00:00We get a little more in-depth analysis on your Cleveland Browns.
00:04We bring in a guy who's been on the show before.
00:05He's a friend of the show.
00:06He's Aaron Schatz from ESPN, FTN Fantasy, FTN Almanac is out now.
00:13And he is on the Wise Heart Right.
00:15We make it right.
00:17Call Kyle Wright Hotline.
00:19Hi, Aaron.
00:19How are you?
00:21Hey, I'm good, man.
00:23I'm ready for preseason.
00:24I'm ready for training camps.
00:25I'm ready for football.
00:26You may be the only person who has ever said you're ready for preseason football.
00:31No, I'm with you, Aaron.
00:33No, no, not preseason football.
00:36Preseason and football.
00:37Not the actual football preseason games.
00:40Okay, good.
00:40Just the experience of knowing that the season is coming
00:45and the training is happening and the practices.
00:48You learn more anyway, you know,
00:50when the reporters go to these joint practices that the teams have
00:54where they can set up certain situations and the starters play in those more
00:57and you probably learn more from that anyway.
01:00I will say you made me optimistic about the Browns looking at
01:03and reading yesterday's story about, you know,
01:05rosters with players under 25.
01:07The Browns landed in the fourth spot there.
01:10That is like unbelievably optimistic,
01:12especially when I think about your DVOA,
01:15which a lot of people here would just think it's DOA.
01:18But that's okay.
01:18Go back.
01:19Jack, let's talk about the optimism of players under 25 on this roster
01:23for the Browns.
01:24Your thoughts on that?
01:25Yeah, look, there's a really big hole, which is quarterback,
01:28and it's the most important position.
01:31But if you look at the rest of the roster,
01:34they have done a really good job drafting the last couple years.
01:36They have a ton of young talent, and it's very young on offense,
01:41like very, very young.
01:43Harold Fannin Jr. turned 22 like three days ago.
01:48Casey Concepcion is still 21.
01:51Denzel Boston is 22.
01:52Juddton's is 22.
01:54Spencer Fannin doesn't turn 22 until November.
01:57It's like there is so much developmental possibility with these guys being so young.
02:03And then on defense, of course, you have Carson Swessinger,
02:05and you have players they drafted, like Emmanuel McNeil-Warren,
02:08and you have Mason Graham.
02:09There's just a lot, a lot of young talent on this team.
02:14They just need to find a quarterback, and, you know, everybody, everybody is expecting
02:19that that will happen in next year's draft.
02:24Is there too much young talent at the skill positions, Aaron?
02:27I love the idea that they brought in a bunch of guys
02:30because this team was so lacking in skill position.
02:32But, boy, it's a young group, and I think you have your fingers crossed
02:37on a lot of these guys coming through.
02:38How dangerous is that?
02:40Oh, I mean, listen, they're going to be growing pains.
02:43There's no question about it.
02:45But if you think about what the Browns can be two and three years from now
02:49when these guys are 24 and 25, and they've got a couple years of experience in the NFL,
02:54and they've all grown up together playing together, like that's where there's so much promise.
03:00It's not – there's going to be bumps this year.
03:03Like we have been projected as the worst team in the league this year.
03:07The optimism is about the future because what they're building seems to be really good.
03:13That was a comforting thought there, Aaron.
03:16So that also goes –
03:17Kind of.
03:17When they take their bumps this year, when they take their bumps this year,
03:21you can say, yes, but these guys are young and learning, and there's a lot of them.
03:28That goes along with DVOA that we talked about.
03:31I was joking about DOA, dead on arrival.
03:32But explain the defensive adjusted value over average,
03:36and does that not correlate to them being the worst team in the NFL is what you were saying, right?
03:43Yeah.
03:44What we do is we take every play.
03:45We measure the success based on the down and distance,
03:48and we compare it to a league average baseline based on situation and opponent.
03:53And then we project for the following year, based on how good teams have been over the last couple years,
04:00personnel changes that they've made, coaching changes that they've made, et cetera, and so forth.
04:06So last year the Browns were ranked 30th in DVOA because they were the worst offense,
04:13but they were eighth on defense.
04:17This year they traded their best defensive player.
04:20So, I mean, they got a good player in return.
04:23Versus is a very good player also, but it's hard to say that their defense has gotten better than it
04:30was last year,
04:31and the offense still looks, the quarterback position in particular, still looks really bad.
04:36And so we have them projected as the worst team in the league for this year.
04:41The good news is that I think that they're building something really good,
04:45and everyone believes that next year's draft has some solid quarterback talent.
