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August 6, 2025 • 12 mins

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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Oh the FanDuel text lines humming to start the show. Charlotte,
we appreciate you as always. We just got to talking
about Miles Garrett today at practice. He's one of those
athletes who just reminds you there are some humans that
are built differently. We had one here in the Carolinas
for a long time. Julius Peppers was one of those.
And you're sending yours in right now. Everybody from Yao
Ming to Andre the Giant, let's see the big show

(00:34):
came in. Even the President just came in. Karl Malone
made the text line, keep those coming. Warren Sapp as well.
Warren SAP's a good one. But let's talk about a
guy who's probably no longer enamored by the sheer size
of Miles Garrett because he covers the Cleveland Browns every day,
Zack Jackson of the Athletic. We hung out with him
for much of the morning at practice today. He's kind

(00:54):
enough to hop on the hotline to talk about today's
joint practice.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Zach.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
I appreciate you, brother, how are you good?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I don't get tired of watching Miles Garrett because he
is one of one. So sometimes we get tired of
his antics. But I mean he was right in front
of both of us today for like, you know, the
first forty five minutes or what. He's not a human being, no,
Like he moves in a way. And here's my best
Mile story for you. So I think it was a
second or third year and I had seen a video

(01:21):
on Instagram or something of him dunking of basketball and
ripping the backboard. And this is like, you know, in
Sebruary of March. So they get back to work and
like May and I see him after practice and I say, hey,
you know, is is this real? Like, tell me about it?
And he looks at me, he dead seriously and he goes,
you think, that's the first time I ever did that.
And I'm like, Miles, the rest of us don't rip
down multiple backboards. So I just I thought it was

(01:44):
a valid question. But sorry for that.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
That's fantastic. I mean, he really is, man, He's in
a different universe, a different category than most What did
you say? Let me start here, because you know, it
feels like the Panthers coaches were pretty happy with the
way that they're off performed today against the Cleveland defense.
I told folks that you know, we were That was
the closest action to us, and that was the easiest

(02:08):
to see. So let me start there. What did you
think of the Cleveland d versus the Carolina offense today?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I think it was a fast moving practice. I
think that's what they want to see. I was fairly
impressed with with Bryce Young in that offense. I mean,
this is a pretty good defense, right, so it's figuring
some things out. It does not have its best linebacker,
Jeremiah Wisu Pormo, who might never play again, and then
the second best linebacker, Jordan Hicks, retired, and obviously you're
not getting Miles in it in a game environment, right,

(02:36):
But like that, the Browns have some guys on defense,
they have a third year into the same system. So yeah,
that's a really good challenge that they're going against. And
like I said, I didn't see the ball on the
ground a lot. When I saw a couple of miscues
from the Panthers, I thought they came back and did
well with it. So you know, I'm not going to
go full low bar and say they were better than
the offense on the other field, because of course they were.

(02:56):
But I think both coaching staff you know, and let's
for something we don't know about. I think both coaching
staff have to feel good about the two hours or
so that they got into it, because they kept moving
and there were moments for both that just.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Real quick sidebar going back a couple of months. We were,
of course, reacting to the Micah Parsons trade request or
demand the other day and I said, listen, I'm not
really buying it yet, because my at one point we
thought that Miles Garrett might be leaving Cleveland and he's
still there. What back then did you think that was
there was a real threat of him leaving or did
you just think, hey, as long as they come with
the right money, this is all going to get fixed.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well, I thought they should have traded him, but I
understand that they didn't, you know, and that's kind of contradictory.
But he really is one of one and they first
of all, they couldn't be the guys who traded four
to Shaun Watson and traded the way Miles Garrett, right,
And the other legs of that are that they could
not admit that they're in the place that they're in right. Yeah,

(03:51):
they're in a bad place, but but you know they
still have Denzel Ward on defense very much in his prime.
Miles is going to be thirty, but he's very much
in his and they just weren't going to find the
right value. I mean, I think Buffalo was willing to
give two one plus more, but is that enough for
Miles Garrett. They were saying no, So they found their resolution.
It got ugly. It's always been a little complicated with Miles,

