up here, the Steelers beat the Seahawks 30 to 23 and officially guarantee that Mike Tomlin once again finishes over 500.
Dude does it again. This Steelers team is bad. And somehow they are ass. They're going to be above 500.
[00:57:14] Speaker C: They're bad at a season. Bunch of positions.
[00:57:16] Speaker B: They have a chance at ten wins.
[00:57:18] Speaker C: I mean, they're another team. We talk about the Browns being an old team with four quarterbacks. They've had three.
[00:57:26] Speaker B: Mike Tomlin and what he can do. So again, Steelers fans, when you inevitably miss the playoffs, but you're above 500, please fire Mike Tomlin. Please do fire Mike Tomlin.
[00:57:39] Speaker C: This in perspective, he's once again over 500 in his 17th season. Yeah, 17.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: Never finished under 500 in 17 years.
[00:57:54] Speaker C: With some of those. With Ben Roethlisberger as washed up as he could be, he's got Kenny Pickett.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: Quarterback right now, which I will throw this in there. Kenny Pickett got cleared to play this week and he is being benched for Mason Rudolph. So that's always good times.
[00:58:08] Speaker C: I mean, Mason Rudolph was always the.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Better quarterback, which is sad. But anyways, yeah. Mike Tomlin, 17 years. So in case anyone's wondering, though, as far as who's picking these games and who's getting these right, bone and I got this right, and Kenny was the only idiot that went against the Steelers.
[00:58:26] Speaker C: I did pick them initially, and then I was like, I have to play the game.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: Well, you still picked the Seahawks and you lost. So Kenny was wrong. We were right. Feels bad. Next up, the Bengals lost to the Chiefs 20 517, and were officially eliminated from the playoffs.
Once again, Bone and I, we were right in this. You were wrong. Feels bad. And the Browns beat the jets easily and everybody was right there. So, for the AFC north, the standings right now through week 17 are as follows. Baltimore, they've locked up the number one seed and have won the AFC north regular season at 13 and three. Right now with one game to go, Cleveland is at eleven and five, Pittsburgh is at nine and seven, and Cincinnati, who has been eliminated from the playoffs, is at eight and eight. And so for king of the north, which we'll talk more about later. Bone. He went four and o this week. In case anyone wasn't paying attention just now. He went four and o this week. He's at 32 and 22. I am at 30 and 24. And Kenny is done. He is officially going to be punished. And he is 25 and 29. Kenny, you want to save your retort for later when we do king of the north?
[00:59:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:59:44] Speaker B: All right, so with that, let's take a quick trip around.
All right, so Russell Wilson is out in Denver. Well, not officially, but basically. So. That's right. Russell no longer tussles.
[01:00:11] Speaker E: Zach, I can't defend him anymore.
[01:00:16] Speaker B: Wilson has been benched for the final two games of the season and the sides seem to be heading for a divorce. This comes after Wilson refused to waive his injury guarantee in his contract. The team wanted him to do this because they were out of the playoffs or on the verge of being out of the playoffs and didn't want to have to pay him if he got hurt. Russell actually said that they told him he needed to restructure his deal or he was being benched way back in November. So even before they were out of the playoffs, they told him to do this or he was going to get benched. And he said, fuck you, I want my money.
So here we are. Denver will presumably be eating all of the dead money here, and that is either going to be $85 million in dead cap if they cut him before June 1 or if after June 1 that will be split over two seasons. So this whole thing has just been absolutely wild. And the Broncos proceeded to win with Jarrett Stidham at quarterback here.
[01:01:10] Speaker C: Jared Stidham is an end of the season rally guy because he was with Oakland, I think, last year, and they did the same thing. Like at the end of the year, came for two or three games after David Carr. Maybe if Jared Stidham shows up on your team, if you're a starting quarterback, you should be scared. Yeah, because Derek Carr had the same thing last year. Russell Wilson this year. And he kind of comes in, he's like, yeah, I can win some games at the end of the year.
[01:01:30] Speaker B: What do you think about this Russell Wilson thing, though?
[01:01:32] Speaker C: I'm surprised one, that this happened at all because I can't imagine that Sean Payton comes back into this situation and isn't sold on 100% of Russell Wilson.
[01:01:50] Speaker B: I wonder what happened. There had to be something personal behind the scenes between him and Sean Payton.
[01:01:56] Speaker C: Which is stuff we heard last year about Russell not getting along with teammates and the coaching staff.
[01:02:00] Speaker B: With Hackett there, there's a lot of rumors out there that he's kind of a diva. He thinks everything should be about him, even down to appearances for the team and things like that. Like if somebody overshadows him, he won't do it. Yeah.
[01:02:14] Speaker C: So there's some weird things going on there. I will say Russell did in the games he played this year through for over 3000 yards, 26 touchdowns, eight picks. So it wasn't like he was absolute ass.
[01:02:24] Speaker B: The numbers were good, but the offense as a whole was pretty stagnant. Terrible.
[01:02:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Never really reached their potential.
And look, $85 million in dead cap is a lot. I don't know.
[01:02:35] Speaker B: That's what I mean. There has to be something personal going on because an NFL team does not eat $85 million. Like, it just doesn't happen.
It's either that or we're starting to see that shift where we talk about Deshaun and all the things that could happen with Deshaun, where teams are saying it was just a bad deal and we're cutting our losses. And even if we have to eat a bunch of money, that's just what's happening.
[01:03:00] Speaker C: Well, and I hope that some of these NFL gms start to learn from some of this.
[01:03:03] Speaker B: Right.
[01:03:03] Speaker C: This goes back to like, quarterbacks need to stop.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Is this what turns it around?
[01:03:08] Speaker C: Need to stop paying quarterbacks guaranteed contracts of 150 or $200 million because you never know when that talent is going to just run out.
Some of these guys I knew, I.
[01:03:25] Speaker B: Told you guys Russell was washed. I've been saying it for a long time, but nobody listens to me. Fuck me, right?
[01:03:30] Speaker C: Well, you also were in the Deshaun Watson kid and he hadn't played football in two years. So you were good with paying him $230,000,000 and he's looked worse than Russell has.
[01:03:41] Speaker B: That's a fair. I can't really fight back.
[01:03:46] Speaker C: But I'm just surprised because Sean Payton went into this situation.
[01:03:49] Speaker B: How does my co host have to be so sharp?
[01:03:52] Speaker C: I'm the sharp as motherfucker alive.
Sean Payton is such a strategist and such a long term thinker that it just baffles me that if he was going to come to Denver that he would have said, I want my choice of quarterback. Figure this thing out, rearrange his contract, do something. Before he came.
This this thing soured and it soured quickly. And hey, I don't like Denver, so FM.
[01:04:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
You got anything to say about your boy?
[01:04:19] Speaker E: I don't like Denver either. But I will say this, I've been thinking about it. Russell next year, comes in third string quarterback to get hurt. He pulls a little Joe Flacco season.
[01:04:31] Speaker C: And that could be his role.
[01:04:32] Speaker E: Takes the Raiders to the playoffs.
[01:04:34] Speaker C: That could be his role. Honestly, that's not a bad spot. If he sits on his couch all year and then he ends up playing.
[01:04:40] Speaker B: He just takes his $85 million.
[01:04:41] Speaker C: And who needs a quarterback at the end of the year? Like when Aaron Rogers ruptures his achilles? Again, who wants me? All right, let's ride.
[01:04:51] Speaker E: Right play caller? Right team?
[01:04:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm with you. Let's ride. Anyways, next up here, we've talked all year about bat officiating, but what happened in the Lions game this week may be the most egregious thing that's happened yet. Basically, in case anyone didn't see this whole thing, what happened is Taylor Decker told the refs he was eligible. And Dan Skipper, another offensive lineman.
[01:05:17] Speaker C: Did not report.
[01:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah, he did not report. He didn't report as eligible.
[01:05:21] Speaker C: If you watch the video back, he ran by and slapped Decker on the ass. That was like.
[01:05:26] Speaker B: He was like, hey, what's up, budy? We're in this play together. So fast forward a little bit, though. And the Lions converted the two point conversion to take the lead on a pass to Decker.
However, after about five minutes of confusion.
[01:05:40] Speaker C: Lions thought they won the game. They were celebrating. The sideline was celebrated.
[01:05:43] Speaker B: It was ridiculous.
[01:05:44] Speaker E: It was like 20 seconds left in the game, right?
[01:05:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it got called back because Decker was supposedly ineligible. And that wasn't even the penalty. The crew announced that Skipper was the eligible man. Apparently, when this whole thing started, even though Skipper never talked to any refs, and that's all video evidence, like he never said anything to the refs, Decker was over there having a conversation with them. Why would an offensive lineman have a conversation with a ref unless he was checking in as it's. It's all pretty crazy.
And I think the penalty that got called was that Skipper was covered up. And of course he was covered up because he wasn't an eligible receiver, you idiots.
[01:06:26] Speaker C: So they kind of said both what they said in real time when this happened. They were like, well, two people can't report as eligible. And they were like, well, we didn't report two. We only reported one.
And he was covered up anyway. So it was illegal touching, but it's very clear watching the video playback now that Taylor Decker was talking to the referee. I think Jared Goff was over there as well.
[01:06:51] Speaker B: Jared Goff was over there.
[01:06:54] Speaker C: And Skipper came by and kind of slapped him on the ass as they were done talking to the referee.
[01:06:58] Speaker B: Jared Goff was reporting as an eligible receiver.
