Watson’s "Inside Track" Is a Red Herring for Browns QB Battle

0:00Uh, we didn't get a chance to actually, uh, you did, but I did not get a chance to, to react to Mary case report yesterday that, uh, Dishon has, has got the early lead here on the inside track and the inside track as it were. And I understand that we are all scarred by the last two years of Brown's offensive football and that is going to inform a lot of thinking and teams do think from year to year, right? Like the, it is, it is not uncommon that like, uh, for instance, uh, 2024, the huge thing that sunk the Browns were turnovers. And so Kevin Stofanski said that next year, our quarterback is not going to turn the ball over. That's a number one thing we're not going to have. And the problem is, they went to Lincoln Interceptive's year prior, yeah, course corrected it so hard that it neutered Joe Flacco, who then once he was traded since an addy started throwing for four hundred and then some ways neutered Dylan Gabriel, yes, no, totally fair. By the way, um, that is a case of course correcting too hard.

1:05So if the lesson from last year is, all right, four man quarterback battles just, that's not a real thing. And you have to have some sense of urgency to name a starting quarterback. I think that's a smart lesson to learn. Taking that to, we have to name a starting quarterback as soon as humanly possible feels like the gross over correction that we'd need not do in my opinion. I don't even know that it was like a over career. I like the thought. I like the place you took it. I just don't think this is them over correcting to what happened last year. I think this is just them saying we never gave up on to Sean Watson and like, he's got the inside track because of course, he's got the inside track. And so I, I got a little worried at the response yesterday, Nick. I went on this whole thing and a big tangent about how, how after three install days, do you possibly have your quarterback named and figured out and all this other stuff. And the, there wasn't the pushback that I thought was going to happen. There was not the, I can't believe to Sean Watson, they're going to do this again. That was not the mentality that we took and we had all day long. The overwhelming response was, if he looks better in practice, then throw him out there

2:07and let this go. My response back to that was, it's three days. It's three days. And we watched him be the better quarterback in practice, three straight seasons. And it didn't work out well. And so like, it's just, I, I was a little shocked by the response yesterday and the calm nature that fans had. I thought people would be as riled up as I was and they really were not, um, it's funny. I saw the riled up stuff on social media, we had a conversation. We had full phone lines. We did it for all five hours, essentially, but it wasn't riled up in the idea of, I, I thought it'd be like, I look online and it is 99% of people being like, you know what, Jonathan, you're right. How are they possibly doing this again? How are they going to entertain to Sean Watson? That was not the response at all. Um, I, I just, it's the, the one part that I thought was interesting is think back to Charles Robinson, who after the, the Sean was traded and started to, to struggle Charles Robinson reported that like, basically, Bill O'Brien was relaying the information, the offensive information to Sean Watson from the sidelines.

3:09We brought that up and people just denied it. Um, we have, I mean, that's a, that's exactly how social media goes and how it thinks go in 2020. Yeah, like the phone runs contrary to how I feel. Oh, I don't want that to be true on the phone lines. They just straight up, you know, the other weird part about yesterday, what's that? I, we did, I did not have a great response in the moment. We took two different calls though. I gave, I gave a good response. I have a better one coming. We gave two, two phone calls and coach Riz was with me and they tried making the case that to Sean Watson had nothing to work with in the time that he was here. My response back in the time and like the moment, real live moment was you had one of the better offensive lines that the Browns had. You had Nick Chubb, you had a Murray Cooper, you had way more than enough to work with, right? The best response to that though and what should have happened is the idea that Joe Faka legitimately took that team to the playoffs. The team that to Sean Watson couldn't, he took to the playoffs. Like you can't try to rewrite. Oh, poor, to Sean Watson, not having enough of an opportunity. He had way more than enough of an opportunity. Also, aren't elite players supposed to make the pieces around them better? I, another good point by you.

4:10Wasn't that a thing that I heard? I mean, I, I, we were told all off season, right? You want the quarterback that it's not you win because of, or you win because of not because, not with, right? That's the line. Like, yes, you, you get your 100% right. So again, I won't be very clear that I, I know that Marikaze reporting this. So this is what she's hearing. And so I always look to all right, what's the building going for? What they're, what are they trying to do? I, I have no doubt that a guy who's played 10 years in the NFL after three practices might have picked up an offense quicker than a guy in a second year in the NFL. Did, do I think that means it's the widest chasm ever? And we should, you know, consider to Sean Watson. Or sorry, should door down for the count. Absolutely not. But this does, I think drive it something that I've said that I think the Browns have told Shadore, here's how you get your keys to the kingdom. Here's your path to being the starting quarterback. I think even with Jimmy Haslam at the owner's meetings, talking about, uh,

5:13you know, the, the kind of encouragement they've given to Deshaun and what it looks like to be the starting quarterback to face of the franchise, right? I, I think this could be a stress test on Shadore. I do. So you've, you've called this a farce before the Deshaun Watson thing. Do you still believe that after yesterday? Yeah, yeah, I do. I do. I'll believe that he's going to start week one when he's named the starting quarterback and camp. Um, and when he starts week one, I'll believe that. Uh, he is, he has shown absolutely nothing in Cleveland that proves he can still play football. It has been six years removed since he's played anything resembling good football. He's coming off to Achilles injuries and a shoulder injury. So the idea that a guy who's been pretty traditionally a good practice players look good and practice doesn't mean a damn thing to me. I know. And it doesn't mean anything to me either. And so that was kind of the battle that we just kept getting into. And I coach, coach made a couple good points. He was like, uh, you know, like if you're a munkin, you're going to fall for the idea that he's booking good and practice and how else is munkin supposed to go off of this? And I, I understand all that. But like Nick, we've just been, and then what I told him, we've just been through

