Speaker 1: Johnson cuts back and Noson no yet touchdown Cleveland Gadam
Speaker 1: caps flips, Pattis can touchdown, Stanton setting up a screen
Speaker 1: for Williams, saying in touchdown Denver, the hand off Johnson again. Wow,
Speaker 1: I think we know who's getting a game ball after
Speaker 1: this one. Well, and that was it. A notable, notable
Speaker 1: evening for the Cleveland Browns franchise in a seventeen to
Speaker 1: fourteen victory over the Denver Broncos, their old school rivals
Speaker 1: from the eighties, led by a flock of people that
Speaker 1: weren't even starting for this team weeks ago. Men in
Speaker 1: the background, de Ernest Johnson. The story of the night,
Speaker 1: A hundred and forty six yards and a touchdown at
Speaker 1: six point six yards per carry. The offensive line did
Speaker 1: its job in a gritty, uh gutsy tough in over Denver.
Speaker 1: And I promised um a special guest tonight and we
Speaker 1: have delivered. It is a Broncos Hall of Fame quarterback
Speaker 1: and current general manager John Elway, who is nicely enough. Okay,
Speaker 1: noel Way. We have our friend Connor Or, who I
Speaker 1: don't think everyone knows uh is a bit of a
Speaker 1: brown You are a Browns fan Connor, is that where
Speaker 1: was your fandom on display this evening? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it was nice to sit there and and watched like
Speaker 1: I was reflecting a little bit. I remember a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago when I worked for the NFL um
Speaker 1: you and I were walking up to tape of Post
Speaker 1: Draft podcast after they had selected Cam Irving, and you
Speaker 1: and I were just like, this is gonna fix everything, Like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, he can play multiple positions, like the offensive
Speaker 1: lines finally going to be secure, and uh, that promise
Speaker 1: was just realized with other players finally, like eight years later,
Speaker 1: and uh, like watching Jed Will's play the way he
Speaker 1: played tonight was just like, God, it's nice to have
Speaker 1: like a capable left tackle, you know, post Joe Thomas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know Connor now working for Sports Illustrated, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite writers. I'm not just saying that because
Speaker 1: he's here, but yeah, any Browns fan of of long
Speaker 1: standing has been through a lot. I know. I I
Speaker 1: I lived in Denver for a while and had some
Speaker 1: Broncos fans chiming off tonight that they were annoyed. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a game that pitted Teddy Bridgewater against case Keenum,
Speaker 1: who was in for Baker Mayfield von Miller, who promised
Speaker 1: and vowed to essentially assassinate whatever tackle he was up against.
Speaker 1: Um we left the game very early and was a
Speaker 1: non factor, and we're waiting to see more about what's
Speaker 1: going on with von Miller. But it was an ankle
Speaker 1: injury that looked like a gruesome leg injury. And then
Speaker 1: Jeremy Fowler VESPN reported after that that it sounds like
Speaker 1: von Miller has no structural damages and is fine. Uh.
Speaker 1: Jarvis Landry left this game. Denzel Ward left this game.
Speaker 1: So the injuries continued to mount. And you know, I
Speaker 1: looked at Denver for a big chunk of this performance
Speaker 1: and thought they just simply we weren't able to master
Speaker 1: what Cleveland was doing with these long drives that I mean,
Speaker 1: I it seemed at some point this game that started
Speaker 1: at five twenty pm on the West Coast might be
Speaker 1: over by seven fifteen. I think we caught our producer
Speaker 1: Ricky out picking up a sandwich at the end of
Speaker 1: this thing. It ended so fast, But the Broncos did
Speaker 1: I thought on offense looked good during thirteen and seven.
Speaker 1: Team played touchdown drives that made this maybe closer than
Speaker 1: it would have been in another situation. But I mean,
Speaker 1: we came out a halftime with Troy Ackmen trying to
Speaker 1: discern whether Drew Lock or Teddy Bridgewater was going to start,
Speaker 1: because they both had helmets on, they both were ranging
Speaker 1: up and down the field, and Teddy had not done
Speaker 1: enough in the first half to suggest that he maybe
Speaker 1: keep the job in the second half. And that was
Speaker 1: what was so surprising to me, Like, I thought that
Speaker 1: he had won the job decidedly out of camp, and
Speaker 1: you know, I think the one thing that you heard
Speaker 1: about Drew Lock was that there was an immense amount
Speaker 1: of armed talent, but most of his success had come
Speaker 1: in situations where he was sort of you know, I
Speaker 1: hate to use such a condescending word, but sort of
Speaker 1: like puppeteer, a little bit like Jared Goff right with
Speaker 1: Sean McVeigh, where you know, he has a lot of
Speaker 1: instruction pre snap and he knows where he's supposed to
Speaker 1: go with the ball. Um. You know, he went on
Speaker 1: that little run there initially as their starter, but beyond that,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen him sort of take command of the game.