[01:07:01] Speaker C: No, but he was over there talking with the official. With him.
So anyway, this whole thing happened. Mass confusion. The NFL looks really bad here again. NFL officiating looks really bad here again.
[01:07:15] Speaker B: We'll get into that in a minute. I still have more to say about this crew. So this crew, in case anyone's wondering, is they were involved with more controversy earlier in the season, in week 13 to be exact, when they didn't call a blatant pass interference against the Green Bay packers that cost Kansas City that game. So because of all this, Brad Allen, who's the head official of this group, him and his crew have been downgraded, is what it's called the NFL, which is basically what that means is they are not allowed to work the postseason this year.
[01:07:45] Speaker C: And in the postseason, it is worth noting that the crews that work in the postseason are mixed crews where they will take pieces, parts from everybody's crew. But as of right now, what they're saying is that none of this crew will be involved in any of the mixed crew games going forward in the playoffs.
[01:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And so this is a really big story, especially in a time when people are starting to jump on the bandwagon and point fingers at the NFL as being fixed or scripted and pointing out the fact that they're an entertainment organization and not really a sports entity and all this stuff. I mean, this is a really bad look because it looks like there may be some validity to that, that they control games through the officiating.
[01:08:27] Speaker C: And truthfully, some of the officiating, some of the officiating is very subjective. Yes, because everybody on the planet will admit that there's holding on every NFL play, but it doesn't get called all the time. Because you get called all the time. And they wouldn't play the game.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: No.
[01:08:42] Speaker C: So they're supposed to only call the ones that are really bad. But holding essentially happens on every play. So what happens on every play? They're already making that choice whether or not they're calling it because of this or that. So we know that there's ticket Tac calls that go on.
And who's it to say that they weren't slept an extra $500 before the.
[01:09:03] Speaker B: You can downgrade all season long.
You can downgrade us, but we're going to get paid right now in a.
[01:09:09] Speaker C: Day and age where sports betting is now massive.
[01:09:13] Speaker B: Well, that's a whole other side to this conspiracy, right? Is the NFL is involved with draftkings, with Fanduel, with all these sports betting entities, MGM, all of them that you could think of. They're involved with all of them. So they stand to make money off of sports betting.
[01:09:37] Speaker C: Sure.
[01:09:37] Speaker B: And so with like, why wouldn't you, if you're the NFL and you have the ability to do it, why wouldn't you influence the outcome of games to make it the best outcome for yourself?
[01:09:46] Speaker C: And it's just one of those things where you just hate to have a call, an official change the outcome of a game. Yeah, that shouldn't happen to me. There just has to be a better way to go about officiating. The NFL is printing money.
[01:10:02] Speaker B: Amazon does Thursday night football now. Maybe they could make the AI powered by Amazon's cloud. Whatever.
[01:10:12] Speaker C: I would love an AI officiating that wants.
[01:10:15] Speaker B: You have to be able to tweak it right. Because you got to turn it down because if you have cameras doing it all in AI, they're going to catch every, there's holding on every NFL.
[01:10:23] Speaker C: Yeah, but they have holding on. AI should be able to be tuned in to say holding that looks like this is called 20% of the time. Holding looks like this is called 90% of the time.
[01:10:32] Speaker B: And we just crank it up a tiny bit.
[01:10:33] Speaker C: A call here is good versus a call here is bad. It should be able to give you a yes, no.
[01:10:38] Speaker B: We're starting to get deep into this thing because then who's controlling the AI?
[01:10:42] Speaker C: Well, that's why you need that. You still need a manual operator or a team of operators that should be able to go and radio back to an official, hey, the AI says 90% of the time is a good call. 10% of the time is a good call. Like which side do you want to be on? The one where everybody's be outraged because only 10% of the time it gets called. Or do you want to be on the blatantly obvious? This was a good call.
[01:11:01] Speaker B: Wild concepts, man.
[01:11:02] Speaker C: But just in general, even though that AI, I just don't know why there isn't a crew already.
If we can see it at home.
[01:11:10] Speaker B: I thought that there is a crew. I thought that's what they do in New York.
[01:11:13] Speaker C: There is one guy in New York that watches these games and gets called every now and then, but there should be a team of guys that watch from the booth, watch from the sideline and from the booth and from the tv broadcast that can all go, hey, is this call questionable? Can we call this in as the referees and say, this is questionable? What do you guys think? Let them make the decision because they're watching the same game we're watching at home. Why can't we just spend the extra 15 seconds to get the goddamn call? Right.
[01:11:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know what the problem is? The NFL doesn't. They don't make enough money to be able to pay that crew.
[01:11:44] Speaker C: Yeah, right. They want to be part time workers.
[01:11:47] Speaker B: Union and part time workers doing full time jobs or something. I don't know. Anyways, next up here, the Miami Dolphins, as we mentioned, lost to the Baltimore Ravens 56 to 19 this week. As if that wasn't bad enough, Bradley Chubb went down in garbage time and is done for the year and most likely into next year with a torn ACL. What the fuck was Bradley Chubb doing in the game?
[01:12:09] Speaker C: Is it officially torn ACL?
[01:12:12] Speaker E: I believe so.
[01:12:13] Speaker B: That's what I heard. Yeah.
[01:12:14] Speaker C: I mean, I saw him leave the field on.
[01:12:15] Speaker B: I mean, I got it from my correspondent over here, bone man.
Blame him if I'm wrong on the card.
[01:12:21] Speaker C: It didn't look good, but, yeah.
What is he doing out there in garbage time?
[01:12:26] Speaker B: When you're down 56 to 19 or whatever it was at the time, you were still down by like 35 points.
[01:12:32] Speaker C: I mean, if it was 39 to 19 and you're in the end of the third quarter or fourth quarter, what are you doing? Why do you have one of your premier players out there when you're not smart, when you're about to still be in the playoffs?
[01:12:44] Speaker B: Not smart. So now Nick Chubb and his cousin Bradley Chubb are done for the season.
[01:12:49] Speaker C: Feels bad.
[01:12:49] Speaker B: Feels real bad.
[01:12:50] Speaker C: But at least Nick Chubb will be back soon.
[01:12:51] Speaker B: I don't think they're related at all. But anyways, I digress.
[01:12:54] Speaker C: I thought they were cousins.
[01:12:55] Speaker B: I think it's just like a rumor. And they were like, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah. Anyways, huge weekend of football coming up with tons of playoff implications on the AFC side of things. Miami versus Buffalo for the division. It's going to be wild. The losers probably going to get well. If Miami loses, they'll get a wild card. If Buffalo loses, they could be out of the playoffs, which is crazy to think that Buffalo might not make the playoffs this year.
[01:13:20] Speaker C: Well, crazy that Miami could lose a division after they win so good all year.
[01:13:25] Speaker B: But we've talked about this. I mean, they can't really beat good teams. They beat Dallas, but Dallas also can't beat good. So.
[01:13:31] Speaker C: True.
[01:13:32] Speaker B: But then Dallas turned around and beat the Lions this week, so I don't really know what to make of.
Yeah. But anyways, Houston versus Indy this weekend as well. And if Jacksonville loses their game, the winner of this game would be the winner of the division.
Either way, this game is for sure for a wild card spot. So it's just some wild things going on in the AFC and in the NFC. The Buccaneers win and they're in. If they lose, the winner of the Atlanta New Orleans game would win that division. And if they lose, if the Buccaneers lose, then they're out of the playoffs completely. Unless both Seattle and Green Bay loses. Yeah.
[01:14:11] Speaker C: So that could very well determine Baker Mayfield.
[01:14:14] Speaker B: You literally, you could win the division or you could lose and potentially fall completely out of the playoffs. Not even get a wild card spot.
[01:14:21] Speaker C: Feels bad.
[01:14:22] Speaker B: If New Orleans wins, they can get in as a wild card.
Or if they win, like I said, when the Buccaneers lose, they would win the division. So Green Bay wins and they're in with a wild card. And Seattle, if they win and Green bay loses, they would be in with a wild card spot. So there are probably more scenarios. We didn't get into ties or anything like that. There's probably more that we're missing, but we don't really care that much because the Browns clinched the fifth seed. Let's fucking go. The Browns are in the playoffs. We literally are playing for nothing in week 18. We're just watching football this week for fun.
[01:14:55] Speaker C: That's right.
[01:14:56] Speaker B: Hell yes.
[01:14:57] Speaker C: Time.
[01:14:58] Speaker B: And so with that, that'll conclude our trip around the NFL. Kenny, brownsbackers. You want to talk to some?
[01:15:03] Speaker C: Would love to.
[01:15:04] Speaker B: All right, so something we started doing this year for our browns is our brownsbackers interview series. What we wanted to do was highlight brownsbackers from around the country. We wanted to do that for several reasons. First of all, because these people are all diehard Browns fans. They love our Brownies regardless of the record. That part is the obvious part, right? They show up rain or shine, no matter what and root for the team. But what we also wanted to highlight, and it's something that most people don't really realize about the Browns backers, is the fact that they do a lot of good work around their respective communities.
So with that, let's go ahead and get into the next interview in our series.
[01:15:52] Speaker D: Riverside FM.
[01:16:06] Speaker B: All right, guys, this week for the Brownsbackers interview series, we get to chat with Brian from the greater Cincinnati Brownsbackers. Brian, thanks for joining us. How are you today?
[01:16:14] Speaker D: I am wonderful. Thanks for inviting me along. I appreciate it.