6:16too many scars and too many battles with the Sean, we've seen this. We know this scary part. And I've told you this for how many months, the part that was worrying me the most about this whole ordeal was that munkin would see how good of a practice quarter back to Sean Watson is. And that would, that would tip the scales in his favor and munkin, because he hasn't been through it, wouldn't know the difference. But you know who has Andrew Barry and Jimmy has him. And that's where it's a shame on them to be like, all right. Yeah, of course, this is just something special, isn't he? No, we does this all the time. The part that doesn't translate is to Sean from the practice field of the games. That part never translates and they need to account for that. Yeah. And here's the thing, everybody understand, everybody should understand the sunk cost fallacy. Google it if you don't. We're here. Okay. We're here. We've been here. And I, I just continue to come back to the idea that it takes so much goal to put to Sean Watson out there again, that the Bronx who have shown

7:16goal, like you wouldn't believe they, that's all they do. Countless times before, this still feels like such an incredible overstep of previous goals showing exercises, that it still seems counter logical, that they would actually be willing to do this. And then I do think that again, I think to Sean, because of every, all the understandable things, well, the contract, well, but look what they gave up for him. Maybe they're going to try and get something out of him. Don't you know, we used to be someone in Houston, all of those things are plausible reasons for Shadour to fear to Sean. And if you're the Browns and you don't see what you wanted a Shadour yet, and you maybe are not buying all the way in that Shadour is going to be able to take this job, the best thing you can do, if you think at some point, he didn't give you what you needed last year, even if it was early in the process, this would be the time to apply pressure. And this would be the way you do it. This is the part that bothers me though, is that this isn't even like, hey, they've looked around and said, Shadour can't do it. That was three days of install, Nick, like that's not enough to look around

8:18and be like, how much has Shadour learned this off season? That's not even giving it a fair shake. Oh, no, no, but that's it. That's why it does feel like a little bit of a red herring. Like it's a little bit of an early stress test on him, his confidence. So the other part of this is if you're going to take the other route, and I hear what you're saying, but the, the other thought is that they're just trying to get everyone conditioned to the idea that it will be to Sean. Oh, I don't. And so they're spending like, they're spending like four months or whatever this is now to say, all right, get, get people comfortable, get people with the idea that this is going to be to Sean, you go crazy on Twitter now, because this is coming. But here's the thing, Shadour can go out this year and be a work in progress, be pretty decent. But as long as he's showing progress, there's going to be a lot of people that I think give him a fair shake this year, even in spite of all the incessant noise that comes with Shadour. If Dishon is anything less than the guy he wasn't Houston, there really just is no payoff here. And we can get into, well, but Todd Munkin hasn't been here the last four years. We can get into, well, Todd Munkin start from square one with everyone.

9:21Yeah, but he's not. Dishon want you. It is impossible to start from scratch with Dishon Watson, because everybody else who made the decisions and Dishon have been here for four years. This idea that every decision is made with purity and from an unbiased and neutral standpoint that that does not exist in the NFL. There's as much toxicity, there's as much dysfunction, there's as much things impacting decisions in the NFL as in every one of our workplaces, where sometimes we scratch our heads and say, why the hell are they doing that? We give this magical, mythical property because there's a billionaire atop the crest. Well, surely the billionaire is not an idiot. Oh, no, these billionaires, they didn't get here by accident. Oh, and the GM's, they're smart football guys. As if smart people can't be driven by ego or bad decisions or fall out from bad decisions. And listen, I like Todd Munkin a lot, the guys with Todd Munkin, I'm like meatloaf.

10:22I'll do anything for Todd Munkin, but oh, no, I won't do that. And that being, what is that? Yeah. Just being like, well, he really likes Dishon. So I guess I show this is the part where I feel bad for Munkin is because Munkin hasn't been in the building and around. He doesn't, he can only look at it and say, wow, Dishon really does look good, doesn't he? And he's like, and this is where the ego that we talk about, but the ego of these coaches, they come in and they think they can fix anybody. And he's going to look at himself and he's going to really think that he could do this, that he, that he, wow, what a job I've done with Dishon. Problem is, is that we've seen every single time Dishon's had an offseason here, and him look really good in the practice settings. So does he just never have a conversation with anyone that was here the previous four years? Not serious problems, that conversation, if you go to Jimmy Hasleman, you go to Andrew Berry is going to be what? They want Dishon to win this job, I believe, because it's the only way they can potentially come back from what was the worst trade in NFL history. And so they're going to be like, yeah, Dishon did look good. He looks good right now, too, doesn't he? And that's going to, it's just going to continue to keep going and going.

11:23And I just, Dishon's broke on the field. He's mentally broke. He doesn't have it. Like there's, he's great in practices. He doesn't have it on the field.