Speaker 1: And he's been what he has been. He's been raw
Speaker 1: arm talent, that's never been formulated. And I always thought
Speaker 1: Teddy Bridgewater would imperfect for Pat Shermer's offense, and in
Speaker 1: some ways he has, but it's still a Pat Shermer offense.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that's where you keep kind
Speaker 1: of running into brick walls here, where it's not going
Speaker 1: to be anything remotely sexy or exciting, and certainly not
Speaker 1: enough to beat a Browns team that is as versatile
Speaker 1: defensively as they are. Yeah, I mean, remotely sexy would
Speaker 1: have been um an outrageous descriptor for what Pat Shermer done.
Speaker 1: I mean, and he and Pat Scherm obviously was the
Speaker 1: Browns coach, and I thought it was kind of stunning
Speaker 1: to watch, you know, his offense, um, in comparison to
Speaker 1: his offense was not stunning. But Kevin Stefanski I thought
Speaker 1: played um with some he coached with some fire tonight.
Speaker 1: I think they just sort of have after two weeks
Speaker 1: of chaos. I mean, to go out and lose to
Speaker 1: the Chargers the way they did and then to get
Speaker 1: flattened by the Cardinals. Uh. I mean, I did Cleveland
Speaker 1: Radio today and I just thought the mood, the mood
Speaker 1: in general seem to be down on a team that maybe,
Speaker 1: like some of these other teams that get a bit
Speaker 1: of success, you find out they're not all the way there.
Speaker 1: And I thought they just they were who they were tonight.
Speaker 1: They stuck to their identity. Bill Callahan maybe the most
Speaker 1: valuable assistant coach in the a f C on some level.
Speaker 1: I mean it, what what he cooks up, even with
Speaker 1: four or five starters in the lineup, m was remarkable tonight.
Speaker 1: And you know Stump Mitchell, basically the running backs coach, saying,
Speaker 1: I finally got to do some coaching because with Kareem
Speaker 1: Hunt and Na Chubb, you know, you look real good.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure he's telling Nick Chubb what to
Speaker 1: do at this point. But Deernest Johnson again, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that you know, Browns fans have seen him
Speaker 1: in the preseason, They've seen little flashes here and there.
Speaker 1: But to think that this guy is sitting on your
Speaker 1: roster this whole time and just to plug him in
Speaker 1: the way that he did and to form and the
Speaker 1: way he did, I thought he created a lot of
Speaker 1: extra yardage for himself, broke tackles and did a wonderful
Speaker 1: job with his opportunity Demitric Felton is an interesting back
Speaker 1: as well. So you look at the team building in Cleveland,
Speaker 1: you say, look at even when guys go out, they've
Speaker 1: found these guys that are behind them, that fit the system,
Speaker 1: that come in and produce, and that you know, for
Speaker 1: for people that have followed a middling team and midling
Speaker 1: is strong. Um, you just start You're not used to that.
Speaker 1: That's something you see from other franchises. So I thought
Speaker 1: it was a nice signature victory. UM an ugly victory
Speaker 1: to some degree by Kevin Stefanski. Who can who really
Speaker 1: you know, he only lost two games in a row
Speaker 1: for the first time these past two weeks. He wasn't
Speaker 1: going to allow it to be a third. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: bring up an interesting point with Bill Callahan. I did
Speaker 1: a story this offseason on the scarcity of offensive line
Speaker 1: coaches good offensive line coaches, and what I heard back
Speaker 1: when you know its texting people about this was the bidding.