[01:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, no problem. I know everybody's time is valuable, so thanks for taking a little bit of yours to join us and talk about the Browns here. But to get started here, tell us a little bit about your chapter down there.
[01:16:29] Speaker D: So I am Brian Clifton. I'm the president of the greater Cincinnati Brownsbackers. I've been the president now for about four years. I took over for our president, Anne, and unfortunately, she took over for our president, Joey, who refounded, who passed away, who refounded the club back in 1999. It was a club in the mid eighty s, all the way up to 96 when they disbanded all the clubs. And then we got the chapter back in 1999, we were one of the first ten chapters, I think, that was approved by the Cleveland Browns.
[01:17:04] Speaker B: Nice. And so how many members are you guys up to right now, did you say?
[01:17:08] Speaker D: We are at about 250 members.
It fluctuates every year. Some years we've had over 300. Some years we have 250. I think with the success, we'll see a bigger turnout next year, which will be great.
[01:17:22] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:17:23] Speaker D: And then we always meet at Slats Pub in Blue Ash, Ohio, on the corner of Kenwood and Cooper. And we always meet there.
[01:17:32] Speaker B: Nice. And I know slats, your logo, I believe, is like the skyline of Cincinnati. And slats is kind of written there in the bottom right corner, if I'm not mistaken. Right?
[01:17:44] Speaker D: That is correct. Yeah. So I came up with that logo because we had a dog with brass knuckles, and it just didn't really represent the city. And that's one of the things I tell all these presidents and that when they're coming up with me, coming to me and going, what kind of ideal do I have? Because I really like your ideal. I'm like, you got to incorporate something with the city that you're in. So I took the city of Cincinnati skyline, kind of boxed it around, moved some of the buildings around so they wouldn't copyright me or whatever else that they had to do. And then I turned the 471 Big Mac bridge sideways, and it made it look like a dog. So it has, like, two eyes and a mouth, if you really look at it closely. And then I colored it in the browns because we dominate the city. Always.
[01:18:29] Speaker B: Nice.
[01:18:30] Speaker C: Love it.
[01:18:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I will let you know at this point that my astute co host here really has some disdain for the city. Of.
[01:18:41] Speaker C: Playful disdain.
[01:18:42] Speaker B: If anybody from your group follows the show at all. Just know that when we talk about Cincinnati and he talks about how he doesn't like anybody from Cincinnati, he means anybody except for you guys, not the brownspeakers. Yeah.
[01:18:57] Speaker D: So the thing with Cincinnati, though, is they're all fair weather fans. When they're winning, everybody's a fan. It's all who days. It's everything else. When they're losing, it's crickets down. Don't. You don't hear anything. I ran into JW Johnson while I was at Joe Thomas's introduction. He was like, what's it like being in hostile territory? I was like, it's only hostile when they're winning, and that's, like, few and far between. So I'm like, it's really not an issue down there.
[01:19:23] Speaker B: It's probably pretty quiet this year. I would imagine it's really quiet this week.
[01:19:27] Speaker D: That's for.
[01:19:30] Speaker B: No, but. So part of the reason that we're doing this series is obviously we want to talk to Browns fans all over the country and all over the world, but we also wanted to highlight some of the great things that the Browns backers do, mainly the community service and charity work that you guys are involved with. So what do you guys have going on as far as community service and charity work with your?
[01:19:55] Speaker D: Years ago, we used to do a thing called member of the year.
Unfortunately, when our president passed away, we called it the McGregor award. So I reintroduced a backer of the year. So the backer of the year, the winner gets to pick the charity that all of our 50 50 split, the pots, raffles, stuff like that goes to. So this year, our winner picked a wooded warrior organization. So that's where at the end of the year, we'll tally up all the money. Next year, at the very first game, we'll have a representative come up to the game, come up to the club, receive the check, and then we'll announce the new winner. And then that person gets the chance to pick the new one. So we've donated to the Dragonfly foundation here in Cincinnati. We've donated to an animal rescue kennel. We've donated to a lot of stuff. American Red Cross is the next one that's getting the check. Just stuff like that.
[01:20:49] Speaker C: So if you're doing a season long kind of raffle, those are probably pretty significant contributions, are they not?
[01:20:54] Speaker D: Well, we do what's called a club party. So we pay for the alcohol and we pay for some food. So we pay for beer, and then we pay for the food, and then we have club parties and stuff. That's where most of the raffles come in. We do that two times a year, but we do 50 50 every time we're there.
[01:21:11] Speaker B: Nice.
[01:21:12] Speaker C: Got it.
[01:21:13] Speaker B: Nice. And so obviously the game is in Cincinnati this week. It doesn't really mean anything.
[01:21:21] Speaker D: It means absolutely nothing.
[01:21:25] Speaker B: Cincinnati's out. The Browns are in, and their seating can't.
I mean, with that being said, I'm sure you guys probably still have some sort of party going on down there, and we're all Browns fans, so I'm sure there's going to be quite a few people going to it.
[01:21:38] Speaker D: Yep. So now they finally gave us a date and time and decided this new flexing the schedule the last week really hurts Brownsbackers clubs because the very last party is like the last game of the year. Could be a big party, it could be stipulations behind it, but now, now it's like, okay, what are we playing for this week? So now I got to try to plan a party in six days for a backer bash that we do. So every game before the Browns Bengals game, we do what's called Cincinnati's backer bash. Last year we had over 400 people show up to copper and flame, but this year we are teaming up with the short vine Brownsbackers. So they're located on the UC campus, real close to it. Seth's been really good to us during COVID years and stuff. It just seemed like a no brainer to have it at their place. So their owner Kelly has been nice enough to let us be hosting there with them. So that will be going on Saturday, January the 6th, from 04:00 p.m. To seven. It's just people are getting into town. A lot of people like to meet the bus into Cincinnati, also meet the bus people, and then they go, where are we supposed to go after that? So it gives them an opportunity to hang out.
We'll have raffles. We'll have split the pot there. The big raffle item that the Browns donated to us was Nick Chubb's sign mini helmet. So we'll be raffling that off and then we'll have like drink special. She made up an orange and brown shot for $3. So I'm like, I can do orange and brown shots all day. I have no idea. She won't tell me. She said it's a surprise. Sometimes it's good just to have a know. But she said there are orange and brown shots. They're $3. So I'm like, that sounds good. I like that, and then they'll have, like, discounted Sam Adams and Great Lakes, because Great Lakes is the big brewery up in Cleveland. Sam Adams is the big brewery here in Cincinnati. So they've joined up to give us discounted on prices. They gave us a bunch of swag that we can hand out to people. The Browns have given me a bunch of swag to hand out to people. So it's going to be somewhat of a fun time, except for the game.
[01:23:38] Speaker B: Is going to be, hey, sometimes that's a good thing, though, because everybody doesn't have to worry about catching the game. They could really let loose at your event. True.
[01:23:48] Speaker D: That's true, too. Yeah.
[01:23:49] Speaker C: And then celebration there, too, because when's the last time the Browns have had a game late in December where it didn't matter, because it didn't matter at all?
[01:23:57] Speaker D: It would have been really nice if Miami could have took care of business yesterday. That would have been really nice. Then we would have had something to be playing for this week. But in hindsight, too, I guess it's really good because now it gives the starters almost 14 days of rest that they get a week off now that they can rest their bodies and stuff. Then they're going to go into practices for the playoffs. And now, whereas opposed to if we were playing this week, we're turning right back around and playing maybe Saturday night or Sunday or maybe Monday night to try to go have those starters that we already have the majority of our rosters on, injured reserve. The last thing we need to do is have another starter go out. So it's just smart to sit them all. Now we're going to have Jeff Driscoll, like, leading the charge of the Browns against his old team, the Bengals. So that's just comedy all in itself, right?
[01:24:51] Speaker B: It's actually, all of this is a great segue to the football side of things. So let's actually back it up a little bit here and let's start with the season so far. So we'll start first with the game this past week. How did you think they looked against the jets?
[01:25:05] Speaker D: Well, I was up there for it, so I went to the game. I drove up, tailgated with the Nats tailgaters and then went to the game. It was electric. That was the most electric. I try to go to two games a year. That was the most electric and fun game I have ever been to since 1999. When we came back, that was an absolute, the atmosphere was insane, what they did with the laser light show and your cell phones, and that was amazing.
It was great. And then we jumped out in front of them real fast and just pretty much ended the game in the first quarter and said, we're done. This is how it's going to be.
That, you know, they wanted the playoffs. The playoffs were like right in their window and they wanted it. They were hungry for it. They got it quick.
Even when the new rules.
[01:25:52] Speaker B: Yeah, true.
[01:25:54] Speaker C: When they did that, the light show, did they put instructions on the jumbotron for that? Like everybody turning your cell phone lights on or how did I get.
[01:26:01] Speaker D: They did that and they let us know ahead of time.
You have to have the app. So it's on the app and you got emails. So you were pretty well rehearsed and informed of what you needed to do. And it seemed like everybody was really logged in because it seemed like everybody's camera was going off, just not like randoms here and there. So they did in displays, they did it in random bursts and that was just really neat. And then at the third quarter when they had that twelve year old kid coming in with the introduction to thunderstruck with all the light strobing and everything, that was just insane. That was great.
They really did kudos to the Browns and the Corey and all them other people that are involved with it. That was absolutely amazing.
[01:26:42] Speaker C: It was cool to see on tv as well.
[01:26:43] Speaker B: It was fun to watch.
