October 14, 2024 • 31 mins
This week on Weekend Warriors, Anish Shroff and Tom Luginbill recap the Panthers week 6 loss to the Falcons, share their thoughts on the Deshaun Watson situation in Cleveland, wonder if a few college football teams are facing elimination this weekend, and so much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On this Monday, October fourteenth edition of Weekend Warriors, I
want to do a little foreshadowing my partner Tom Lougan.
Bill has a real affinity, real affinity to the point
where it's almost a little bizarre, little creepy. For the
last day in October, and we're getting close, We're seventeen
days away to what you have described to me in
(00:22):
the past before as the greatest holiday ever invented? Am
I correct? There?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It's Mike Christmas. It's Christmas.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
So before we go, you know, full on Halloween here,
and just so you know, we will revisit this in
a couple of weeks the week of Halloween. But what
is like your best of the Halloween get ups that
you're most proud of?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, I did Framer one year from Seinfeld. That was
actually funny, and I crimped at the top of my hair,
and I can do a pretty good Cramer like physical
imitation of his movements and his mannerisms and all that stuff,
So that one was pretty good. Deadpool's always been a
hit in the past. Let's see Batman, Captain America. I've
(01:11):
done Indiana Jones.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I'm sensing a theme here.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, I mean listen. I mean, it's the one holiday
that lets you be a kid, like, encourages you to
be a kid like. You don't there's no adulthood on Halloween,
or at least that.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
There should There shouldn't be. I'm with you, there shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Be, right, there shouldn't be. So it's that one deal
like and whether it's your kids being small and it's
still a big thing, and then they want to have,
you know, this interaction on that day and you know,
I like, I still am pissed off to this day.
The school systems don't allow kids to dress up for
Halloween anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So how crazy is this?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's insanity.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
In my daughter's school, she's beyond excited for Halloween. Of course,
they won't let you call it Halloween. It's book character
dress up day. Come on, come on, come on, because
to me, this is and again this could take us
down a rabbit hole which we probably shouldn't go down. However, However,
(02:09):
I think sometimes the adults in the room have to
let children be children. Hey, Halloween is a kid I
just remember, there wasn't anything attached to it. There wasn't
anything politically attached to it. There wasn't it was just
a day where you got to dress up, you got
to be silly, and you got free candy. And that's
really all I remember.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And the day at school was fun and everybody compared
and contrasted their costumes and you took all kinds of
pictures and it just it was a great today you
got if you you got to go to school and
you got to walk around and be someone else, and
you got candy and get candy, like I remember, dude,
like my dad because I was born in seventy four,
so my great great Halloween years were early eighties, where
(02:55):
like the horror.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Genre was oh yeah, Like.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I remember, I remember having burn makeup on my face.
I had my green and red sweater and I had
a mitten that I had made a Freddy Krueger claw
out of balsa wood. That's awesome, and I painted it
brown and I painted the claws like silver. If I
tried to do that now, they'd arrest me.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
As a kid, you can only imagine, I went as
a ghost one year. I can't do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Can't can't do that anymore. Heck no, you can't do it.
How about this? I was My dad was coaching at
Arizona State that time, and so I was always the
kid that had like the real legitimate head to toe
football costume. I had the helmet, I had the pads
that were ten times too big.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I've seen you. I've seen you wear that around town too.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So well, that's true. That is that, it's kind of true.
I mean, never stopped, never stopped playing. You never know
when you have a you might have to pull out
the whipper snapper and throw it around a little bit.
But uh no, I just in and I love I
also love debating about Halloween candy.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Okay, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I'm so, I'm one of those people that believe that
there is zero gray area when it comes to candy corn.
You're either iner, you're out. There's no it's okay. People
either hate it and say it tastes like wax, or
they love it.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Okay, see there you go. See me, I love it.
And I take the little triangles and I bite the
little white part off the top, and then I bite
the yellow part off the middle, and then I finished
with the orange orange part at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You're giving me I'm truly a gag reflex just talking
about it.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
What's your Halloween candy?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Then I'm a kink size Reese's peanut buttercups.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Okay, that's good. I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I am a firm believer. You don't give out coins,
you don't give out toothbrushes, you don't give out apples.
You don't give out candy corn either, because that's just disgusting. Yeah,
Mary Jane, Mary Jane's no Charleston choos or a no.
But again, I think again, you never go wrong with
(05:06):
the hits, right, Hershey's kid cat, butterfingers, Snickers, almond jewelry,
baby roots. Okay, Peppermint Patty, big fan of peppermin Patti's.
What are what are the little My daughter loves them.
They come in like this, see through plastic packet. It's
really thin. It's like these little they're not mince smarties.
