Reactions to Baldy + The Browns Offensive Line Draft Dilemma Win or Wait

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1:03You know, a car now, probably, is going to be the first receiver off. Off the board, just because of where he comes from, how clean the prospect he is, and how productive he's been. People want to pick apart how fast he is. Well, you know, if you look at a guy that's at the place for the Rams right now, and you look at what he ran coming out of college, both, you know, both receivers, that came out of college. Neither of them were on them ran a good time, but they're both great receivers. And, you know, I just think the question of, can he, can he produce and really speed? I think in a second here, at that position, can you catch the ball? Do you have great hands? You catch everything that's wrong? Can you play inside? Can you play outside? I think that's the most important thing. Brian Baldinger with us, Odyssey, NFL Insider. You see him on Twitter with the Baldi breakdowns. You see him on NFL Network. You see him here on Compass Media Networks. Fantastic guests. And he's on the make-or-right call car right hotline. So what he did, you know, what makes him great? I mean, you said this during the break, is like, it's not like, we live in a world good bad. Well, I don't want, you use an example. I don't want C.C.

2:04I don't know. I want C.C. I don't know, but okay, why not? Hey, Pat, I don't want Tyson Simpson. Hey, Pat, he doesn't look at it that way. It's how, what are you looking for? And then, what can that player do to help fit what you're looking for? Plus, how good is he? There's varying degrees of that. I think you're right about that. I think Brian Boltinger's right about that. I mean, what he said also about Caleb Downs. Like, if you're on YouTube Live right now, or you're not on YouTube Live, get to YouTube Live, you can always rewind it, go back, watch it. What he said about Caleb Downs, that was eye-opening tone. Like, some of the stuff that people see, or don't see, I should say, about Caleb Downs is like, well, you got sunny styles there. You got a hard fellow Reese there. You got a decent offense or defensive line. Like, there's plays that he would make if he were in a different defense that he can't make because he has so many good players around him. I think this is important. And it's one of the things I think is I've gotten older. I've tried to become more and more open-minded because I used to come on after the NBA and NFL drafts

3:04and just blast away at, you know, decision makers. If they didn't take the guy I wanted, and now there's, but the pool was small, right? Like, there were only like two guys I wanted in every draft. And if they didn't get on, I was losing my mind. And it's like, well, that's silly. If you're an NFL GM, you can't just like two guys. You have to like hundreds of guys. And, well, no, according to the media, Patriots only had 30 guys everywhere. Well, that was a very specific situation for them and things got out of hand. It worked out until it didn't. And then when it didn't, it was a, but also the lead kind of passed them by when it came to those evaluations. And I also think even the guys you don't want in the draft, you have to find good things in them because when you're up, you're up. You have to take somebody. And, you know, later in the draft, you start really asking your assistant coaches questions and, hey, who could you, who could you work with? And, and you give those guys, we've heard those stories too. Like, all right, fine, I'll, I trust you on this one. We've all been in the war room together. I might not have the same thought on a player you do, but it's later in the draft, right?

4:05There's not as much of the stakes aren't as high, right? Unless you're the Browns who take two quarterbacks in the third and fifth round. But either way, in this case, I do think the question a lot of Browns fans have to think about when it comes to offensive line. Do you want a guy that's ready day one? Or is it more important to see who has a greater potential to be really, really, really good? Because those might be two different guys. I mean, I want a guy that's gonna be really, really, really good. And, if I got to go through the arguments of, if I got to go through the early season arguments, we'll bust, not bust, whatever, I guess I have to do it. I can't just avoid awkward conversations with fans. I mean, there are players that you take and you avoid them for the most part. But there's a lot of guys that we're gonna have to argue about this. And I think there are a lot of people trying to, I think they're trying to find the perfect prospect at number six and it's frustrating because there is none. The last couple of drafts, there hasn't been that perfect prospect

5:06that we wanted to get into, like, yeah, the Jaguars, they ended up going to the playoffs. Yeah, they took Travis Hunter, Travis Hunter got hurt. And I still want to know what they're gonna do with the guy. Like, are they gonna put them off in defense? Like, we got solid, we got solid Mason Graham, but I think Mason Graham, I think his best years would come. You know, you only get half a sack in that first year, whatever it was, your best years, I think, are years to come because I think that defensive lineman, age, gracefully, usually, they get into a rhythm as older, often defensive lineman, they get the tricks, they get bigger, they get stronger, they get faster. I think that Mason Graham will be able to take advantage of that. What I think that he kind of threw cold water on was some of the big projects that we've been discussing. You know, Tyson Simpson, when your answer starts with, eh, that, I'm sorry, it's a red flag when I'm trying to change my franchise in the first round. Right. And when it came to Monroe Freeling, when he says all this, it makes you think twice.