Yeah, I'm sure it know, we both just mentioned we watched it at home and I will say this so at home after that first quarter, like you said, things really slowed down a little bit. That was a little boring to watch it on tv with the lack of offense on both sides at the stadium. Was it more of like we jumped out in front, now everybody parties the rest of the time.
[01:27:10] Speaker D: Yeah, the crowd was electric where I was sitting at. So I was sitting on the Myers end zone side of the stadium and I was in the area where they started the flacco chants all the time. So I was down there. I was up by where Chubb smashed the guitar. So I was up, way up a little bit more in that first section, 148. But we were still just chanting and being loud and saying playoffs and screaming and everything else. So the crowd was still being loud and entertaining and really into it, even though the game got boring there in the second and third quarter.
[01:27:47] Speaker B: Well, and I'll say this, that came across on tv.
My wife and I were watching and she was like, why is it so loud?
She said, usually NFL games don't sound like this. And I said, you're right. Usually NFL games don't sound like this. So it was pretty evident on tv that that crowd was really into things and just having a good time.
[01:28:09] Speaker C: Did you stick around afterwards as the players were kind of making their rounds and doing laps around the stadium?
[01:28:14] Speaker D: We did not because I had some events happening in Cincinnati I had to get back to. So we just went ahead and bailed from the stadium, and then we went down to the pit and tried to get out of the pit and wasted another hour of our lives trying to get out of the pit.
[01:28:29] Speaker B: So that's fantastic, though. Like we said, the game was. It was awesome to see. And I think one of the coolest things about this game was that, like you said, not only did we have a chance to clinch the playoffs, but they came out right away and said, it's not a chance to clinch the playoffs. We're going to be in the playoffs and everybody's going to know it.
[01:28:52] Speaker D: I think one of the cool things that just happened at the end, too was a few things, like one and Joku going up to the crowd. So that little boy that he shook and said, we're going to playoffs, really good friends of mine, I was just talking to him earlier at the Nats tailgate and stuff. I know his mom, his mom's part of the Zenya brownsbackers. Grandmother that took him is one of the members, one of the officers of the Zunia Brownsbackers. So we're all, like, really tight and close with each other. So to see Njoku interact with him just brought like a smile to everybody's face and then to watch him hop over the barricade and down somebody's beer, which I was like, I don't know if I would have done that, but I wish I would have known that.
[01:29:31] Speaker B: Sure, he's got a fine coming his way.
[01:29:32] Speaker D: I'm sure he's got an upset stomach coming in his way.
But if I would have known that he was going to be out back when the players let out, that he was going to take shots with fans, I'm sure I would have stuck around and done a shot with him. Because when's the last? I mean, other in 2020.
That was kind of like, were we at home or were we on the road when we clinched it? We were at home and then we went to Pittsburgh, or we were in Pittsburgh and then we had to go back to Covid.
[01:30:02] Speaker C: It was like no one.
[01:30:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it was Covid year.
[01:30:07] Speaker D: Yeah, I think we were at home and then we had to go to Pittsburgh that be at home now to clinch it. And then to know that we have the chance for a number one seed and a first round by, for some reason it was more entertaining and more electric and more. It felt real this time. And we had eleven wins with a chance to go. Twelve wins, which hasn't happened since. Man, when was the last time we had twelve wins? Like 85, 80? Somewhere around there.
[01:30:33] Speaker C: Not since 99, that's for sure.
[01:30:35] Speaker D: Yeah, we've happened.
I think our best one was, what, ten wins since 1999, I think is our best record. Ten and six.
[01:30:43] Speaker C: I think they were eleven and five. The baker, the 2020. I think they were going in, but we have not won twelve games.
[01:30:50] Speaker D: All right.
[01:30:50] Speaker C: Since 99.
[01:30:54] Speaker B: Wild. It's been a long time.
[01:30:56] Speaker D: It's been a very long time. And to know that we're going into week 18, being able to rest instead of week 18, wondering if we win, and then these seven stipulations happen, we might be able to get into the playoffs. The fact that we are actually in on week 17 is just remarkable. It's like one of the first things I told the Browns, I'm like, one of the two things that's got to happen with these Browns backers clubs to get us members and to get us all hyped is you either got to go deep in the playoffs or we're going to have to have back to back winning seasons because we haven't had back to back winning seasons yet since 1999, and we've got now the first round beating Pittsburgh. But we couldn't get out of beating Kansas City even though that was kind of a lame game, too, because you can't do a headshot on Higgins and then not call it and then call.
[01:31:44] Speaker B: A fumble out of bound.
[01:31:45] Speaker D: So that was nice. Officiating again. I don't want to be fine, though.
[01:31:50] Speaker C: We talk about that a lot.
[01:31:51] Speaker D: Yeah, that turned the game right there.
[01:31:56] Speaker B: I always point to that. Anytime somebody complains about the refs, I just show the picture. I'm like, what about this? What happened?
Look, let's kind of look at this week's game a little bit.
Obviously, they're out of it. And we talked about how the Bengals fans are pretty quiet this year when they do speak up. Is it just kind of. It's just an off year? Joe Burrows come back next year, we're going to be just as good as we were. Or does the town want to fire everyone?
[01:32:28] Speaker D: The town is more like all another year, another like this.
It just varies from a large range of excuses and upsetfulness and everything else. Right now, I'm going online right now to see what the Bengals tickets are going for now because I looked at them the other day and I think the cheapest ticket was like $37. So I'm trying to see what they're going to go for now because I might just end up going to the game just to be fun.
[01:32:56] Speaker B: Anyways, yeah. I will say this.
We've had our ups and downs as Browns fans, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I've seen Browns tickets for the last game of the season when we were well out of the playoffs and it was like snowing or something. Literally be a dollar.
[01:33:14] Speaker D: If it's snowing up in Cleveland. Yeah. People aren't going to go to it right now. The cheapest ticket is $61. So I'll probably end up going to the game just to support the brown screen for the Browns.
[01:33:26] Speaker B: Absolutely. And you just get to rub it in Cincinnati's face when our backups to our backups to our backups to our backups beat them.
But no. So what is the city down there besides the Brownsbackers, obviously. What does the Cincinnati faithful think about the Cleveland Browns? Are they talking about us at all, or is there anything at all being said?
[01:33:50] Speaker D: Some fans are glad that the Browns are in. A lot of them are happy that the Steelers aren't officially out, out yet, but we're just happy that they're not going to get in. Hopefully they got a long road to get in. They got to hope a couple of the NFC south, and I think the Broncos or something have to lose. So they got a long road to get in, but they still have a possibility. Most of them are happy that the Browns are in. They just don't want the Steelers to be in. So I think they're happy about that. Some of them you get like, I don't really care. Some of them are like, good for you. You finally know what it's like. It just varies from who you talk to, but a lot of them we can't be in. I'm glad they're in.
[01:34:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
So, like last year, I know there was a huge contingency of people that they were know. Cincinnati's in the playoffs and this is Browns fans I'm talking about. They were saying we need to root for Cincinnati because they're an Ohio team and we want them to win the Super bowl. But we on this show, we're firmly against that. We're like, it's still a division rival. Are you nuts? Like, we never want Cincinnati to win a Super bowl ever.
What are your thoughts on.
[01:34:58] Speaker D: Like, I don't want Cincinnati win a Super bowl because the fans are obnoxious. And that's all I got to hear about how they have a Super bowl ring in that because our six before it was called a Super bowl doesn't count. Which absolutely blows my mind because it's a championship and the NFL was harder back then. You can play three plays and you're coming out. There was people out there that was playing offense and defense and going in on special teams and getting concussions and knocked out and then getting, smelling salt and thrown back in the, they're back in the, like you would see old photos of like Oto Graham getting his head taken off and he's back in there on the next play throwing a bomb to Marion Molly or something. You're going, how do these players do that back then? Because you couldn't get away with it.
It just, it kind of blows my mind to listen to them go, hey, at least we made the Super bowl. And it's like you don't have a championship. You don't have a ring. You have two AFC championship trophies in a case and that's, we have division championships in our case. We have championship rings in our case. We got all that.
It's just, I just tell them to be know, at least win something once and then talk to me.
They just got their second. They just got, think about this. They've been an organization since 1968 and they just finally put in their second hall of Famer this year who honestly, I tell everybody he was 20 years too late. He should have been in 20 years ago. Ken Riley doesn't lead the NFL in interceptions for almost two decades and not get into the hall of Fame. He should have been in there 20 years ago. I know a lot of Browns fans that share that same sediment. When you're a great player, you're a great player and you should be in and he was a great player, but you've only put in your second hall of Famer since 1968. It's like, come on. I think we've put in two since then, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe one. But I know Joe Thomas.
[01:36:59] Speaker B: Joe Thomas. There's going to be another one here soon because I'm pretty sure in the next few years Josh Cribb is going to get in his returner. So last great returner.
[01:37:08] Speaker D: Well, I think the next major one to get in is going to be Joe Vitonio.
[01:37:13] Speaker B: Yeah. As far as when he mean, I would agree with that. And they've got a couple of guys on that line that are probably going to be borderline.
[01:37:23] Speaker C: It depends on how long they keep playing at a high level. Brian, sorry if I missed this. Are you from Northeast Ohio originally or were you born and raised in Cincinnati?
