00:00As today is the day that the Browns rookies report to Berea,
00:04this means football is on its way to being back.
00:06I don't consider football being back until the day that veterans report.
00:10Okay.
00:10But this is the ramp up.
00:11This is the soft launch to camp that starts today.
00:14The first day we get audio.
00:15That's when I feel like that's the day that it really starts.
00:18Like rookies reporting today, that's very nice.
00:21I think we'll probably, if it doesn't already exist,
00:23there's probably a video of them swiping their key cards and it working
00:26and everyone being like, all right, we're ready to go.
00:28Until they actually speak at the podium, that's when this thing kicks off.
00:32I like the way you're thinking here.
00:33Well, Mary Kay Cabot was on with the modern boys today
00:36and talked about the quarterback situation and maybe an open-mindedness
00:42to somebody that previously, neither myself nor Jonathan,
00:45have been even tangentially open-minded to.
00:48I think people will be open-minded towards Deshaun if he performs well
00:53and he plays well.
00:55And that's going to be hard to determine during training camp.
00:58It isn't going to be until the games begin when people will actually be able
01:02to see if he's got anything left in the tank or what he has left in the tank.
01:05But from a physical standpoint right now, he looks really good.
01:08He looks to be, in my mind, the best shape that I've seen him in.
01:12And when you see that ball come out, even in the workouts over the summer break,
01:16when you see the agility, you see the athleticism that has always been there.
01:20But he just looks really, really sharp right now.
01:22So I think fans, I could be wrong, but I think fans will give him a chance to see
01:28if he can go out there and win some football games.
01:32I don't know that I'd buy this, but I also will say I might be the worst person
01:38to kind of assess how open-minded other people are going to be just because,
01:43in my mind, this is the worst trade in NFL history,
01:45and I don't know why we're doing any of this outside of trying to motivate Shador Sanders.
01:48I think one of the important parts, though, is what you said in the beginning there,
01:52that idea that there's nothing he can do in training camp to make people become open-minded.
01:56And that part, I think, is 100% true and 100% accurate.
01:59Now, maybe when the season gets going, maybe some more people will open up their eyes.
02:02For myself, I'll still be thinking, when is he going to get injured?
02:05That's just how I operate with Deshaun Watson.
02:07At what point is he going to get injured and his season will just be over and done?
02:10But it's important to note there is nothing that he can do.
02:13The quarterback tracker can go insane for weeks on end about Deshaun Watson
02:17having one incompletion every single pass and a million touchdowns.
02:20I don't think fans are going to change.
02:22You'll have to see it with your own eyes on the field in real games
02:25before you change your mind with Deshaun Watson.
02:27There are already people that are open-minded on Deshaun today.
02:30I don't know how they got there, but there are people out there,
02:34and I think it's probably more than we realize.
02:36I mean, what's that number at, realistically?
02:38I would say 25%.
02:39I think that's high.
02:40I would put it at more like 10%.
02:42And that might be just the most glass-half-full people you could possibly find.
02:46So those people are already open-minded.
02:48To me, whether it's 75% or 90%, however many people are just –
02:53and by the way, there's open-minded, and then I think there's complete Switzerland,
02:57meaning people who are like, talk to me at the 2027 NFL draft.
03:02And then I think there's the ardent absolute nots,
03:05those people of which I am in the camp.
03:08It's for different reasons than some of the other people.
03:11I'm just over it.
03:11I've watched this sink too many seasons, and it just feels like a bad –
03:16it feels like hangover three four straight times, right?
03:19I don't need a fifth hangover three.
03:23But I really am fascinated what's the amount of play that opens those people's minds.
03:29Because there are people that – there are certain people that I just think it's a no.
03:32I think it'll happen – if it's in the games, I think it'll happen earlier than we even give it
03:36credit for.
03:37Is a win over Jacksonville enough?
03:38It's like a 300-yard performance, three touchdowns enough against Jacksonville.
03:43We go awfully quick in this city.
03:45I mean, you've seen the amount of – it doesn't take much.
03:48If he goes – if he's like 120 passer rating in the first two weeks of the season,
03:53I think there'll be enough people that then come on over.
03:55Two weeks, all it takes.
03:56I think it's a Pittsburgh game.
03:57I don't think it takes – the Thursday night, is that week four?
04:01I think that's the – if he's playing well, it doesn't even have to be like 120 yards –
04:06or 120 passer rating.
04:08If it's like a 95 to 100, and you're 2-1, and then you go in on Thursday night,
04:14and he wins, I think that's going to be the thing that turns people.
04:18I think that's going to be the thing that gets people to go,
04:19okay, this is the right guy.
04:21This is it.
04:22I don't know that he can do anything for him to turn myself.
04:25You seem like you're pretty much in this camp as well.
04:27But, again, my worry is about the injury side of things.
04:30I don't think most fans think about him as this – and they should.
04:33I don't know that they do think about him as fragile of a person as I feel he is
04:38because of the injuries we've seen him go through.
04:41I'm not on an island on that, right?
04:43There's got to be everyone that looks at him and thinks he's just like a Fabergé egg.
04:47He's just very precious.
04:49It's interesting because he was healthy enough to play at parts of last year
04:54and that the Browns didn't activate him.
04:57I think there has been this almost etch-a-sketching of people's minds
05:03that I don't know that we're really counting last year as a full miss the season
05:07because he was healthy for the last half of the season.