(05:32):
Those are delicious. Oh man. I used to crush those
as a.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Kid, no doubt, no doubt. Yeah, I mean that's but
that's what it's all about. It's why. It's just I
don't know that. It's a holiday that allows you to
be a kid and makes you feel like one, and
I always think that's healthy.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I also think and again, you know, there's as always
there's always a few adults every year who ruin it
for the kids, right, and there's few adults who take
it too far and do dumb stuff and you're going, Okay,
now you're ruining it for the rest of us. I
also think it just, you know, society needs to laugh
a little bit, laugh at itself. Humor is good, let
(06:08):
your hair down. Not everything just needs to be a
place where we can shame and virtue signal and uh,
you know, find an excuse to point your finger at
somebody hound dare you like, just it's Halloween? Can we
just have fun? Can we laugh? You know what I
went for? I went last year as what's that You
ever watched Ted Lasso? I went as Nate the Great? Yes,
(06:33):
and my wife went as Rebecca the owner.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That is so good dude.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah. And so I got like, uh, you know, oh,
it was great. It was great. I thought I thought
it was funny. I got the umbro jacket right, the
black vest. Uh found a picture online where he's got
like this maroon long sleeve undershirt. So I got one
of those off Amazon and then took a took a
(06:59):
can of spray hairspray give me like the real Pepper. Look.
Oh yeah, I went his evil Nate to not good Nate.
I went his evil Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, Peper all
the way. Baby.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
That's so good, dude. That's that's really creative, dude. I
mean that's that's pretty that's awesome. Right, that's really good, man.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So I gotta find something for this year. I will
say this though, the pop Tarts Bowl people sent me
the costume of the mascot and I'm thinking, yes, I'm
gonna post a I'm gonna post a picture of it.
I got to post a picture of it. But I'm
thinking of going as the pop Tarts mascot for Halloween.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Absolutely you should. Absolutely What is what is your What
is the baby girl going at.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Uh SO for book character Day at school? She's going
as Hermione from Harry Potter. And then you know she's
going to be a witch for you know, the neighborhood
trick or treating ordeal.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Nice good got the hat and everything.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Got the hat, got everything. We were at Universal last year.
She's got the magic wand for Hermione and casting spells.
So yeah, well, now your kids are too old for that, right, Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
My kids are like they're they're having my daughter next weekend.
It's having a Halloween party here at our house in
our basement. I'm gonna be gone, obviously, my wife's going
to be here. I have no idea what is showing up,
who is showing up.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I don't know, if.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Costumes or I don't know. I just don't know. I
don't know. And there was a time at ESPNU if
you remember this when we were doing four three hour
live shows a day, four days a week, where we
would do Halloween all the time on air. Oh yeah,
and then the fun Police turned on the sirens and
lights on that too.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah. I had a good one one year. I had
this wolf mask, right, and then I had a University
of Virginia T shirt and I was Virginia Wolf, and
I captioned it, Who's afraid but h o O like
the Wahoo's at Virginia. I thought that was clever.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
That's pretty good. Yeah, you know, that's that's actually pretty good.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, it took some thought. It was a think piece costume, right, Yeah,
you know, you have to really take the extra step
to get offended.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So that's true. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm to the point
now where I'm actively trying to find ways to it.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah. No, I know, I know you're pretty good.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, ladies and gentlemen. The Weekend.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Close to the episode talk by Feeling Touchdown Carolina Weekend Warriors.
Let's talk college football. We're seven weeks in, We're at
the midpoint of the season, and I think Oregon Ohio
(09:54):
State is a good place to start because I get it. Realignment,
you lose traditional rivalries and all that. I mean, you
get two versus three in week seven in conference. This
week coming up, you got one versus five Texas Georgia. Right,
it's not all bad. And I'll be honest. I thought
(10:16):
Oregon the way they looked early in the year almost
lost to Boise, struggled again. I know, I didn't think
that they were that good. They've gotten better, and listen,
credit to Dan Lanning. I know they were home. Austin's
a tough place to play, but Ohio State for the
first six weeks of the season, to me, looked like
(10:38):
maybe the best team in the country. And I got
to tip my hat and give credit to Oregon. And
you know, listen, Dylan Gabriel is an easy target because
he's transferred nine million times. But he's a good fit
for that Oregon system. In that offense.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, they pushed all the right buttons. Every time they
needed to make a play, they made the right play.
And I said this about Old miss when they Kentucky.
I don't think Ohio State did themselves any favors with
that early slate of scheduled games because they were never challenged,
They never faced any adversity, they never had to play
from behind, they never had to play in a one
(11:13):
possession setting, and now all of a sudden, you go
and you're playing an entirely different animal on the road.