(04:15):
but mostly because they haven't won. And what happened is
last December he decided to start talking publicly about how
they hadn't won, and he didn't say anything as the
rest of us didn't know. It's just weird to hear that, right,
So lots of things are awkward in this organization right now.
They should be better than they've been, but they're in
a really bad place because of the Shawn Watson trade

(04:35):
and having an older roster. But they're not really worried
about Miles running out of gas anytimes.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well, I'm glad you said that because I just mentioned
in the previous segment that maybe the biggest surprise of
the morning to me was walking into practice and I
look up and I'm ten feet from Deshaun Watson.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I don't know what you thought.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
I didn't necessarily expect him to be there, but it
does make sense that he is there. Is should we
be surprised that he made the trip? What is his
level of involvement inside the building? And with Jimmy Haslam,
you know, recently saying that they made a mistake, Like,
how awkward is that?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Well, I mean they made a huge mistake, but they
still owe that mistake about one hundred and seventy million
on the cap, so they can't send him anywhere quite yet, right, No,
you know, I was I'm mildly surprised. Sure, but they're
treating this like a regular practice week, right, And I
think that was evidenced by some other things that went
on today. And so they left yesterday and they were

(05:24):
only on the field for a couple of hours today
and they're not back out formally on the field right
until Friday evening. So they have everybody here because they're
going to go about their meetings and their evaluation points
and everything they do. And Deshawn's been involved in that.
So if you count to Sean and Tyler Huntley, that's
six quarterbacks right now on the roster. Shawn he's on

(05:45):
the ninety he's not on the active and I don't
think he will be. But yeah, they're they're bad. They're
in a bad spot because of that. And you know,
I don't think he's ever going to play again. But
I think it's eleven years since they've been back in
ninety nine and they've played three or more starting quarterback.
At this stage, there's no reason to think it'll be
any different this year. And if guys become not available

(06:07):
for various reasons, I'm not sure you can totally rule
it out because that's just the story of the Cleveland Browns.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Well, that situation that you keep alluding to certainly worth
the conversation for if you're just tuning in. Zach Jackson,
the athletic covers the Browns. He's with us here hanging
out reacting to joint practice today. You know, Joe Flacco,
can you pick it, Dylan Gabriels, Hurt sa Door Sanders.
They just signed new Puntley, As you said, what are
they doing? Like, what do you think they're hoping comes
out of all of this that they gets to.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Number one pick next year? Probably? But you know, you
know some of them are thinking that and they probably
have to think that way, right, But the truth is
the coaching staff can't think that, and the roster can't
think that. And I think Joe Flacco probably gives them
the best chance to go out and be competitive early.
Five of the first six are against teams that made
the playoffs last year, and the other ones against the

(06:56):
Bengals too. If they would have got in, maybe could
have won it all. Right, So they have to show
up ready to play. And Joe's seems so much. He's
the only one who's been on this team before, in
this huddle, in this offense. You know, there's been some
speculation that they wanted to be Kenny Pickagees because he's younger.
They feel like he has some upside, whether I agree
or not, and it's mostly not. He got hurt on

(07:17):
the fourth practice and has not had a full practice since. Right,
And now by the time they get back to work
on Monday, we're into mid August, Right, we're into the
second to last week of preseason. So they drafted Dylan
Gabriel in the top one hundred, which stunned everybody, And
they drafted Shador on the last day after Dylan Gabriel,
which undercut, Dylan Shador and everybody else. So it's a mess.

(07:39):
Nobody benefits from four quarterbacks out there, and the quarterback
of the future is probably not on the team. Okay,
if there is a guy that has a chance at
Shad or standard.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
I didn't mean to step on you right there, but
I'm glad you said what you said, because the Chador thing,
I was like, I mean, I looked over Zach at
one point in practice today and I was like, what
numbers Shador?

Speaker 2 (07:55):
I forget?

Speaker 1 (07:55):
So then I locked in and you know, as best
we could from the depth that we were at to
try to figure out and watch the reps that he
was out there for. Did anything stand out to you?
And overall, how would you rate the way that he's
performed thus far in camp?