04:51We don't know for sure which of those quarterbacks are going to play this year,
04:56and we're going to go, okay, that guy's not actually a first-rounder.
05:00But a couple of them at least will come out of this year as first-rounders,
05:04and the Browns should have a shot at one of those guys.
05:07So with all that said about the quarterback position, Aaron,
05:11how would you approach the quarterback situation this year if you're Todd Munkin,
05:16if you're Andrew Barry?
05:18I would play Shador Sanders under the 2% possibility that last year was a total fluke,
05:28and that he's actually much better than that.
05:31I think at this point we know what Deshaun Watson has become.
05:35It's not what he was in Houston.
05:37You're not going to get good value out of him.
05:39You might as well take the shot to see, are all the Shador Sanders acolytes correct?
05:46It's probably that they're not, but there's a chance that they're not.
05:54I'm just kind of going back to the average age thing.
05:56So when you're looking and you're projecting ahead, what is the sweet spot for a team?
06:01I was just kind of looking back at some of the teams that we've seen over the past.
06:05Is it 25?
06:06Is it 26, 27?
06:08Like when you look at the average age of a team, can you kind of project not only do they
06:14have a chance to be a Super Bowl champion,
06:15but are they a playoff-bound team?
06:17I mean, is there a sweet spot for the age?
06:21I don't think so.
06:22It's really just the best players.
06:23The reason why the age thing matters is because if you're good enough to play in the league at 21,
06:30then you're probably better than that at 22 and better than that at 23.
06:34Most guys peak around 26, 27, right?
06:38That's where you've got enough experience in the league.
06:42Your intelligence, your football intelligence is strong enough,
06:46but before you start losing your physical abilities,
06:49quarterbacks peak a little later, running backs peak a little earlier, et cetera, et cetera.
06:53So there's no, like, age sweet spot.
06:56It's just the knowledge that these players have a lot of room.
07:01You just have room to grow if you start out young as opposed to, you know,
07:07if you're older like Saints quarterback Tyler Shuck, who was 25 when he started in the league.
07:12You don't have as much growth potential there.
07:16Jesse Minter in Baltimore, Mike McCarthy in Pittsburgh.
07:19What should we expect out of the AFC North this year, Aaron?
07:23Because those are two different things after watching Harbaugh and Tomlin for decades.
07:28Yeah, and I'm not a big McCarthy guy.
07:31I do feel like Tomlin.
07:34Tomlin was very interesting for an analytical type like me because where Tomlin shined
07:39was the non-analytical parts of coaching.
07:43He wasn't great at in-game decision making.
07:46He wasn't a scheme guy.
07:48He was great at locker room management, which is a thing you can't measure.
07:54And I don't know if McCarthy, you know, I mean, manage all the personalities.
07:59I don't know if that team is going to be as, you know, stumbling its way to nine and eight
08:04like it seemed to every year under Tomlin with a 43-year-old quarterback in Aaron Rodgers.
08:10Minter, people really love him as a defensive mastermind.
08:14But when guys take over head coaching spots, they don't always keep their mastermind mess
08:19on the side of the ball where you knew them.
08:21I mean, you know, Ben Johnson did for Chicago, but it's not always like that.
08:26So we'll have to see what happens with him in Baltimore.
08:29We do feel like the Ravens and Bengals both had very easy schedules this year, and we like
08:34them both to rebound, and we like them to both make the playoffs.
08:38Aaron Schatz joining us, ESPN, FTN Fantasy.
08:41The FTN Almanac is out right now.
08:44Get it.
08:44Read it.
08:45You'll be much wiser for that.
08:47You just talked about a couple of the other coaches in our division, and thanks for doing
08:51that.
08:52How about Todd Bunkin?
08:53Can we get anything, take anything real viable out of what Todd did working for a long-time
09:00head coach in John Harbaugh, or is he kind of a blank slate here, and we're going to
09:05figure it out as we go?
09:08I think blank slate.
09:09You don't necessarily learn that guys pick up from the guys that they work for, and especially
09:16because, you know, usually what guys pick up is not as much management style as it is
09:22scheme stuff, and Harbaugh is not a scheme guy, right?
09:25I mean, he was a special teams coordinator.
09:27He's also, like Tomlin, was much more of a personality-driven CEO-type head coach.
09:34So I don't, you know, I have no idea what to expect from Monk, and it's nice to see him
09:38get the opportunity.
09:40And again, I would say, given some of the personnel things, like the quarterback position and the
09:45youth, don't judge him based on this year.
09:50But I don't really know what to expect from him.