And not to say that they weren't ready to play,
but I agree with you. The biggest concern I had
about Oregon initially is that they were really struggling to
handle Idaho and Boise State up front on both sides
of the ball. On Saturday, they handled Ohio State up
(11:38):
front on both sides of the ball, which I did
not anticipate that happening. It was just a terrific all
around performance. And you know, when you look at Ohio
State and mean that was a team that was collected,
bought and paid for to win those games. Right to
(11:59):
beat or to beat a Michigan to run through the
College Football Playoff and they failed the first test.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, to your point, their early season schedule, it's not
just them. I almost feel this is endemic to the
Big Ten in years past, where a lot of their
heavyweights will sort of ease into conference play. And I
can't tell you how many times we've said in mid October,
we're not really sure just how good this team from
the Big Ten is because they don't play anybody in
(12:28):
non conference and they bank on the strength of their
league and their nine game conference schedule. Well, you know,
when you add in those teams from the Pac twelve,
things change a little bit. Penn State is another one.
You know, I don't think they're the fourth best team
in the country, they're ranked number four, but going cross
(12:48):
country to USC and beating that team, and again they
caught some breaks in that game, but still I thought
Penn State impressed me a little bit. And you'll start
to look at their remaining schedule. At Wisconsin, who's been
mediocre this season, they play Ohio State, Washington's down at Purdue,
(13:08):
who's owned three in league play, Minnesota, who's you know, okay,
middle of the pack, and then Maryland. If they get
through that stretch with a lost to Ohio State, they're
in the playoff. They're in the playoff.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Absolutely not on any of the playoff. They're playing for
the Big Ten Championship probably and could have a buye right. So,
and that's what to me, that's what's so interesting about
this upcoming weekend because we're going into week eight a
niche and we legitimately have some games that could have
the term elimination placed on them.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Do you think so even with a twelve team playoff,
I'll tell.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You, I mean Alabama and Tennessee, not a lot of
room for ARA there. When you consider the rest of
the schedule. What if Georgia can't beat Texas on the road,
that's two losses for Georgia. They still got to play
oh Miss they got, they still got to play Tennessee.
So these games and the margin of error LSU, they
got to go on the road to Arkansas. That's a
(14:06):
pesky Arkansas team. LSU's already got. They can't afford to
lose that game. I just think what's happening is we're
starting to create some endangered species here right Like if
every single week you go into you, you better be
on your game because if we were to assume that
the threshold is ten and two, then you ask yourself
(14:29):
how many teams are going to finish ten and two?
Because we're going to have a conversation at the end
of this season, and everybody's talking about how hard it
was to come up with the top four teams. How
about the teams ten through let's just say sixteen. Somebody
try to tell me how you're supposed to delineate the
difference between those teams.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Well, here's going to be the challenge. The challenge will
be this is deciphering the best of the two loss
teams because in the age of the four team playoff,
there's never been a two loss team that made the playoff.
Never in the what ten years that we had four teams.
Every year, if you hit loss number two, that was
(15:10):
basically a death sentence. You were eliminated from being in
the college football playoff. Well, now when you go to
twelve teams, you know the amount of times I'm just
pulled up a random year twenty nineteen, all right, teams
eight on down had at least two losses. Let's go
to twenty twenty one, right, Ohio State at number six
(15:32):
two losses, Baylor at seven, two losses. So your two
loss brigade starts at number six. Go to last year
twenty twenty three, the top seven teams had zero or
one loss, eight on down had at least two When
you look at the major players there, So I do
(15:52):
think you're going to have a team in there, obviously
with two losses. You might even have a team with
three losses. If let's say al Obama beats Tennessee, right,
and you're Tennessee and you got two losses and it's
Obama in Arkansas, Georgia's two losses are to Alabama and Texas.
They're still getting in.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Unbelievable, right, they're still getting in. So what happens if
you have, like here's one for you, Miami and Clemson
don't play each other, all right, SMU does not play
Miami or Clemson. Then you've got undefeated pitt sitting out there.
So what, like you said, coming going over the two
(16:35):
loss teams, Well, what if there's some teams out there
that end up with one loss that nobody was expecting
but they're not in the top ten, Well.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
And that's gonna be the other part of it too,
what if you have and this could very well be
the case. Let's say a Big twelve champion. That league's
been anarchy, where what if the Big twelve champion has
two or three losses, right, and they're ranked in the
top fifteen, Well, that's a top four seed because they're
a Power four conference champion unless there's a group of
(17:04):
five team that's ranked ahead of them, which is very unlikely.
So again, the rankings won't determine the seedings. The top
four conference champions will be the top four seeds, and
then five through twelve those are the highest ranked at
large teams. So it's not like, oh, if you're number eleven,
you're guaranteed a spot. No you're not. It kind of
(17:25):
depends on who these conference champions are. So I think again,
right now, perception and you maybe even want to call
it a little perception bias. That's gonna help the Big Ten.