[01:37:32] Speaker D: I was born in Youngstown, Ohio, but I moved down to Cincinnati when I was nine months old. So in 1986, I became, like a big fan of football. I was 13 and I was like, man, I liked Cincinnati's offense, but I really fell in love with Cleveland's defense. I was a big Hanford Dixon fan and I was a big Clay Matthews fan. I was like, man, I really love their defense. They just smother and kill people like Michael Dean Perry, the rest of them. And then about 91 was my senior year, and all my Cincinnati friends were like, oh, you're either with us or against us. You're a trader, blah, blah, blah. And all my Cleveland Browns friends were like, we don't really care which way you do. We're loyal. We don't really care what you feel like doing. So it was more like one was forcing me to be a fan. The other one was like, if you want to be a fan, go ahead. If you don't, fine. And then they hired Dave Shula, who was Don Shula's son who coached division one aa. And I was like, this team's just going to trash. So I was like, you know what? Since 1992, I pledged my allegiance to the Browns 100% without rooting for both teams. And then when we were out of the league, I didn't really vote for anybody.
I kind of adopted CaroliNa because I lived in Carolina for a.
So I moved down here when I was nine months old and been a Browns fan.
[01:38:51] Speaker C: Awesome.
[01:38:53] Speaker B: No. And so with all that being said, and again, that's a good story because we kind of see that people tend to move away from the area or move away from Ohio in general. There's a lot of transplants from the state of Ohio or even within the state of Ohio, and you guys help move these Browns backers organizations all over the place and keep them going and keep them vibrant and alive.
But with all of this being know, we talked about the Browns, how they're doing this year. We talked about the CincinnatI fans, everything else. Even though this game has absolutely no meeting tomorrow. I'm sorry, this weekend, what is your prediction for this game? Knowing the Browns are probably going to be resting their starters and hell, Cincinnati might rest their starters, too, because there's nothing to play for.
[01:39:40] Speaker D: I really don't know how this game is going to turn out, to be honest with mean, the heart of me says, yeah, I really want the Browns are going to win. They're going to dominate them. But it wouldn't break my heart if we didn't win the game either because we don't have anybody starting. I mean, we have our third stringers and fourth stringers starting and they may still play like mix in or chase and that for maybe a quarter or two just so they're not rusty or whatever, and then bring up the score and then take them out. So I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what the score is going to be. It wouldn't shock me if Cincinnati won. It wouldn't shock me if Cleveland blew them out this weekend. Now, if we were going for the number one seed and everything else, I would have made a prediction of like 34 to 13 Browns because I know that we would be playing hard and that defense would be smothering for that number one seed and for that first round by with everybody sitting, resting, getting that 14 days rest that they really need to get ready for the playoffs, which is huge because no other team really has that right now. Baltimore will have it. Baltimore will have one extra week than we will because obviously they're going to rest their starters next week because they don't have anything to play for. They locked up number one so there's no point in getting them injured. So they may have an extra six days of rest than we do. But everybody else has got to play this weekend and they've got to play for everything. This mean. It's just crazy to me to think that Miami has had control of that AFC east and they could actually lose it to Buffalo this weekend. It's crazy to me to think that Jacksonville was supposed to be the preseason dominant. You've got three people that are tied with the same record that one of them could sneak in and win.
Know, there's a lot of teams playing for playoff hopes this weekend and it's nice to know that we're not. We're just rusty. So I really don't really have a score prediction.
[01:41:31] Speaker B: Well, we're going to hold you to one anyway.
[01:41:33] Speaker D: All right, let's go. 20 117, Cleveland.
[01:41:38] Speaker B: I like it. I like it.
We'll get to our predictions later in the episode, but I have it as a close game as well just because it's going to be backups versus backups versus backups. This is just all backups.
No. So before we get going here though, Brian, I do want to mention that we are brought to you by who?
[01:41:54] Speaker C: Kenny seaside events as the official cruise event provider of the Cleveland Browns and the organizer of the Browns fan cruise.
[01:42:00] Speaker B: And so with that in mind, they did run a competition for brownsbackers. However, that is over and the winners were announced. It was the brownsbackers of Pinellas that won that competition. However, we still want to say that we will be mcging multiple events aboard the ship and there will be 17 alumni joining the cruise that fans will get to mingle with like they're normal people. So for anybody that's thinking about going but hasn't gotten tickets yet, make sure you get those tickets because it's going to be a lot of fun.
[01:42:30] Speaker C: Cabins still available?
[01:42:31] Speaker B: Yes.
And then one last thing for us, we do want to mention to you and your chapter and anybody else watching to not forget to call into our hot take hotline and what this is. It's a voicemail that we've set up for Browns fans to literally call in and vent.
That could be happy venting. That could be sad venting, that could be angry venting. It could be all the above in one single voicemail. But just it's set up for fans so they can call in and talk about the Browns and just get whatever they need to off their chest. So what's the number for that, Kenny?
[01:43:04] Speaker C: 330-227-8080 we'll throw it on the screen here on the video version as well. But again, that's 330-227-8080 we'd love to hear from our Browns facehold down in Cincinnati.
[01:43:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So before we bring this interview to a close here, Brian, I do want to ask you if you have anything to say to Cleveland fans that maybe they've moved away from home or in a new area or missing their fellow Browns fans and are potentially thinking about joining a Brownsbackers chapter.
[01:43:36] Speaker D: So joining a Brownsbackers chapter is a lot easier than you think. The Browns this year actually set up a new website. It's brownsbackersworldwide.com, and you can actually find a chapter close to you a lot easier. You'd be surprised how many chapters there are in different cities. Cincinnati actually has four chapters in Cincinnati, four official. We have one that thinks that they're a brownsbackers bar, but they're not. They're not official.
They like to break rules and stuff, but I won't mention them. But we have four in Cincinnati alone, and there are people that didn't even know that there was one. So you definitely want to go on brownsbackers worldwide put in your zip code or put in where your city you're at. And you can do that if you're visiting, too. We've had visitors come in all the time. Hey, I'm from so and so, and we'll make them an honorary member for the day. So we'll give them the response so they can get the discount on the drinks and the beer and stuff for us because we want to set that good example of, hey, we're a club that likes to have fun. We hope that you come back to us. We hope that you spread the word to us so you definitely can find out where we're at by joining that or now with Facebook. There's lots of Facebook groups, so you can pretty much put in, like Brownsbackers Cincinnati, and it'll list all the Brownsbackers or Brownsbackers Virginia beach, and it'll list it for you. So it's very easy nowadays to find a Brownsbackers club than it was probably about ten years ago.
[01:44:56] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I will say this. You brought up the fact that if you're traveling, especially if you're traveling anywhere with the team, for example, if they're playing in Cincinnati, look up the Brownsbackers groups in Cincinnati, because most of the time those Browns backers groups are having big parties when the Browns are visiting their city.
[01:45:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it seems like a lot of those are like the night before they have those big browns backers bashes. So it's definitely a fun time. It sounds like from the backers that we've talked to this year, it seems like that's pretty commonplace.
[01:45:27] Speaker B: Absolutely.
But listen, Brian, it has been absolutely amazing having you on. We really appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much. And we hope to get down there to Cincinnati and meet you in person sometime soon.
[01:45:39] Speaker D: Absolutely. Well, there's a party going on Saturday. I'm just saying from four to seven, more than welcome.
[01:45:46] Speaker B: We'll see what we can do. Sounds good, Brian.
[01:45:49] Speaker D: Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it. I had fun. I appreciate you.
Hi, this is Brian from the greater Cincinnati Brownsbackers, and you're listening to the burning river sportscast. Go Browns.
[01:46:28] Speaker B: Good time talking to Brain, huh? Brian. Brain. Brain. Brian. Brian. You didn't tell him that you used to have a manager, that anytime anybody emailed him, his name was Brian, and anytime anybody emailed him that, they said, hey, brain.
[01:46:42] Speaker C: Brain's like the most quietly, most low key, devastating insult of all time. When you're just brained. Like I got brained, when you're Brian.
[01:46:51] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[01:46:52] Speaker C: Brained, no brain was cool. I mean, Brian was cool. Sound like they have a cool party scheduled or he's going to plan a cool party for this weekend. Hopefully some people show up because going.
[01:47:01] Speaker B: To get wiggity wild on Saturday. Nobody has to make it to the game. They could just get blackout drunk. That's right. We already celebrate the playoffs.
[01:47:08] Speaker C: We already know what happens.
Yeah, good for them. Sounds like they have some neat charity. Way to do the charity work down there by having their browns backer of the year kind of choose where all the money goes. It's pretty neat.
[01:47:22] Speaker B: But we did mention during the interview, and we're going to talk about it again right now. The burger sports guest hot take hotline.
Don't forget to call and leave your hot takes on the hot take highline. These are hot takes. We want hot takes. We want hot takes. We want hot takes. We want hot takes.
[01:47:45] Speaker C: We want hot takes.
[01:47:47] Speaker B: 3302-2780-8033-0227 8080-3302-2780-3302 2788 call now. Operate. Raiders are not standing by. There's no operators.
[01:48:03] Speaker E: Again, nobody's there.
[01:48:04] Speaker C: Just your hot tanks.
[01:48:06] Speaker E: Don't expect it.
[01:48:07] Speaker B: All right, guys, that's enough. Kenny. Kenny, that's enough. Let's take a quick revenue break and then get back here and do the preview for the week 18 matchup. That doesn't mean shit against the Cincinnati Bengals.
[01:48:20] Speaker E: Hell yes.