6:08I like Monroe Freeling. I mean, I actually watched him quite a bit this week. You know, he's got the size. He's almost 6'8", and he ran really, really well. He's on his feet at Georgia. He's just not very strong. I think he's only 21 years old. I mean, he's going to get a lot stronger. If you're willing to be patient with him, I think he has the chance to be really good. But if you're saying we're going to take him number six and play him right away, I think Miles Garrett might destroy his confidence. But I mean, I do like him. It seems awfully rich though at 6'8". And I do, I think too much about the conversations that we have. And guilty of what I just accused everybody of. I get too worked up about the conversations that we have. But I remember sitting there with Deak and seeing Miles Garrett in his rookie season. Get to that plane where he was like eight inches off the ground, chest completely horizontal with the ground, getting around everybody, making better linemen look not too great, making guys who have been better linemen

7:11looking not great. And I'm thinking about that going, man, Miles Garrett's at the peak of his powers right now. And I can already hear, I can see the tweets about Monroe Freelings struggling against Miles Garrett and a lot of school. Yeah, well, one guy's a two-time NFL MVP, a defensive player of the year, and he's going to be a first-bought Hall of Famer and could be the best to ever do it. The other guys are rookie. I think a lot of us will take that. And then a lot of us will go, yeah, Andrew Berry doesn't know how to draft offensive linemen. And we got ourselves another jet wheels on our hand and people are going to be freaking out. And we're going to have to have that fight. And I still can't be afraid of that because they could go ahead and they could take Spencer Finoe and they could put him someplace and move people around and we could be having the same argument. So I can't be afraid of the guy. I have to see how he's going to project. But when you're mentioned in patience, I go, man, we live in an impatient world here. This is an impatient city, impatient franchise. When it comes to this, we are trying to get this thing started now. You got two teams that have been good at being competitive very quickly. We have another team here that really tried to like that fire.

8:11They completely blew up in their face. We're trying to save it with Miles Garrett's career. Just mentioned him, Denzel, we're like, we got to get this thing going immediately. And when you say offensive linemen, people fart at it. And then when you say offensive linemen and patience, I'm not going to, well, that's why it's, again, giving me something that's impossible to sell. He fans do not have watch parties for offensive linemen. No, to get excited about. And then if you tell him, hey, that offensive lineman's not going to start week one. He's not ready. You're talking about the world. You're talking about the worst what we just, we just had what record at six overall? We just had a scratching claw with two wins at the end of the year and got out of the Fernando Mendoza sweepstakes for an offensive linemen. I understand that's going to be the sentiment from a lot of fans. I look at these guys, like I look at C.C. Mauino, I look at Spencer Fino and I say each of these guys started three years that got experience. They've been through the slings and arrows of guys who, when they started out their careers, bigger, faster, stronger than them, they met that. They exceeded that.

9:12They became better football players for it. Yes, they each have their little things. They each have their little problems that they have, you know, like one of the things you're going to hear about C.C. Mauino is that yeah, he leans too much. One of the things about Spencer Fino is one of the things that they say about him is he's a little too lean in the chest. Whatever that means, I think they want more of a barrel chested offensive linemen. They all have their little bugaboo's. But when I look at those guys, they go, man, I got experience coming out the wazoo. I got guys who know what to do with their hands. I got guys who know what to do with their feet. I got guys who are fast enough with it. And maybe Monroe Freeling will get there, but he's so damn young. And when you're saying, oh, Miles Garrett, good destroy his confidence. Like, no, I don't need that. I don't want that. I don't want that to happen right now. If you wanted to take him later on, fine. And I hope that we're talking about him in the same sense, because I'm telling you right now, maybe I would kick it around if he ended up being there at 20. And you wanted to make a move. I could kick it around if he ended up still there at 24. But when you take a guy number six, it's like, that guy's going to start week one. Okay, no matter who you're playing, that guy's going to play.

10:15And if he plays and you set him up for disaster, considering how we're seeing offensive linemen right now, it's going to be hard to get him back to where I want him to be in a bronze uniform. That's my fear. So I do need to mix that with guys who are more ready to start now. Or maybe you just think I'm talking out of my ass. Coming up at nine o'clock, Quincy Williams going to join us on the show, new Browns linebacker, some point of questions about how he's going to change the way that we see this defense, even though it's still one of the best defenses in the NFL. And I got some alarm, excuse me, I don't have them. I have to tell you something that there are some alarming facts concerning our dawn of the Mitchell right now, even after a win last night. That's in five minutes on the fan.