It's gonna help the SEC, where a two and maybe
even three lost team from the SEC or the Big
Ten could potentially jump a one or two loss team
(17:49):
from the ACC or the Big twelve. People are not
gonna like it, but I mean, I'm just looking at
the AP rankings. And I know the college football playoff rankings,
which don't come out for another few weeks, don't always
reflect the AP. But if the first batch of playoff
rankings are heavily weighted toward the SEC and the Big Ten,
that's bad news for the Big twelve in the ACC.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yes it is, There's no question about it. And like
you said, brand bias and what you perceive to be
the strength of a conference top to bottom, and you know,
and and I'll say this, I've made a new rule
for myself. Oh this point, from this point forward until
further notice, anybody that loses the Vanderbilt you can no
(18:33):
longer label that as a bad loss. You don't get
to say that's a bad loss. That's my new rule
on Vanderbilt.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
They beat Kentucky. I'll be honest. I didn't think they
had a prayer to beat Kentucky because I didn't either.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Again, they'd read their press clippings and how many.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Times have we seen that movie?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Oh exactly, exactly. You go right back to being Vanderbilt. Right.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
What did Northern Illinois do? What did Northern Illinois do
the week after they beat Notre Dame?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh, they lost a Buffalo lost a.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Buffalo, right. I mean that that's just how it happens.
You beat Bama, the goalpost down Broadway, Nashville is in
your corner. Everybody's telling you how great you are. This
is a win for all time. Yeah, common sense tells
you you're hungover, You go to Lexington, you lose, right.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
And they won, and they won, by the way, outside
of Texas, is the sec as good as people are
saying it is.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I don't either. And that's where the brand side of it,
like you mentioned, can come into play and hurt other
and hurt other teams.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
LSU, they got the big win at Ole Miss. I'll
give them that. They've looked human at times. Alabama let
South Florida hang along, hang around too long, almost got
snipped by South Carolina over the weekend. And then you
know again, I look at a team like Clemson, for example,
who everybody saw have written off after the Week one
(20:02):
loss to Georgia. They've been blow torching people for five
weeks here.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
They're really good. And outside of the game versus Wake,
they've been playing without Peter Woods for three weeks. Yeah,
and they just got him back. Yeah. I think they're
going to be really, really good. This thing is going
to be so much. I just think it's really cool
that over the next five to six weeks we are
gonna I mean, who in the world, Like, if I
told you right now that Iowa State was the ninth
(20:30):
ranked team in the country, what would you tell me?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
I wouldn't be surprised, because I'm pretty familiar with the
Big Twelve. We've done a couple of Big twelve games,
and I have a ton of respect not only for
Matt Campbell, but for of course John Haycock, who's the
defensive coordinator. And if you remember, Haycock was the guy
who really originally came up with that now three three
five defense, which was basically kryptonite against the spread, and
(20:57):
he helped fundamentally change the DNA of the Big two well,
where all of a sudden, everybody wasn't thrown for five
hundred yards every game and everybody wasn't scoring forty points.
He figured out how to stop the spread, and he
helped turn that into a defensive league.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
No doubt, I totally agree with you, and it's it's
spilled throughout college football and a team like Iowa State,
which I think is awesome. A team like BYU, which
is awesome. How about Indiana?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, great story, Kurt Signetti.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Exactly, it's a great story, Sam use a good story.
The two service academies. Like, how hilarious would it be
if the two service academies? And I understand it, they
both have to play Notre Dame, but the two service
academies end up having to delay, end up delaying the
college football playoff announcement. How American would that be?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Well, here's the thing, I don't think that's how it works.
Correct me if I'm wrong. So the playoff bracket is
revealed after conference championships, which is the week before Army Navy.
So theoretically, Army Navy, let's say they are one and
two in the American they play each other in the
conference championship, which would be the week before the traditional
(22:08):
Army Navy game. Once that game happens, then the playoff
bracket is unveiled. Then you would have Army Navy as
this singular game essentially an exhibition. And here's the thing.
Let's say the team that wins the Army Navy game,
which let's say they get a spot in the playoff
hypothetical situation Army Navy. We know what that game means.
(22:31):
But now in back to back weeks, are you playing
your starters? Are you playing the leebes.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
It's a great question. But at the end of the day,
they how do you release the playoff racket without two
teams that could be in it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I just think that's that would be a fun problem
to have, be a fun problem to hap. Yeah, and
again you get Army and Navy in the playoff, I
mean they automatically become America's team. So we brought up Clemson.
I want to end on this because a lot of
people have been talking about it, and I have a
theory here. Former Clemson Tiger Deshaun Watson in a tough
(23:09):
spot right now with his career in Cleveland. The Browns
are in a tough spot with his contract. They gave
him two hundred and thirty million guaranteed. His cap hit
for the next two years is astronomical. They're stuck with him.
And I look at this from a couple of standpoints. First,
I want to get into just Watson and how his
play has diminished. And I have a theory. You and
(23:32):
I both covered him in college and I think anybody
who covered him in college would be surprised, slash shocked
and stunned as to how things have gone for him
off the field. And again, I'm not going to be
some moral arbiter here. I don't know, you know what's
true and what's real. But there's enough smoke that Again,
(23:55):
I just think as somebody who consumes news, you say,
all right, there's got to be some fire there. But
the point I'm trying to make is when this guy
was in college, he had a very easy going demeanor.