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Well, he didn't complete a pass over five yards today.
He didn't really have many chances to You would think
if he was starting the game Friday, you give him
a couple extra chances, right, But they're not. So it's interesting,
you know, Like I said, I just don't think Dylan
Gabriel has a chance out there. And he has a hamstring,
they said, so he's been kind of limited. I don't know,

(08:31):
I think Shador will will struggle on Friday. I think
Shador will make a couple of good throws. He has
obvious natural talent with accuracy and the ability to layer it.
You know, one of the knocks on him in college
is he didn't handle pressure real well. Well in a
preseason environment, he's going to be under that. So he's
a long term development piece. He can use these next
few weeks to change some opinions. We'll see, But I

(08:53):
just thought, you know, why does Tyler huntly need these
snaps or if these guys are hurt, Like, why can't
it wait until they're back? Like why wouldn't he get
a couple extra reps when he's a rookie that clearly
needs it, But they chose not to. So we'll see.
We'll see how Friday goes, and we'll see how the
rest of it goes, because the expectation is that they'll
have all four of them available next week when they
go to Philly for two joint practices and then a

(09:14):
preseason game, which will be just the rookie quarterbacks playing.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
All right, two quick things, we'll get you out of here.
Zach Jackson, the athletic, He's with us. He you're hanging
out talking about joint practice. Today we go back to
the draft. The Jags trade with the the Browns. Jacksonville
takes Travis Hunter. We're going to see them in Week one.
Cleveland ends up with Mason Graham, a player who was
very popular down here going into the draft. How is
you know what's been the report on Mason Graham thus

(09:38):
far in training camp?

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, he doesn't get a lot of attention right because
of shitt or because of everything else. But he's a
good player. He's off to a good start, immediate day
one starter, which you would expect. And you know, his
job is to clear people out of the way for
Miles Garrett. His job is to make sure the teams
can't always double and triple Miles Garrett. So you know,
we're just starting to see that, right, But Mason Graham

(10:01):
is what they called a clean prospect. You know, he
doesn't look like most top five defensive tackles who are
just absolute freaks his nature. But this guy was one
of the best foot players in college football for three
years and he's NFL ready, So we'll see. They made
that long term play there. You know, they picked up
the extra first round er. As you mentioned, like this
is about going forward. It's just there's a lot of

(10:23):
awkward decisions that need to be made on the way
because one of the few strengths they have is an
offensive line before the five starters or free agents after
this year, you know, it could be the worst quarterback group,
worst wide receiver group, worst running back group, at least
in the bottom three, right, and that makes it hard
to win. So then even if you play great defense,
what happens. So they just didn't, like I said, in
a really awkward spot to where a lot of these

(10:44):
offensive linemen are top of the line and Denzel ward
Is and Miles garrett Is, there's just a lot of
question marks. So they need to find a way to
win some games, and they need some young players to
show that on their way up or there's going to
be some really hard decisions to make about who should
be in charge going.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
All right, last thing and in that front, what does
all that mean for Kevin Stefanski. I've been trying to
tune into Cleveland Sports Radio this week and finding out
what the temperature in the room is. But you know, if,
like you say, they're in contention for the number one
overall pick. What does that mean for Kevin Stefanski, a
guy who was lauded by the fan base there not
that long ago.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, and I think he I think he's a smart
guy who's done a good job. But after you go
three and fourteen, right, who's safe? So I think it
comes down to this, are they competitive? Are they showing
signs of being a well coached and on the up
team that just doesn't have enough overall talent? Or is
it a mess? And there is another Is there another
Quinn Chanja can incident as Miles whining again like you

(11:40):
did last year? You know, are they playing six quarterbacks
or just two? All of these things to go. But
people are really on edge because people had to convince themselves,
and by people I mean the fan base mostly right,
people had to convince themselves to like Deshaun Watson, and
as soon as they did, they saw it was the
worst trade in NFL history. And then the Browns won
eleven games and had Flacco for a month and everything
was true ending up and expectations were high, and they

(12:02):
totally crashed last year. So people are just set up.
They know what this cap situation is, they know the
age of the roster and they want to see wins.
So I think if they don't deliver a certain number
of wins and a certain number of good young players,
then it's not going to be comfortable for anybody. And
we have to see how it turns out.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Zach Great singeing you today, my friend, thank you for
the time, and we'll see you Friday.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Night heats the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Jackson of the Athletic Ange out
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