Deshaun Watson Bought Himself Some Time With That Win

I'll start with the Browns and Buccaneers.

Uh, Cleveland moves to 1-1, 23-19 over the Bucks, 0-2.

I, I got hot about this yesterday, um, for a couple of reasons.

I mean, sure, did I want to see Baker Mayfield get the completion of the arc and just demolish Deshaun Watson at home and then send the Browns back, uh, you know, rubbing their wounds and then Deshaun having to get benched.

Yeah, I would say I'm like most Americans in that way, shape, you know, but I, I, I, I, I don't think it's overstating it, that when we look back at this season, as it is, and we are talking about the new Bucks coaching staff, this is gonna be the game that we're talking about.

It's frustrating for so many reasons that this team had no aggression on offense, and then, what drives me nuts is I don't know if you saw this, but there were notes from the, um, the sideline reporters that were there.

This gave me like a 45 minute weather delay, and the Buccaneers was more than that, it was like 2 hours.

Oh no, you're right, it was like 2, it was, it was over 2, yeah, it was 2 hours, right?

So you, you have 2 hours until, uh, you, you're coming back on the field.

The Browns' locker room, I guess, from people walking by it and around it, sounded like it was just thumping.

It was like, you just heard music and guys were going nuts.

Pin drops in the Buccaneers, well, uh, pin drops in the Buccaneers' locker room.

You had 2 hours to script a game-winning drive, and that's what you came up with, and I understand that the elements of the elements, right?

But you have Baker Mayfield, like a guy that you liked enough to sign to a $55 million deal.

You gotta have that.

You gotta have that.

And I, I think that's one of those where like, like we're gonna get to the Saints, I hope, in this, uh, episode.

Like I, I, I, I, I can't take the Buccaneers seriously.

Here's this, here's the, the thing too is like the elements all that, so they get the ball back 2nd and 4th, they're 28.

Bucky Irving for 3, Bucky Irving for 6, now they're at the 19, right?

1st down at the 19.

They didn't call another run.

And I That part of it, like there's a holding call in there that affects it, yes, but they had run the ball pretty consistently on the Browns, and they had, I think, established that part of the game.

Again, it's a monsoon out there, and so, like there's part of it for me where it's like, Oh, like, like it felt to me kind of scattershot at the end there, like you didn't.

You weren't playing to the strength of your team, you know.

And you're smirking and laughing and No, because, so a little bit of a peek behind the curtain.

I'm, I'm setting up the next thing sometimes and I'm listening to Albert, um, but my buddy Sean Morash, uh, who is, uh, uh, he, he does a great job on WFAN, and Sean is a fellow bald, and he tweeted the GIF of Taylor Swift at the Chiefs game pointing to the ring after Travis, her wedding ring after Travis Kelsey scored a touchdown.

And he captioned it, uh, cause, you know, Sean is in the New York radio business, right?

It's, it's, it's tough.

And, uh, he said the GIF of Taylor Swift pointing to his race, said, uh, my wife, after I come home from work and tell her that only 4 people called me a bald fat bitch on the internet today, um, which I just thought was like so good.

And it hit me, uh, while I was trying to set up for, uh, uh, the, the point after poor, uh, Albert's point.

But, um, on the Cleveland side of it, and listen, I mean, Whatever you wanna say about Tampa Bay at this point, I, I, I, I'm surprised it's as broken as it is.

I'm surprised that it's as disjointed as it is.

Baker doesn't look right, this offense doesn't look right.

You can say this is what September's for now, because of the preseason, fine, but that's a game that you had to have for many reasons.

Pivoting over to Cleveland.

DeSean now gets a chance to play in front of the home crowd.

And this is one of the weirdest situations that I can remember.

We were entirely certain, I think a lot of us uh were entirely certain that he was gonna get benched before the home opener, but I will say this, I don't think the Browns ever thought that way.

Like, I think that the public was like, there's no way you will give that guy to us for our season opener , we despise him.

But I think the Browns internally were like, dude, like he's way better than Shaddo Sanders.

Like we can't, like, and we cannot go, like we went to him for a reason and we're not thrilled about it, right?

But like we made that decision for a reason and like if we go to Shador, then the door, like, I think that's how the Browns, I'm, I'm, I don't know this for sure, I think that's how the Browns feel.

About this situation now it's , you know, what do the Browns do, right?

Like this this takes the pressure off of a lot of people in the organization, doesn't it?

Like, like for now, right?

Like, and I, I mean this was a, I mean, look, like they're very cognizant of the effect that that can have on their team.

There's a reason why when they gave each guy a start in the preseason, they gave DeSean the road start and they gave Shaddo the home start, um.

And you know, I think had this been a, had this been a, uh, a performance like we saw a week ago in Jacksonville, we could be talking about something different.

The, the temperature would be turned way up, but I don't think there was ever much of a question who the best option for the other 10 guys in the huddle was.

And that's even more important this year because of the amount of young guys that the Browns are playing on that side of the ball.

And I, I keep saying this, and I'll say it, I'll say it until I'm blue in the face .

This year for them is in large part about developing all the young players on their team .

So, it's the guys that they've gotten as part of like this windfall of picks that they acquired in the, in the Travis Hunter trade.

And, I mean, you look at like the leaders, right?

The, the four leading receivers for Deshaun Watson.

On Sunday where Casey Concepcion, rookie, Denzel Boston, rookie, Harold Fannon, year 2, Quinhaw Judkins, year 2 .

So that's who you're saddling up with now, you know, and for you, I think for you, if you're Todd Monken, if you're that offensive staff, Travis Switzer and all those guys, I think such a huge part of this has gotta be.

Who's, who's best at operating the offense right now, and who's gonna give the other 10 guys in the huddle the best chance, not just to win, but to develop.

And I think if you have another young guy running the show in there, it does hamper you in that.

And I think that's like an underrated piece of like all of this, you know, um, besides the fact that I, I legitimately haven't found one person.

Um, who actually knows what they're talking about, whether it's somebody who's coached against DeSean and Shado this summer, this early fall, whether it's somebody who was in practice with them, whether it's somebody who's coached those guys who would tell me definitively Shaddo was the better option, almost everyone says DeSean is, and I, I.

I guess I kind of failed to see.

What this huge need to see what Jado Sanders has got is, well, it's round pick.

I, I think if you, right, it's, it's the, it's the moral.

It's the moral, right?

It's like fans are sick of DeSean.

DeSean, you, you and I get that, by the way, you can say, you can say that DeSean has recovered as a quarterback in some way and is probably playing some of the, I mean, that game was maybe his best game as a Brown, right?

I think he probably, it's probably up there, yeah.

I mean, there was the Ravens game right before he got hurt, where he looked, uh, where he looked pretty good too, and he took some shots in that game, I remember, but like.

Browns fans are done with him for very obvious reasons, right?

And I think that that's, and fair reasons, by the way, too, like I would, yeah, I wouldn't criticize the fan base for that.

Like that's, that's all I, you can understand why they're frustrated, you know, like that trade took a chunk out of their franchise.

It wasn't just.

Like, it's, it's, it's having the wrong quarterback for the last 5 years.

It's losing a young quarterback who has done some nice things somewhere else in Baker Mayfield, and it's also taking like 3 really good young players or more if you moved around in the draft off your team with the capital that you traded away.

All setting up for, uh, my favorite scenario now that I'm rooting for is that the Browns win like 7 games and have to sign Deshaun Watson to another contract and uh bring him back next year.