You heard the stories about how he went and built
homes for Habitat for Humanity, how Habitat for Humanity helped
his family. He gave back, he was a people pleaser,
(24:17):
he was a great teammate, all these things, and he
is now in a position where, let's face it, he's
a villain. Okay, he's a villain in Cleveland, he's a
villain in the NFL, He's a villain to every opposing
fan base. I just don't think he's built to be
the bad guy, and he is the bad guy now.
Whether again I'm not trying to be judge and jury here,
(24:40):
but in the court of public opinion, he is cast
as a villain, and I never saw Deshaun Watson being
as a guy, being a guy who kind of had
it in his DNA to embrace that. There's certain guys
that can kind of run with that. There's certain people
that can kind of run with that, and you know,
you see them on social media. They say all sorts
of provocative things and they get the vitriol and they
(25:02):
feed off of that. Deshaun Watson never struck me as
that kind of guy. And I don't know from above
the shoulders if he's equipped to be that guy, to
be honest with you, And I think that has a
big reason to do with the way he's playing.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Well, Listen, I know what I know of my interactions
with Deshaun Watson, and I'm not saying this applies to
everybody across the board, but I've had interactions with him,
studied him, was in camp settings with him, covered one
of his high school games, all the way going back
to like fifteen or sixteen years old. And if you
(25:41):
would have lined up one hundred players and pointed out
and said point out the one that is gonna have
a problematic future, a checkered off the field situation, however
you want to phrase it, however you want to label it.
He would have been the last person I would have
(26:02):
pointed to, right, the last one. And again, we all
we all don't know what's what. We don't know what's real,
what's not the whole deal. But I also think part
of the issue is that was such a bad deal
contract wise, because of the ripple effect it had throughout
(26:22):
the rest of the league at quarterback when it came
to contract negotiation, that he seems to take the blame
for it, his agent to take the blame for it.
The Browns should take the blame.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Well, listen, he's not going to apologize for saying yes
to two hundred and thirty million dollars guarantee.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Exactly exactly, none of us would kind of none of
us would. But he's playing with the way to that
as well. And but I agree that the interactions and
the Deshaun Watson that I had known as a younger
individual was never it was never the villain or would
have ever been somebody you thought would be the villain.
(26:59):
And that's what's been so just strange to me. I
I've never been able to reconcile it. But again, what
we do know what we don't know what's done behind
closed doors. I said, we don't know, No, we don't
and and so, but it is what it is. But
I agree with you. I think it's it's weighing heavily
(27:20):
on him and that's that's not who he probably wants
to be. But that's the position he's got himself in.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
All right, So we'll end on this. If you're the Browns,
you basically have three doors that you can open. Door
number one is, well, you're paying this guy all this money.
You're just gonna have to ride out the next two years.
You trot him out there, and it is what it is,
and you basically wait out the contract and then you
start over once he's off the books. Option number two
(27:49):
is do you bench him or cut him and eat
that money and play Jameis Winston and maybe go get
another quarterback in the off season. Or option number three,
and I've heard this being talked about, which is you
trade him.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
If you trade him, and even if you eat some
of the money or you get somebody to pick up
a considerable amount of his salary, to get him off
your roster and to get that contract off your books,
you are going to have to attach significant, significant draft
capital to the team taking on Deshaun Watson. And again,
(28:28):
what does that do? It just it sets your rebuild
back even further. This was supposed to be a ready
made contender and Watson was supposed to be the missing piece.
That contract now is not going to allow you to
resign other key players to fortify other areas that you
may have to in the next couple of years. So again,
(28:50):
I'm not sure there is a great option, but I
almost feel and this is now, this is tough tough
pill to swallow for Browns fans, Like the path of
least resistance, the one that might hurt the least is
just you might just have to ride this thing out
for a couple more years.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
And I know, I know, I mean that is and
then the other question that you have to ask yourself
on the on the trade platform side of it is
who wants him? Who thinks he's good enough to make
him better?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Well, that's what I mean. I don't think anybody does.
That's why I think you might have to attach multiple
first round picks to get somebody to take him.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's I have to ask him a lot, man, I.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Mean think about think about this, like, think about what
Cleveland gave up to get him, and now you might
have to pay a similar price to get rid of him.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah. Unbelievable decisions, decisions and consequences that come with those decisions.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
All righty, where are you this week?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I got to go off to the West Coast for
a classic ACC matchup between SMU and Stanford.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I thinks there's ACC like a team from Texas and
a team from California. I will be exactly in the
mountains of Provo, Utah, Oklahoma State and BYU it is
a big twelve of the best after dark. I think
it's as good as it gets in terms of the
scenery the pictures.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Is there snow on the lost at yet?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Uh, we'll find out. I would imagine October probably there's
got to be some snow. But yeah, that's one of
the great backdrops in all of college football and all
sports with the mountains, Why Mountain and Lavelle Edwards Stadium
just a just a beautiful setting. And BYU is six
and zero pick to finish thirteenth in the conference and
currently ranked thirteenth in the AP.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Love it, Love it.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Alrighty, safe travels out to uh, Palo Alto. What are
you flying to San Francisco San Jose.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Well, I used to fly in to San Jose from Charlotte.