[01:48:25] Speaker B: Topath Distillery Topath Distillery an award winning craft distillery located in Akron, Ohio, Topath Distillery focuses on high quality spirits carefully made in small batches. Topath's lineup includes an ultra smooth, award winning premium vodka, a small batch silver rum made from the highest grade molasses, an american craft gin made with nine botanicals and a blended straight bourbon made from corn and rye. Topath distillery. Now available locally and in 46 states. Visit topathdistillery.com to place your order online or find an OHLQ retailer near you. Topath distillery handcrafted, award winning, small batch, local and family owned all Cleveland coffee all Cleveland coffee is a coffee company that launched earlier this year in Cleveland, as the name would suggest. Founded by Browns legend and hall of Famer Joe Thomas and six time heavyweight champion of the world in the UFC steepe miocic, along with a team of several other brilliant Clevelanders, all Cleveland coffee is on a mission to give 1 million meals back to the community through an official partnership with the Greater Cleveland Food bank. How will they do this, you ask? Well, with every bag of beans purchased, three meals get donated to the food bank it's such an awesome idea. A bunch of great individuals were involved and the result is the best coffee in Cleveland, bar none. It comes in three roasts, light, medium and dark. The dark is what Joe Thomas enjoys every day. I, myself, and my co host here, Kenny, are medium roast guys. All Cleveland coffee. Visit all cleveland.com today to order your coffee and donate a few meals in the process. All Cleveland coffee, ethically sourced, premium roasted, and three meals donated for every bag purchased.
So we are still trying to pin down our last couple Cleveland Browns fan cruise interviews. We got two left.
[01:50:15] Speaker C: What the hell is that?
[01:50:17] Speaker B: What is happening?
[01:50:19] Speaker C: I know what that is.
[01:50:20] Speaker B: What's that?
[01:50:21] Speaker C: That is the official signal to remind you that the Cleveland Browns fan cruise is just 67 days away.
[01:50:27] Speaker B: That's right. March 11, we set sail for five unforgettable days at sea with nearly 20.
[01:50:32] Speaker C: Cleveland Browns alumni cabins are still available. You haven't booked yet. You're wrong.
[01:50:38] Speaker B: You're wrong.
[01:50:39] Speaker C: So don't be wrong. Get right. Get it right. Make that a resolution in 2024 to be right.
[01:50:44] Speaker B: Yours truly, the Burning river sportscast, is going to be McG. Several events on board, including the opening day and day pool parties, as well as a special event on day three in the auditorium. And we'll probably be conducting some interviews that we'll release later.
[01:51:00] Speaker C: Who's got at least six thumbs and is going on to Cleveland Browns pankers?
[01:51:04] Speaker B: The Burling River Sports guy.
All right, so that'll take us to the week 18 preview I haven't posted because they have.
All right, so this week we have the Cincinnati Bengals guys, and for the first time since I can remember, I don't give a shit.
I'm not even going to ask you about matchup previews or opposition research or any of that stuff because I've got nothing in this one right now. We're not waiting to see anymore. They just announced today that the Browns will be resting their starters. I would assume that Cincinnati is going to be resting some of their starters as well because they've got nothing to play for. We've got the fifth seed guaranteed. They're guaranteed out of the playoffs. And the Browns are historically dinged up right now, so I would think that they're going to take every opportunity they can to rest.
[01:52:04] Speaker C: Yeah, look, I mean, we said a minute ago this game being on a Thursday night with the jets to clinch was kind of a blessing in disguise because even though it was a short week to have to play, they now have kind of this mini buy built in. And then the fact that Cincinnati is eliminated. We've clinched the city. Doesn't matter, can't be changed. You kind of have another week built in where you can just rest, guys, and you have another week leading up to the playoff game.
[01:52:27] Speaker B: Best case scenario for the Cleveland Browns.
[01:52:29] Speaker C: I'm usually not a guy that's in favor of like, rest your whole team before the playoffs. In this situation, this team needs as much help and as much time to get healthy as they possibly can. So this literally could not have played out any better.
The only matchup, anything that I'll even talk about in this game is I know we signed Jeff Driscoll. I know our brownsbacker mentioned this.
[01:52:51] Speaker B: Jeff, is it going to be our fifth quarterback starting Jeff Driscoll? Hell yes.
[01:52:54] Speaker C: A long time backup in Cincinnati.
[01:52:57] Speaker B: I forgot DTR went on IR, so we need win and PJ Walker sucks ass. So I'm sorry, PJ Walker, we don't hate you. You're just not very good at football.
[01:53:05] Speaker C: Well, I don't know. PJ Walker may still end up getting the start here because I'm sure the Browns want to at least remain competitive. But it also wouldn't surprise me if they just started Jeff Driscoll and said screw it because they may want PJ Walker for the playoffs for whatever reason. That's the only thing I think is a little bit interesting is you have kind of this ex Cincinnati quarterback now all of a sudden on the roster. Maybe he gets the start this week against his old team.
[01:53:30] Speaker B: I hope he does now.
[01:53:32] Speaker C: But yeah, I mean, outside of that team is still beat up, needs a lot of time to rest and the more time the better. I don't want to see a single guy playing this week that they're going to play in the playoffs. I agree.
Move them to practice squad, move them to wherever you have to, put them on pup lists, whatever, and sign guys off the streeter from the XFL and just let them run around and play schoolyard ball out there. I don't care if we lose. 100 to zero.
[01:53:58] Speaker B: Doesn't matter.
[01:53:59] Speaker C: Get these guys the rest that they need so they're ready to go for the postseason.
[01:54:03] Speaker B: I agree. So as a team, though, the Bengals are eight and eight coming off a blowout loss to the Chiefs, fighting to finish above 500. The Browns have nothing to play for. This game is not going to be the emotional, physical game the AFC north games typically are. I suspect this game will be one that a lot of people turn off by halftime because it's just boring, but it could go either way.
[01:54:24] Speaker C: Well, here's the other thing, too. We just talked about the fact that I don't want to see any of our players play in this game. Cincinnati is in a very similar position because whether they go eight and nine or nine and eight, at this point, it's a wash season. They've missed the playoffs. I mean, there will be hell to pay if Joe Mixon goes down with the torn ACL or if Trey Hendrickson goes down with some kind of collarbone injury. You don't want any of your starters to miss the beginning of next season when Joe Burrow comes back healthy.
[01:54:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So this could go one of three ways. It's either going to be a blowout one way or the other, which it could be either way just because neither team has anything to play for, or the third scenario is going to be really close in the sloppiest game you've ever seen on an NFL field in your. Yeah, so, but with that, Kenny, why don't you catch us up on the injury report? Are we just going to skip that for this week?
[01:55:14] Speaker C: We can do an injury report real quick.
[01:55:15] Speaker B: All right, injury report.
Go as fast as you can.
[01:55:25] Speaker C: Fast as I can? As fast as I can. I'm the one armed man. As fast?
[01:55:29] Speaker B: Does that make you faster? You're more aerodynamic.
[01:55:32] Speaker C: So much more.
Actually, you know what's kind of funny is the Bengals are relatively healthy.
They've got 12345 guys on Ir. And then Jalen Davis, cornerback, is listed as out right now for the week. So that includes Joe Burrow. That's not a lot of guys that are hurt. So they can feel the team if they wanted to, if they want to win this week. On the Brown side of things, obviously things still not great. Elijah Moore, still in the concussion protocol, was released from the hospital Friday after staying there overnight, but is still in the protocol. Bajorquez, punter, still listed as out. Amara Cooper with the heel still listed as out. Dustin Hopkins, kicker, listed as out. Agbo Akanronko, still listed as out, but still not on the oboe like the instrument on the IR, which again, he has the torn pec or partially torn pec. So I don't know if he'll play another down this season or not. And then Anthony Walker, still listed, is out as well.
The only other one. Let's see, Mike Ford left Thursday's game as a questionable with a calf injury and did not return. So another one to keep an eye on. But really, honestly, I don't want any of these guys to play this week. So I'm fine with all them being out, but hopefully as the extra time that we've kind of picked up here in the schedule allows all these guys to come back healthy for the playoffs.
[01:57:01] Speaker B: I agree. So before we get to closing the show out with King of the north here, players to watch real quick. It's slim pickens out there with everybody sitting on the bench this week watching from the sidelines. But, Kenny, you got a player to watch? Any backups that you've been wanting to see play?
[01:57:24] Speaker C: Yes, but no. Honestly, I think the coolest storyline is Jeff Driscoll. I hope he plays and I hope he beats his old team in the Bengals.
[01:57:33] Speaker B: I agree with that bone. You got a player to watch.
[01:57:36] Speaker E: Let's go. Pierre strong.
[01:57:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, he's probably going to get.
[01:57:40] Speaker E: Pierre strong carries and just hopefully he.
[01:57:42] Speaker B: Probably will be the feature back for the Browns in this one.
[01:57:44] Speaker C: We might run for 300 yards.
[01:57:46] Speaker B: We might actually, it's going to be a blowout. I got Ronnie Hickman because I think they're going to work on getting those getting shit. Why is it slipping my mind right now?
Starting Delphit. No. Safe.
Juan Thornhill. Thank you. There's a blonde moment. I'm blonde. Strawberry blonde. Yeah. Juan Thornhill, I think he's close to being healthy. He's kind of been in and out for the last few weeks, and I think this couple of weeks off is going to do him a lot of good. But Ronnie Hickman will play in this and he'll play pretty much the whole game. So I want to see, obviously, the interception return for a touchdown this week. Want to see if he, and keep that going, but that'll take us to the kick of the north.