09:55So I'm kind of torn.
09:56I'm like, the numbers are telling me the Browns are going to be bad.
10:00And then I'm trying to, we were talking about this before, just looking at this team in
10:05Cleveland, and at what point do you kind of back off and make a quarterback change during
10:13the season, knowing that you have two draft picks next year in the first round, and then
10:18kind of, you know, like, at what point in the season do you kind of see that?
10:22And then, you know, and going back to Todd Monk in there, it's like, do you go with Deshaun
10:27Watson because he's the vet?
10:28Or do you, you know, you go to Shadur and see what you've got, because he's probably
10:33your best chance to see that you've got a quarterback in the future.
10:37This is a really weird season in Cleveland.
10:40Yeah, it's really a waiting game season.
10:42And if it feels weird for you, find a friend who lives on Long Island and call them about
10:48the Jets, and you guys can commiserate with each other.
10:51Because the Jets are basically doing the same thing this year.
10:54Yes.
10:55Except that they picked up a bunch of mediocre veterans, so their defense is going to be
11:00average, which is what yours is probably going to be, too.
11:03So, yeah, I just, listen, I don't see the point if Deshaun wants it at this point.
11:08Like, give Sanders a few games to see whether there is something there.
11:13If it's not, then give Gabriel a few games to see if it is, if there is something there.
11:18If not, then you go in the next year's draft and you know what you need to do.
11:21And I think probably that's how it ends up, but you might as well find out whether those
11:29guys are much better than what they looked like last year.
11:32Should we even think about Dylan Gabriel or Talon Green at the moment?
11:38I mean, I don't think anybody feels like Talon Green is a real NFL starting quarterback
11:43possibility.
11:44The Gabriel thing is weird because clearly they liked Gabriel better.
11:50They drafted Gabriel higher.
11:52I don't know anybody else who did going into the draft.
11:56So, you know, if you ask me who would I give the shot first, I'd give it to Sanders.
12:02But, I mean, if Sanders plays badly for seven games or eight games, then you might as well
12:08give Gabriel a shot because you might as well see maybe when he was terrible last year, that
12:13was also rookie jitters and maybe he's got a year of experience and he's better than that.
12:17And now that he's got better, he'll have better receivers if Concepcion and Boston are good
12:22like we think that they can be.
12:23So, you know, there's a possibility there's something there.
12:27I just don't think it's very likely.
12:30Aaron, let me ask you just one last question.
12:31When you look at this offensive line, which is probably going to be five new offensive
12:36linemen, most likely four, does that concern you?
12:40And then how often do we see that happen and then the team have success?
12:46It's rare.
12:47It's rare.
12:48Offensive line continuity is important.
12:50You want offensive lines where guys have played together a lot.
12:53And so, you know, if you look individually at the players, you know, Titus Howard has done
13:00some good things.
13:01And Elton Jenkins has definitely done some good things.
13:04People like to know, you know, the first round pick, top ten pick for a reason.
13:10But, you know, how much it comes together is tough.
13:14You do want continuity.
13:17You want guys who've played together for a couple of years and they know each other's
13:20tendencies.
13:22So, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
13:24Aaron, as always, we're reading your stuff and we're excited for all this stuff.
13:28Tell me about the fantasy stuff for a second and the Almanac and where should people be
13:33looking for that?
13:35Well, first of all, the FTN website, ftnfantasy.com.
13:39All my DVOA stuff is there.
13:41If you're a subscriber, it's updated constantly during the season with all the charting.
13:45You know, if you want to know how good a team is in Manor Zone, we have all that stuff.
13:49We also have award-winning fantasy projections.
13:53And the projections also make it into the book, the FTN Football Almanac 2026, which you
13:59can buy at ftnfantasy.com slash almanac or on Amazon for a printed copy.
14:05And if you go to ftnfantasy.com slash almanac, there's actually a sample chapter there.
14:12So, you can read the sample chapter and get an idea of what the book is like before you
14:16buy it.
14:18Aaron, thank you.
14:19We do appreciate your time and we're going to tell everybody to go over to that website.
14:22So, thank you, thank you, thank you.
14:23We'll talk to you soon.
14:23Thanks, Aaron.
14:24Hey, thank you guys too.
14:25And hey, maybe I'm wrong.
14:28It's the NFL.
14:29Last year's Super Bowl was the least likely Super Bowl of all time based on preseason odds.
14:37So, you never know.
14:38Ah, we're talking.
14:39Okay, now I feel better.
14:40Better bring us back.
14:41Thanks, Aaron.
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