They used to have three directs a day there and
now they have none, And that's so much easier to
get to Palo Alto from San Jose and then you
avoid all of the issues of SFO in San Francisco.
So now I'm stuck doing San Francisco. But for me,
so I've got to do my serious XM show every
Sunday from nine to twelve Eastern Time, but now it's
(31:10):
going to be from six to nine, and then I
got to get out to the airport and get home,
So that's a whole wasted Sunday.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Well, we'll talk plenty of NFL then now on the
show a week from now. Yeah, yeah, all right, Luke's
be good, safe travels. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
See you
On this Monday, October fourteenth edition of Weekend Warriors, I
want to do a little foreshadowing my partner Tom Lougan.
Bill has a real affinity, real affinity to the point
where it's almost a little bizarre, little creepy. For the
last day in October, and we're getting close, We're seventeen
days away to what you have described to me in
(00:22):
the past before as the greatest holiday ever invented? Am
I correct? There?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It's Mike Christmas. It's Christmas.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
So before we go, you know, full on Halloween here,
and just so you know, we will revisit this in
a couple of weeks the week of Halloween. But what
is like your best of the Halloween get ups that
you're most proud of?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, I did Framer one year from Seinfeld. That was
actually funny, and I crimped at the top of my hair,
and I can do a pretty good Cramer like physical
imitation of his movements and his mannerisms and all that stuff,
So that one was pretty good. Deadpool's always been a
hit in the past. Let's see Batman, Captain America. I've
(01:11):
done Indiana Jones.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I'm sensing a theme here.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, I mean listen. I mean, it's the one holiday
that lets you be a kid, like, encourages you to
be a kid like. You don't there's no adulthood on Halloween,
or at least that.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
There should There shouldn't be. I'm with you, there shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Be, right, there shouldn't be. So it's that one deal
like and whether it's your kids being small and it's
still a big thing, and then they want to have,
you know, this interaction on that day and you know,
I like, I still am pissed off to this day.
The school systems don't allow kids to dress up for
Halloween anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So how crazy is this?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's insanity.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
In my daughter's school, she's beyond excited for Halloween. Of course,
they won't let you call it Halloween. It's book character
dress up day. Come on, come on, come on, because
to me, this is and again this could take us
down a rabbit hole which we probably shouldn't go down. However, However,
(02:09):
I think sometimes the adults in the room have to
let children be children. Hey, Halloween is a kid I
just remember, there wasn't anything attached to it. There wasn't
anything politically attached to it. There wasn't it was just
a day where you got to dress up, you got
to be silly, and you got free candy. And that's
really all I remember.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And the day at school was fun and everybody compared
and contrasted their costumes and you took all kinds of
pictures and it just it was a great today you
got if you you got to go to school and
you got to walk around and be someone else, and
you got candy and get candy, like I remember, dude,
like my dad because I was born in seventy four,
so my great great Halloween years were early eighties, where
(02:55):
like the horror.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Genre was oh yeah, Like.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I remember, I remember having burn makeup on my face.
I had my green and red sweater and I had
a mitten that I had made a Freddy Krueger claw
out of balsa wood. That's awesome, and I painted it
brown and I painted the claws like silver. If I
tried to do that now, they'd arrest me.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
As a kid, you can only imagine, I went as
a ghost one year. I can't do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Can't can't do that anymore. Heck no, you can't do it.
How about this? I was My dad was coaching at
Arizona State that time, and so I was always the
kid that had like the real legitimate head to toe
football costume. I had the helmet, I had the pads
that were ten times too big.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I've seen you. I've seen you wear that around town too.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So well, that's true. That is that, it's kind of true.
I mean, never stopped, never stopped playing. You never know
when you have a you might have to pull out
the whipper snapper and throw it around a little bit.
But uh no, I just in and I love I
also love debating about Halloween candy.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Okay, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I'm so, I'm one of those people that believe that
there is zero gray area when it comes to candy corn.
You're either iner, you're out. There's no it's okay. People
either hate it and say it tastes like wax, or
they love it.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Okay, see there you go. See me, I love it.
And I take the little triangles and I bite the
little white part off the top, and then I bite
the yellow part off the middle, and then I finished
with the orange orange part at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You're giving me I'm truly a gag reflex just talking
about it.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
What's your Halloween candy?