Speaker 1: More like he instantly creates a bidding more every time
Speaker 1: he hits the open market, and it's almost like he
Speaker 1: gets hired before offensive coordinators because he's so important and
Speaker 1: so valuable. UM, and he gets abnormally long contracts. For
Speaker 1: position code. Just he gets you know, coordinator money um,
Speaker 1: you know, and has like helped kind of rise the
Speaker 1: tide of offensive line coaching salary. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty incredible thing. But you're right. I mean, what he
Speaker 1: was able to do and create on a regular basis
Speaker 1: is is pretty phenomenal. And I'll say this to about
Speaker 1: Cleveland's offense in general, they just look so much better
Speaker 1: when the ball is out on time, when it's three
Speaker 1: steps your back heel hits the ground and the ball
Speaker 1: comes out. And that's when Baker Mayfield looked the best,
Speaker 1: right And I don't know about you, but it felt
Speaker 1: like the last two or three weeks it was back
Speaker 1: to Freddie Kitchen's era football where you kind of felt
Speaker 1: him hit that third step and then float backwards and
Speaker 1: try to, you know, make these plays. And the route
Speaker 1: concepts were painfully long, and it just, you know, it
Speaker 1: didn't make any sense. And I don't know if they
Speaker 1: were trying to play a different brand of football or
Speaker 1: with injuries forced them to pigeonhole into that. But tonight
Speaker 1: was one of those things where it was just another
Speaker 1: meat and potatoes game plan for case Keenum And that's
Speaker 1: why you have case Keenum right, the ball is gonna
Speaker 1: be out on the third step. It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: anything wonderful. I think it was like a hud yards
Speaker 1: and a touchdown or something like that tonight. But it's
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's how this offense functions. It's not
Speaker 1: supposed to be beautiful. And it stinks that you have
Speaker 1: Odell Beckham and you're not really going to be able
Speaker 1: to use them the right way. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: almost better off that way, and Baker Mayfield was better
Speaker 1: off that way. Well, I'll give you the last word
Speaker 1: on this game because I already can you know you've
Speaker 1: already seen this creep up. You know. I our friend
Speaker 1: Dave Damnaschek put a tweet out there called Baker Pip
Speaker 1: based off the old Wally Pit play. I mean, or
Speaker 1: is any isn't it this just a backup quarterback coming
Speaker 1: in and doing what you'd want and on the on
Speaker 1: the Baker side and the O'Dell thing. These are just
Speaker 1: these sort of um radioactive topics that aren't going to
Speaker 1: go away in Cleveland anytime soon. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know when we'll see Baker again. I mean, they seem
Speaker 1: to be in really good hands with case Keenum, who
Speaker 1: i'd call the best backup in the league. I think
Speaker 1: you could throw Andy Dalton into that mix. Um uh,
Speaker 1: what is there any controversy here? They just they just
Speaker 1: need to ride this out. I mean with the Odell
Speaker 1: in the Baker business, I think that Baker, you know,
Speaker 1: the way that he motivates himself, um kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it puts you in the cross hairs a little bit,
Speaker 1: But I like the fire. I think you do too.
Speaker 1: I think we've come from decades of like soft and
Speaker 1: just defeated men trying to run this position. And the
Speaker 1: fact that he's showing a little bit of life, I
Speaker 1: think we need to appreciate. Is he you know, is
Speaker 1: he making a candidacy for a forty five plus million
Speaker 1: dollar extension at this point? Probably not, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think that you know, all along, Paul de Podesta
Speaker 1: Andrew Berry were probably open to the idea, as a
Speaker 1: lot of coaches are. That you're starting to hear this
Speaker 1: around the league that like there are a million of
Speaker 1: these guys, Like there used to be five franchise quarterbacks
Speaker 1: and now there's like a hundred. And I was talking
Speaker 1: to a quarterbacks coach the other day and he said,
Speaker 1: like I have, Like I have an eleven year old
Speaker 1: that could probably play in college right now as a freshman,
Speaker 1: you know, and like that's how good these kids are
Speaker 1: becoming quicker with special I have a nine year old
Speaker 1: who could not. But I that's intriguing. Oh yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, they're kind of thinking, do we
Speaker 1: you know, especially in a night like tonight, where you
Speaker 1: win the way that you would like to win, right,
Speaker 1: you run, you run the ball um, you know, you
Speaker 1: create those running lanes and then you just let case
Speaker 1: keenan basically complete play action passes you know, of of
Speaker 1: a middle range distance, and you can win. You know.
Speaker 1: Then I don't think it builds a grand can't you know,
Speaker 1: candidacy for this extension. But at the same point, Baker
Speaker 1: I think is still a special player. He's exceptionally accurate,
Speaker 1: and I think that given time to blossom in this system,
Speaker 1: I think he can. But it's like, you know, when
Speaker 1: that's gonna come to a head. I don't know on
Speaker 1: the Odell front, like I'm particularly callous and I know
Speaker 1: I'm like kind of a one note writer. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: wrote that the Giant should trade se Kwon Barkley last week.
Speaker 1: I think the brown should trade alde Backham. There's just
Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't fit what you need um, you know,
Speaker 1: and he would be great in other places, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it would be fantastic to see him on
Speaker 1: the Cardinals or something wild like that, you know, after
Speaker 1: they loaded up the way that they did and make
Speaker 1: them uncoverable. But you know, he's just not doing anything right.