05:10So I do think we have a weird distance from the injuries.
05:13I don't mean you and me.
05:14I mean like the casual fan out there thinking about Deshaun.
05:17In a way, you're right.
05:19I don't think they're thinking about the injuries as the biggest impediment to this whole thing.
05:22For me, it's always been a layered approach, but the idea that he's as injured as he has been
05:26while wearing a Browns uniform while also stinking up the joint in a Browns uniform
05:30when he's actually been able to play, I just think it's an awful combo.
05:34But think about it.
05:34If he goes Jacksonville, and then here's why Week 2 matters a lot.
05:37And again, I just think we're incredibly early to go ahead and change people's minds
05:41on what we think about these guys.
05:42But Week 2 is against Baker.
05:44If it's Baker versus Deshaun, and Deshaun is just objectively the better-looking quarterback on the field,
05:50that will be enough for a lot of people's eyes.
05:52I did just put out this Twitter poll, at Nick Wilson Says, asking about this thought here,
05:59will you be open-minded about Deshaun Watson if reports say he's performing well in training camp?
06:04And so far, again, so Mary Kay's point was, this is going to have to happen in the regular season.
06:09Yeah, and I agree with that point, by the way.
06:10And so to that point, we all agree with Mary Kay.
06:13Yeah.
06:13But I do think, that's a long wait.
06:19The idea that training camp starts next week, and we're still, what, seven or eight weeks away
06:23from kickoff in the regular season, if the whole punching, if the whole plot of this whole thing is
06:31Deshaun's playing well, Deshaun's playing well, that's going to be tough for a lot of people
06:35against Deshaun Watson to wait that eight weeks.
06:38And again, I think it will dampen the excitement for a fair amount of Browns fans
06:42who are already out on Deshaun.
06:43I think it's much harder for Deshaun to win people over, because we've seen him look good
06:46in past camps before.
06:48If Deshaun had just struggled in every single camp, and then came out, and then struggled,
06:52and it was just like this common theme that, all right, what you see in August is what you're
06:57going to get when the lights go on, then I think it'd be a different story.
07:00But we've seen, and we've seen camps where Deshaun has struggled, obviously, but we've also
07:03seen camps where he's looked really good, and then come out, and then looked, you know,
07:07bad, not good.
07:08And so I think there is a massive difference for someone like Deshaun about what happens when the
07:12games actually get going.
07:13And this is not somebody we're just being introduced to.
07:15This is not somebody that's brand new.
07:17This is somebody we have years of experience with.
07:19Well, and it's so rare that you get any player on any roster in the NFL where I can give
07:27you a
07:27reason to not be open-minded about Deshaun Watson in like three different ways.
07:34There is the obvious, there are the people who've been out on Deshaun Watson since the Browns traded
07:38for him because of the lawsuits and allegations of sexual assault.
07:42There are people that have watched him get, just be bad on the field and be, you know,
07:47borderline unplayable for four years.
07:50And then finally, where I think you come in, and I think I'm between the last two points
07:55here, you can't trust him to stay healthy.
07:58So even if he is the best quarterback week one, the idea that he's still going to be the
08:02best quarterback week 10, even if he's healthy enough to play, the idea that he's going to
08:06be able to play through injuries and still be as good as he might have been week one
08:09feels like a fallacy.
08:10Of course it does.
08:11And that's why I just think it's, I think it's very important that if Deshaun Watson wants
08:16to win people over, I think the first couple of weeks are huge in that.
08:19And I think he can, if he plays good football there, but I just, I agree with Mary Kay 100%.
08:23I just, I, even if the, every single camp comes out and says, whoa, he looks like Joe Burrow
08:29out there.
08:29It's incredible to watch what he's doing to these, this Browns defense.
08:32I think there's going to be a, we got to see it to believe it thing with Browns fans
08:36as there should be with Deshaun.
08:37I really do think the best thing to happen to Deshaun last year is he didn't play.
08:41If he had, if he had stunk coming off that Achilles injury, it would have been curtains
08:46in the minds of people.
08:47The Browns did a very shrewd thing by not wasting him on the last four games of last year, right?
08:54I think it was four or five games last year, because time has kind of been this great elixir
09:00that has had people forget maybe how, how bad things have really been health wise and,
09:07and obviously football wise.
09:09And then even like, I mean, I think people have kind of completely forgotten that there
09:14were a segment of people who cheered him when he got hurt.
09:17Was that the, which injury was that?
09:19That was two years ago, three years ago at this point?
09:22The one when he went down, yeah, two years ago.
09:23So I just, it's, it's, it's interesting how the distance from watching Deshaun struggle on
09:27the field and distance from the last time he truly got injured and we saw it as kind
09:32of just, it's, it's almost like that the Browns are the benefactor of people's short
09:36attention spans on this.
09:37Maybe, but then there is also, I would imagine a lot of people believing this offense is just
09:41going to look better because the offense, the pieces got better.
09:43They put more emphasis towards the offensive side of the ball.
09:46Like whatever quarterback is out there, I made this point yesterday, but it bears repeating
09:49whatever quarterback is out there.
09:51This is the best group that they've had in a Browns uniform.
09:56And so like, like Deshaun, he should look better in theory, just because the players and everyone
10:00around him got better.
10:01I don't know that it's going to translate to the point though, where you all of a sudden
10:03give them another contract though.
10:05That seems, that seems too far fetched for me to ever think is going to actually happen.
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