Okay? So in case anyone doesn't know by now, one, you really haven't been paying attention, but two, this is our year long AFC north pickham competition. At the end of the season, whoever comes in last place gets punished in the season. This past year, Kenny had a gross of eggs thrown at him in the munilot before a preseason game. Kenny, how did it feel?
[01:58:56] Speaker C: It felt bad.
[01:58:57] Speaker B: Like real bad.
[01:58:58] Speaker C: Really, really bad.
[01:58:59] Speaker B: I froze the eggs.
[01:59:01] Speaker C: I vowed never to lose the king of the north again.
[01:59:03] Speaker B: Here we are. We'll get to that in a second.
We're still working on the punishment for this year. We got to really come up with that because people need to know what the loser, whoever that may be, what's going to have to happen to him. So off top of your head, guys. Kenny, what do you got for the loser?
[01:59:22] Speaker C: You could drop the loser off in Amsterdam in the red light district. I hear it's really dangerous.
[01:59:30] Speaker E: Sounds exciting.
[01:59:34] Speaker B: Bone, what do you got?
[01:59:35] Speaker E: Oh, first episode for next year.
Loser has to eat really hot pepper every ten minutes on the ten minutes during the podcast.
[01:59:45] Speaker B: Wow. Does it get progressively hotter?
[01:59:47] Speaker E: Yes.
[01:59:48] Speaker B: Hell yes.
[01:59:49] Speaker C: We talked about the one chip challenge, but that guy actually died doing that.
[01:59:53] Speaker B: This is actually hot ones.
You are hot ones.
[01:59:58] Speaker C: This feels worse.
[01:59:59] Speaker E: Once you get the hot takes, it's.
[02:00:00] Speaker B: Going to be, oh, man, I love it.
[02:00:03] Speaker C: I don't like that.
[02:00:04] Speaker B: But anyways, once we figure out what that's going to be, we will let you guys know. But let's get into things right now. First things first, I want to remind everybody that I am still the reigning, defending, undefeated, undisputed king of the north until next week when Zach will take the crown. Most likely because there's only two games left and I'm two games behind him. So if he picks the same as me in either one of these, he's going to officially be the king of the north.
But for now, I'm the king of the north. So suck it. Everybody can suck it. Also, Kenny is where he belongs, in last place, and he will remain in last place and he will be punished. Kenny, how does it feel to lose?
[02:00:40] Speaker C: Know that yet? The season hasn't ended yet.
[02:00:42] Speaker B: You're 25, and if you're still the.
[02:00:44] Speaker C: King of the north until the end of the season, I'm still not the loser until the end of the season.
[02:00:47] Speaker B: All right, next week we'll talk about it. But do you have anything to say about coming in last place again?
[02:00:51] Speaker C: Fuck you guys.
[02:00:53] Speaker B: I.
[02:00:54] Speaker C: Look, I'll say this.
Tried real hard. AFC north. The AFC north has proven to be yet again challenging to pick games in. There were a lot of injuries this year, even the Browns. I mean, who the hell had the Browns going eleven or twelve and five once Deshaun and Nick shot went down. You still were pretty confident in that.
[02:01:17] Speaker B: No, but I will say that I did have them going. Eleven and six was my record.
[02:01:24] Speaker C: Very challenging to pick. Obviously was a bit desperate there at the last couple of weeks and trying to pick just opposite to you guys. So I think my record may have been closer to 500, but I still would have lost, so it much mattered.
[02:01:40] Speaker B: Feels bad is what you're saying.
[02:01:42] Speaker C: Yeah, basically the gist of it is it feels real bad.
But still again, I think the bunny ranch and a bag of cash maybe.
[02:01:53] Speaker B: I don't think that's a good one.
[02:01:54] Speaker C: Punishment or the red light district in Amsterdam might be.
[02:01:57] Speaker B: I don't like this.
[02:01:57] Speaker C: Good place to be dropped off.
[02:01:58] Speaker B: I don't think so.
[02:01:59] Speaker C: When the cameraman just see what happens.
[02:02:02] Speaker B: I don't like it, but yeah, our trusty board op, Bone man is going to probably take it this year. Not probably. He will take it this year. So let's just talk about the records before we make our picks. Bone is at 32 and 22. I'm at 30 and 24. And you, Kenny? Last place worst of them all, 25 and 29. Feels real bad for you. You suck. So let's get into this week's matchups. There's only two because the whole division plays each other. The Steelers travel to Baltimore to take on the Ravens. Kenny, what's your pick?
[02:02:37] Speaker C: I think this game will test Baltimore's depth. I think Baltimore's depth is better than the Pittsburgh starters. So let's go, Baltimore.
[02:02:44] Speaker B: Bone, who you got?
[02:02:46] Speaker E: I got to go. Steelers. Sorry, Ronnie, but Steelers are fighting to get a playoff spot and the Ravens are sitting their starters.
[02:02:55] Speaker B: That's fair. So officially, Bone, I'm not even going to come off of my pick because I'm pretty confident in it.
I'm picking the Steelers as well. So officially, Bone will win this competition.
But anyways, yeah, I just think the Ravens are going to be resting everybody. The Steelers are trying to stay alive.
[02:03:13] Speaker C: I think both losers should be punished.
[02:03:15] Speaker B: That doesn't make any sense. That's not the rules. You can't change the rules at the end of the.
[02:03:19] Speaker C: So I think that should be the rules for next year.
[02:03:22] Speaker B: We can make them the rules for next year if you want, but they're not the rules for this year, so I'm not going to be punished.
Next up, we got the Browns traveling to the southern tip of Ohio and taking on the Bengals. Some may call it Kentucky.
[02:03:35] Speaker C: It's basically Kentucky. There's no airport there.
[02:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah, Kenny, you went first last time. Bone, who you got in this one?
[02:03:42] Speaker E: Sorry again, Ronnie. I'm picking the Browns, but I'm going to go a little. What do I do? A little bigger one? Let's go 27 to 13.
[02:03:54] Speaker B: Nice.
Okay, I will go next. You'd think I would pick the Bengals because I picked the Browns record at the beginning of the season as eleven and six. And so if the Bengals won this, the Browns will finish eleven and six.
But I'm actually going with the Browns in this one.
This team just refuses to lose no matter what circumstances thrown at them. So I think that the backups to the backups, to the backups, to the backups that they put in are going to have this mentality of let's not be the ones to lose momentum here and they're really going to be playing hard and they still are in the NFL regardless of what string they are on the team. So I have the Browns winning in a close 121 to 20.
I think that temporary kicker that we have there, what's his name again?
[02:04:42] Speaker C: Riley Patterson.
[02:04:43] Speaker B: Riley Patterson. I think Riley Patterson might hit a field goal to win the game at the end.
So yeah, 21 20 Browns. Kenny, who you got?
[02:04:53] Speaker C: Look, I agree with a lot of what you said. I think the Browns have proven to be a deep team all year long. Doesn't matter who's playing in what position. They just keep pulling out guys that continue to buy into the culture and buy into the coaching and buy into the strategy and the game plan each week and have done a hell of a job doing it. I think also Cincinnati likely is playing some backups this week. I'm going to go Browns in a really ugly, just nasty game that no one really wants to watch and no one's really even sure who won. Let's call it eleven to 511 to five.
[02:05:28] Speaker B: That's bold.
So with that, let me remind you to call the burning of a sports guys hot take outline hot takes hotline.
That is right, I said it again. Don't forget to call and leave your hot takes on the hot take hotline.
Remember hot takes. These are hot takes one.
[02:05:48] Speaker C: Hot takes.
[02:05:49] Speaker B: We want hot takes.
We want hot takes.
[02:05:52] Speaker C: Three 30 230-227-8080 we want hot take.
[02:05:59] Speaker B: 2278 080-330-2278 calling out operators are not standing by. Hot takes no operators because it just answers. Be sure to check out our gear at ww thetappinmedia.com backslash shop show specific click on our show, see all our shit. It's going to be great. Go buy some and that'll do it for us. Kenny, what can we expect next week?
[02:06:23] Speaker C: Hot takes?
[02:06:24] Speaker B: No, what can we expect next week? Hot takes, I hope.
[02:06:27] Speaker C: Look, next week hopefully be a little bit more exciting. Not that this week wasn't exciting because the Browns clinched the motherfucking playoffs.
[02:06:33] Speaker B: We clinched the playoffs. Ready? The bird sportscast is always exciting.
[02:06:37] Speaker C: Yeah, always. Hopefully we'll be much more in tune with kind of what things look like after we beat the Bengals and start preparing for a wild card round matchup against. Could be anybody. Jacksonville, Buffalo, Houston, Indianapolis, nobody knows. We'll see.
Could be really interesting depending on how the games play out this weekend. But hopefully we'll have a lot more clarity at that point. We will have a lot more clarity at that point. We can start game planning for this playoff round. So, yeah, the recap of that ugly game won't be a whole lot of fun, but the preview, hopefully, for the wild card matchup will be.
[02:07:13] Speaker B: That's the most wordy thing you've ever said.
[02:07:15] Speaker C: Yeah, you're the most wordy thing I ever said. We do have another interview with Browns Backers chapter this next week. We have coming up a very special guest, our browns backers friends in Honolulu, Hawaii.
So we'll be doing a little jig and a little jive with our samoan friends down there. And then we're trying to walk down.
No grass skirts. No one's bringing one.
Yaka just wore his grass skirts at the game this weekend.
[02:07:44] Speaker B: Hell yes.
[02:07:45] Speaker C: And my wife was like, why is he wearing it? I was like, he's samoan.