Speaker 1: I feel like with Odell Beckham, it's like when you
Speaker 1: go camping, I could just I'm fine with like a
Speaker 1: plastic fork or a spark, like just bare essentials. I
Speaker 1: don't need to bring fine China. And it's like Odell
Speaker 1: Beckham in theory is fine China. And I don't think
Speaker 1: the last time you went camping, well it's been a while,
Speaker 1: but I mean we you know, with with I have
Speaker 1: been camping, if you have had the experience as Ricky
Speaker 1: you know to you know, have have we been unbiased
Speaker 1: enough in our coverage here? Have we? Have we covered
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything? Or was it broncos we
Speaker 1: we mentioned the whole Pat Schermer Teddy Bridgewater business. They
Speaker 1: were very banged up at linebacker. But let's get down
Speaker 1: to one thing that we uh that we'd like to
Speaker 1: discuss before we get out of here. Ricky, some of
Speaker 1: you may know, not all of you. Some of you
Speaker 1: were wondering what you're doing here. But in the years past,
Speaker 1: Connor Or and I had a I'd call it a
Speaker 1: side project. I'm not going to call it a vanity project,
Speaker 1: because it was about the good of others, not our
Speaker 1: own good. UM called the Heat and Light podcast that
Speaker 1: covered a wide variety of topics, maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: of an art belt type production. We dug into a
Speaker 1: series of um very thorny topics that included top secret
Speaker 1: government projects, alien life. At one point we unveiled um
Speaker 1: incredible proof suggesting that there is a second Um Beatles
Speaker 1: frontman Paul McCartney, that the actual Paul McCartney perished back
Speaker 1: in the sixties or seventies. It got too hot. Connor,
Speaker 1: I mean, at one point, people like, why did the
Speaker 1: podcast go away? It wasn't by our choice. We got touched,
Speaker 1: we got reached. Someone basically said you need to shut
Speaker 1: it down. Now we have worked through some red tape,
Speaker 1: some blue tape, all the tape, and we are going
Speaker 1: to be coming back in March of two Uh, that
Speaker 1: is an announcement that we're making right here. Well, that's
Speaker 1: what we're telling you right now. That's the plan. And Connor,
Speaker 1: I you know, I know you've been you that you're
Speaker 1: a dogged reporter. Um, you've been looking into a few things.
Speaker 1: Do you want to maybe preview something that you've seen
Speaker 1: of late that made maybe it makes its way onto
Speaker 1: one of these Heat and Light episode two reboot shows. First,
Speaker 1: we need to set the stage of the fact that
Speaker 1: when we started doing this, I can't understate how fingernail
Speaker 1: thin my thread was at NFL Network and how like
Speaker 1: how close I was to being fired on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: And then we decided to drop like a jfk assess
Speaker 1: Nation pod and like it did you know, favors. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt about that. There was just like there was
Speaker 1: already like a massive concern with how I was spending
Speaker 1: my day and then just in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, I didn't shoot up the corporate ladder
Speaker 1: um necessarily, but yeah, I would say that. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're gonna be looking a lot into Antarctica, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously the the final frontier for secrets and um, but
Speaker 1: while I was prepping for the show. I looked on
Speaker 1: Amazon for some really good, um, you know, some deep
Speaker 1: Intarctica reads, and uh, there was a Antarctica Conspiracy Theories
Speaker 1: book and uh it had two star rating on Amazon.
Speaker 1: And the loan comment was a bit disappointing, as there
Speaker 1: are just several blank pages in the middle of and
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, you could read that one
Speaker 1: way or you could read it as that's what that's
Speaker 1: what the government wants you to think. Heavily heavily redacted content.
Speaker 1: That's how I'd view that. Those books, UM typically come
Speaker 1: with a flood of spelling mistakes and you know, sentences
Speaker 1: that just end with no period, so the people putting
Speaker 1: those together sometimes suspicious. We will be back in March
Speaker 1: of two. UM It's a podcast that promises to grow
Speaker 1: almost as big as this one, but not nearly as
Speaker 1: big as Split Ends Erica and Curlin Wolf's new pod,
Speaker 1: which is just UM taking the NFL by storm. I
Speaker 1: want to mention one thing before we get out of here,
Speaker 1: is that for those of you that watch our digital
Speaker 1: show on Friday or which is are essentially are around
Speaker 1: the NFL broadcast show, which will appear on Saturday, on
Speaker 1: NFL Network, UM TV D on the time. It's very
Speaker 1: early in the five am, is that right, Erica on
Speaker 1: the West coast, eight on the east right, it's early,
Speaker 1: but you know, just you tape that thing on your TV. Uh.