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Then I'm a kink size Reese's peanut buttercups.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Okay, that's good. I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I am a firm believer. You don't give out coins,
you don't give out toothbrushes, you don't give out apples.
You don't give out candy corn either, because that's just disgusting. Yeah,
Mary Jane, Mary Jane's no Charleston choos or a no.
But again, I think again, you never go wrong with
(05:06):
the hits, right, Hershey's kid cat, butterfingers, Snickers, almond jewelry,
baby roots. Okay, Peppermint Patty, big fan of peppermin Patti's.
What are what are the little My daughter loves them.
They come in like this, see through plastic packet. It's
really thin. It's like these little they're not mince smarties.
(05:32):
Those are delicious. Oh man. I used to crush those
as a.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Kid, no doubt, no doubt. Yeah, I mean that's but
that's what it's all about. It's why. It's just I
don't know that. It's a holiday that allows you to
be a kid and makes you feel like one, and
I always think that's healthy.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I also think and again, you know, there's as always
there's always a few adults every year who ruin it
for the kids, right, and there's few adults who take
it too far and do dumb stuff and you're going, Okay,
now you're ruining it for the rest of us. I
also think it just, you know, society needs to laugh
a little bit, laugh at itself. Humor is good, let
(06:08):
your hair down. Not everything just needs to be a
place where we can shame and virtue signal and uh,
you know, find an excuse to point your finger at
somebody hound dare you like, just it's Halloween? Can we
just have fun? Can we laugh? You know what I
went for? I went last year as what's that You
ever watched Ted Lasso? I went as Nate the Great? Yes,
(06:33):
and my wife went as Rebecca the owner.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
That is so good dude.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah. And so I got like, uh, you know, oh,
it was great. It was great. I thought I thought
it was funny. I got the umbro jacket right, the
black vest. Uh found a picture online where he's got
like this maroon long sleeve undershirt. So I got one
of those off Amazon and then took a took a
(06:59):
can of spray hairspray give me like the real Pepper. Look.
Oh yeah, I went his evil Nate to not good Nate.
I went his evil Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, Peper all
the way. Baby.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
That's so good, dude. That's that's really creative, dude. I
mean that's that's pretty that's awesome. Right, that's really good, man.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So I gotta find something for this year. I will
say this though, the pop Tarts Bowl people sent me
the costume of the mascot and I'm thinking, yes, I'm
gonna post a I'm gonna post a picture of it.
I got to post a picture of it. But I'm
thinking of going as the pop Tarts mascot for Halloween.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Absolutely you should. Absolutely What is what is your What
is the baby girl going at.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Uh SO for book character Day at school? She's going
as Hermione from Harry Potter. And then you know she's
going to be a witch for you know, the neighborhood
trick or treating ordeal.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Nice good got the hat and everything.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Got the hat, got everything. We were at Universal last year.
She's got the magic wand for Hermione and casting spells.
So yeah, well, now your kids are too old for that, right, Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
My kids are like they're they're having my daughter next weekend.
It's having a Halloween party here at our house in
our basement. I'm gonna be gone, obviously, my wife's going
to be here. I have no idea what is showing up,
who is showing up.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I don't know, if.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Costumes or I don't know. I just don't know. I
don't know. And there was a time at ESPNU if
you remember this when we were doing four three hour
live shows a day, four days a week, where we
would do Halloween all the time on air. Oh yeah,
and then the fun Police turned on the sirens and
lights on that too.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yeah. I had a good one one year. I had
this wolf mask, right, and then I had a University
of Virginia T shirt and I was Virginia Wolf, and
I captioned it, Who's afraid but h o O like
the Wahoo's at Virginia. I thought that was clever.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
That's pretty good. Yeah, you know, that's that's actually pretty good.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, it took some thought. It was a think piece costume, right, Yeah,
you know, you have to really take the extra step
to get offended.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So that's true. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm to the point
now where I'm actively trying to find ways to it.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah. No, I know, I know you're pretty good.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, ladies and gentlemen. The Weekend.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Close to the episode talk by Feeling Touchdown Carolina Weekend Warriors.
Let's talk college football. We're seven weeks in, We're at
the midpoint of the season, and I think Oregon Ohio
(09:54):
State is a good place to start because I get it. Realignment,
you lose traditional rivalries and all that. I mean, you
get two versus three in week seven in conference. This
week coming up, you got one versus five Texas Georgia. Right,
it's not all bad. And I'll be honest. I thought
(10:16):
Oregon the way they looked early in the year almost
lost to Boise, struggled again. I know, I didn't think
that they were that good. They've gotten better, and listen,
credit to Dan Lanning. I know they were home. Austin's
a tough place to play, but Ohio State for the
first six weeks of the season, to me, looked like
(10:38):
maybe the best team in the country. And I got
to tip my hat and give credit to Oregon. And
you know, listen, Dylan Gabriel is an easy target because
he's transferred nine million times. But he's a good fit
for that Oregon system. In that offense.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, they pushed all the right buttons. Every time they
needed to make a play, they made the right play.