[02:07:47] Speaker E: He knew he was going to have a big game.
[02:07:49] Speaker C: She's like, so why is he wearing that?
And then again, we are trying to lock down the final interviews for our Browns fan cruise alumni interview series. That is tep in 67 days.
[02:08:03] Speaker B: Hell yes.
So with that, don't forget to check us out on social media. Tapping media is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. At the tapping media and burning river sportscast. That's this podcast is on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube at Burning River Sportscast on X at Burning River Pod, you find our podcast wherever we get your podcast. Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pedora, iHeartRadio, podcast, Castro, Stitcher, good pods and so many more. And Kenny, do you know what that's. Hear them.
[02:08:46] Speaker C: What do you got going to keep in?
[02:08:50] Speaker B: I want you to blow my mind my mind I want you to blow my mind.
Do it. Do it.
[02:09:03] Speaker C: I'm going to keep in theme with the season. Obviously. We have just celebrated our new year, so we're going to have some New Year's Eve facts.
[02:09:12] Speaker B: Okay, what do you got?
[02:09:13] Speaker C: Number one.
[02:09:14] Speaker B: I always love these. Are you talking about New York at all?
[02:09:16] Speaker C: Why do we drop a ball on New Year's Eve?
[02:09:20] Speaker B: Because it was safer.
[02:09:22] Speaker C: Safer than what?
[02:09:23] Speaker B: Dropping a square? Drop it.
[02:09:25] Speaker C: A cube?
[02:09:26] Speaker B: I don't know, actually. I think you've told this one before. Go on.
[02:09:29] Speaker C: I have not told this one before because this is a new fact to me this weekend.
I just learned about. We did do New Year's Eve facts last year, but not this particular one.
[02:09:39] Speaker B: Not these ones. These are different.
[02:09:41] Speaker C: Why do we drop a ball in New Year's Eve? Because we've always dropped balls.
Turns out time balls were in a band.
[02:09:48] Speaker B: Everybody's balls drop eventually.
[02:09:49] Speaker C: To help sailors, long before it was used on New Year's Eve, a ball on top of England's royal observatory in Greenwich dropped at 01:00 p.m. Every day. Starting in 1833, to help ship captains coordinate their navigation equipment. Similar balls were set up in coastal areas around the world. So this helps sailors tell time, latitude and longitude.
So that is why we drop balls, because we always drop balls. It was just natural.
[02:10:14] Speaker E: Interesting.
[02:10:16] Speaker C: Number two, the New Year's Eve kiss.
[02:10:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[02:10:20] Speaker C: Started with the Romans.
If you're in Rome, do as the Romans do.
[02:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:10:25] Speaker C: Although things were a bit when in Rome, friskier back then. Ancient Romans are credited with the kissing tradition because of their Saturnalia festival. It was a celebration honoring Saturn, the God of time, where all social norms out the window, they were probably just.
[02:10:42] Speaker B: Out in the streets, just banging each.
[02:10:43] Speaker C: Other'S lives, making out with anybody. Many of the celebration influenced the Christmas and New Year's Eve.
[02:10:49] Speaker B: Like all social norms, though, so literally, they were just all of them. They were like, I'm going to bang your wife.
[02:10:54] Speaker C: I'll make out with you, you make out with me. I'm a dump on that orgy everywhere.
[02:11:00] Speaker B: Nice.
[02:11:00] Speaker C: Yes.
[02:11:01] Speaker B: It sounds crazy.
[02:11:02] Speaker C: That was the gist of things.
[02:11:04] Speaker B: It sounds like a Thursday night for bone man.
[02:11:06] Speaker C: Many of these celebrations, pagan.
Many of these celebrations influenced the Christmas and New Year's festivities that became the focus when Christianity took over the roman empire.
And number three. Number three, if you ever wonder why time is the way it is, when you measure time, months, days and years, what we do, you can thank the.
[02:11:30] Speaker B: Pope, that son of a bitch, for.
[02:11:33] Speaker C: Making our new year start on January 1. The gregorian calendar was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XI as a revised version of the julian calendar. It took almost 350 years to synchronize the rest of the world and get on board. Turkey didn't even make the switch until 1927.
[02:11:55] Speaker B: What a bunch of weirdos.
[02:11:56] Speaker C: Wow.
[02:11:57] Speaker B: Idiots.
[02:11:58] Speaker C: And that, my friends, is facts for days.
[02:12:01] Speaker B: Incredible.
[02:12:01] Speaker C: Hope everyone had a great new year. Happy New Year. I hope you keep all your resolutions. Excellent job on the board today, bone man, my friend. Red hot Ronnie jams. Big thanks to the Cincinnati brownsbackers. Even though there's no airport there. Don't just be a part of the problem, be the whole damn problem.
[02:12:17] Speaker B: And only you can prevent river fires.
Burning river sports cast. Burning, burning river. Burning river sports burning, burning river. So hot. Burning river.
[02:12:53] Speaker C: Cleveland Browns fan cruise and the burning river sports cast.
[02:12:57] Speaker D: What better combination could you possibly think of?
[02:13:00] Speaker B: Motorboat.
[02:13:00] Speaker D: You play the motorboat.
[02:13:03] Speaker B: You motorboat son of a bitch. You old sailor, you.
[02:13:07] Speaker C: You know, I was thinking during that.
[02:13:08] Speaker B: Interview, what were you. Nothing. Because you don't have thoughts. Because you're a brainless idiot.
[02:13:13] Speaker C: Wow. My name is Utrid, son of Utrid friend.
[02:13:17] Speaker B: By the way, I want my foreskin back. It doesn't matter what you think.
[02:13:21] Speaker E: I honestly never thought it would come on. I did it just to get my wife.
[02:13:25] Speaker C: The weather outside is weather.
[02:13:28] Speaker B: The other one, the finger eating food.
[02:13:30] Speaker C: Fingers ejaculate all over my body and my genitals.
[02:13:33] Speaker E: Yes.
[02:13:34] Speaker B: Oh, my God. My house is full of shit everywhere.
[02:13:39] Speaker C: Why do we drop a ball in New Zealand? Because we've always dropped balls.
Turns out time balls were in a band.
[02:13:46] Speaker B: Everybody's balls dropped eventually to help sailors. Goddamn jet. What do you mean, funny? Funny how? How am I funny? All I do is win win no matter what. They called my house on three way, and I was fooled. I straightened up.
I remember one of my friends was like, I'm just goddamn.
I mean, he had his voice down.
He was like, I'm looking for Mr. Josh. I mean, it was his voice.
I can't reenact it. But, my friend, as soon as I said something to the affirmative, like, yes, sir, coach. I mean, I heard all these different voices laughing and snickering, and I was just so embarrassed. Erroneous. Erroneous on both counts.
[02:14:39] Speaker C: Wow.
[02:14:39] Speaker B: But damn, the leads are weak. Leads are weak?
[02:14:43] Speaker C: Fucking leads are weak.
[02:14:45] Speaker B: You're weak.
[02:14:47] Speaker C: You know why, Mr. Because you drove a Hyundai? To get here tonight, I drove an $80,000 BMW.
[02:14:54] Speaker B: That's my name. I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Now, I think we've officially lost all of our more conservative viewers.
I don't think they want to listen any longer.
[02:15:07] Speaker E: It's Mother Nature.
[02:15:08] Speaker C: Where's logo girl when you need her?
[02:15:10] Speaker B: I desperately want to make love to us.
[02:15:12] Speaker C: We need cheese girl, now.
[02:15:13] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[02:15:14] Speaker C: We need cheese girl, now.
[02:15:16] Speaker B: Eating.
[02:15:16] Speaker C: We need cheese girl, now.
[02:15:18] Speaker B: Eating that.
[02:15:18] Speaker C: We need cheese girl, now.
[02:15:19] Speaker B: Down goes Anderson. Down goes Anderson.
[02:15:23] Speaker C: Who's canceled now? Who's canceled now?
[02:15:26] Speaker B: Probably me.
[02:15:27] Speaker C: You making a photo of fat people?
[02:15:30] Speaker B: I'm not just you.
[02:15:32] Speaker C: We're a whole race, basically.
[02:15:35] Speaker B: No way. You're just straight. Just finger bang their salad.
[02:15:40] Speaker E: You first get shocked, and then you get the shocker.
[02:15:46] Speaker B: You, like, see?
[02:15:46] Speaker C: Almost naked. That's cool, man. Whatever.
[02:15:48] Speaker B: No.
Are you not entertained?
Are you not entertained?
This is not why you were here.
Topath rum. Topath rum. Silver rum made from the highest grade molasses distilled three times in a copper pot. Still, this rum is designed to be the backbone of a great cocktail, so good you could drink it by itself. Available locally in northeast Ohio and online in 46 states, topath rum hey Browns.
[02:16:30] Speaker A: Fans, this is your chance to join the company of some of the Browns all time greats on the first ever Browns fan cruise. Picture this for five unforgettable days, you're sailing across the beautiful caribbean sea, reliving the browns'greatest moments, getting autographs, snapping photos and celebrating on the beach with your favorite Browns alumni like Josh Cribs, Webster slaughter, Eric Metcalf and a dozen others. Book now and take advantage of our easy, budget friendly payment plans on this once in a lifetime, all inclusive cruise adventure. The clock's ticking, Browns fans. To book your cabin and for more information, visit or call 216-284-6472 Today Browns fan cruise where diehard fans and Browns alumni come together for the trip of a lifetime. Don't wait. Secure your spot today and go Browns.