Speaker 1: There is a very UM special feature coming out on
Speaker 1: tomorrow's show. Lakisha Jackson Wesleying the wife of our dear
Speaker 1: friend Chris Wesleyan who passed away in February. UM. She
Speaker 1: has put together a feature on the life of Chris
Speaker 1: wesley the accomplishments his incredible personality. We haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1: We're gonna see it UM with her live on the
Speaker 1: show and right. We can't wait. So it's something that
Speaker 1: you can all watch too. So I just want to
Speaker 1: put it out there on your radar. Um Connor, I
Speaker 1: know you were very close to west as well, and
Speaker 1: we have so many wonderful memories and it's just like
Speaker 1: you know, every time you think about them, all this
Speaker 1: stuff comes back. Um. But this promises to be a
Speaker 1: special production. It's uh, that's awesome. That's uh, that's really
Speaker 1: cool to hear, and it's uh, you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: one of those people that is so special that you know,
Speaker 1: He'll just keep recirculating in your memory, you know, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, when I go for a run, I always
Speaker 1: I always put um, this must be the place um
Speaker 1: by the Talking Heads on my playlist because that was
Speaker 1: like a song that UM. We would meet each other
Speaker 1: at the cozy when I would come out to to
Speaker 1: visit NFL Network, and whenever I knew he was coming,
Speaker 1: I would put it on touch tunes UM. But then
Speaker 1: he would come and put it on touch tunes and
Speaker 1: then skip my because he just wanted to hear it
Speaker 1: immediately when I was set down, So like it would
Speaker 1: be like a situation scenario where would be like three
Speaker 1: or four times in a row, UM, we'd hear the
Speaker 1: same song. But you know, every time that comes on,
Speaker 1: it's just like a flood of memories come back and
Speaker 1: we uh, you know, he's missed dearly in the football space,
Speaker 1: but he also left a mark where you know, nobody's
Speaker 1: been able to occupy that. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: that's a really cool thing that you can say about somebody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will not be occupied by anyone else. And you
Speaker 1: know it was back on November six in a in
Speaker 1: a tweet to Matt Harmon, our friend in NFL Fantasy Guru,
Speaker 1: where Chris Wesleyan tweeted out that night, let your case
Speaker 1: Keenum Flag Fly. He was one of the earliest case
Speaker 1: Keenumites out there. Um. I I think he would have
Speaker 1: enjoyed this performance quite a bit, as did Brown's face
Speaker 1: ends and not so much Broncos fans. Both teams will
Speaker 1: return to see another day. Thanks for joining us, Connor.
Speaker 1: Great to have you, Ricky. Thank you for everything. Connor.
Speaker 1: What's coming up on your podcast this week? Well, that
Speaker 1: makes some sense to ask that thank you, I would
Speaker 1: I will first I want to say that I appreciate
Speaker 1: just that so many of the listeners who have come
Speaker 1: from the Around the NFL podcast and also subscribe to
Speaker 1: the mm QB podcast. I hear from a ton of
Speaker 1: you guys regularly, and it just means the world to
Speaker 1: me and to us. Um, as you know, we're and
Speaker 1: and so yeah, UM, I would say, every Monday morning
Speaker 1: and Wednesday morning we have new shows. Monday as a
Speaker 1: Sunday recap obviously first thing in the morning, and the
Speaker 1: Wednesday is sort of like a deeper UM produced feature.
Speaker 1: UM that kind of is in the vein of our
Speaker 1: sort of magazine traditions, so it's a lot of fun
Speaker 1: um and uh I would uh, you know, I would
Speaker 1: suggest joining it. I don't, I like, we don't want
Speaker 1: to run up too much interest, or at least if
Speaker 1: there's a group of people that can only have time
Speaker 1: for one show that I this whole they're listening to
Speaker 1: both business sounds a bit dodgy. They start to get
Speaker 1: tired of us. Um So nice job, Connor, but that's
Speaker 1: enough on that subject. All Right, I love you guys.
Speaker 1: We'll talk soon. Kevin Stefanski is the nicest human. Couldn't
Speaker 1: be a bigger fan. Text from Colleen Wove to us
Speaker 1: just now. So Mark, you've got a long night ahead
Speaker 1: of you. Good looking man too, all right, fair well
Speaker 1: m