And I said this about Old miss when they Kentucky.
I don't think Ohio State did themselves any favors with
that early slate of scheduled games because they were never challenged,
They never faced any adversity, they never had to play
from behind, they never had to play in a one
(11:13):
possession setting, and now all of a sudden, you go
and you're playing an entirely different animal on the road.
And not to say that they weren't ready to play,
but I agree with you. The biggest concern I had
about Oregon initially is that they were really struggling to
handle Idaho and Boise State up front on both sides
of the ball. On Saturday, they handled Ohio State up
(11:38):
front on both sides of the ball, which I did
not anticipate that happening. It was just a terrific all
around performance. And you know, when you look at Ohio
State and mean that was a team that was collected,
bought and paid for to win those games. Right to
(11:59):
beat or to beat a Michigan to run through the
College Football Playoff and they failed the first test.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, to your point, their early season schedule, it's not
just them. I almost feel this is endemic to the
Big Ten in years past, where a lot of their
heavyweights will sort of ease into conference play. And I
can't tell you how many times we've said in mid October,
we're not really sure just how good this team from
the Big Ten is because they don't play anybody in
(12:28):
non conference and they bank on the strength of their
league and their nine game conference schedule. Well, you know,
when you add in those teams from the Pac twelve,
things change a little bit. Penn State is another one.
You know, I don't think they're the fourth best team
in the country, they're ranked number four, but going cross
(12:48):
country to USC and beating that team, and again they
caught some breaks in that game, but still I thought
Penn State impressed me a little bit. And you'll start
to look at their remaining schedule. At Wisconsin, who's been
mediocre this season, they play Ohio State, Washington's down at Purdue,
(13:08):
who's owned three in league play, Minnesota, who's you know, okay,
middle of the pack, and then Maryland. If they get
through that stretch with a lost to Ohio State, they're
in the playoff. They're in the playoff.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Absolutely not on any of the playoff. They're playing for
the Big Ten Championship probably and could have a buye right. So,
and that's what to me, that's what's so interesting about
this upcoming weekend because we're going into week eight a
niche and we legitimately have some games that could have
the term elimination placed on them.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Do you think so even with a twelve team playoff,
I'll tell.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You, I mean Alabama and Tennessee, not a lot of
room for ARA there. When you consider the rest of
the schedule. What if Georgia can't beat Texas on the road,
that's two losses for Georgia. They still got to play
oh Miss they got, they still got to play Tennessee.
So these games and the margin of error LSU, they
got to go on the road to Arkansas. That's a
(14:06):
pesky Arkansas team. LSU's already got. They can't afford to
lose that game. I just think what's happening is we're
starting to create some endangered species here right Like if
every single week you go into you, you better be
on your game because if we were to assume that
the threshold is ten and two, then you ask yourself
(14:29):
how many teams are going to finish ten and two?
Because we're going to have a conversation at the end
of this season, and everybody's talking about how hard it
was to come up with the top four teams. How
about the teams ten through let's just say sixteen. Somebody
try to tell me how you're supposed to delineate the
difference between those teams.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Well, here's going to be the challenge. The challenge will
be this is deciphering the best of the two loss
teams because in the age of the four team playoff,
there's never been a two loss team that made the playoff.
Never in the what ten years that we had four teams.
Every year, if you hit loss number two, that was
(15:10):
basically a death sentence. You were eliminated from being in
the college football playoff. Well, now when you go to
twelve teams, you know the amount of times I'm just
pulled up a random year twenty nineteen, all right, teams
eight on down had at least two losses. Let's go
to twenty twenty one, right, Ohio State at number six
(15:32):
two losses, Baylor at seven, two losses. So your two
loss brigade starts at number six. Go to last year
twenty twenty three, the top seven teams had zero or
one loss, eight on down had at least two When
you look at the major players there, So I do
(15:52):
think you're going to have a team in there, obviously
with two losses. You might even have a team with
three losses. If let's say al Obama beats Tennessee, right,
and you're Tennessee and you got two losses and it's
Obama in Arkansas, Georgia's two losses are to Alabama and Texas.
They're still getting in.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Unbelievable, right, they're still getting in. So what happens if
you have, like here's one for you, Miami and Clemson
don't play each other, all right, SMU does not play
Miami or Clemson. Then you've got undefeated pitt sitting out there.
So what, like you said, coming going over the two
(16:35):
loss teams, Well, what if there's some teams out there
that end up with one loss that nobody was expecting
but they're not in the top ten, Well.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
And that's gonna be the other part of it too,
what if you have and this could very well be
the case. Let's say a Big twelve champion. That league's
been anarchy, where what if the Big twelve champion has
two or three losses, right, and they're ranked in the
top fifteen, Well, that's a top four seed because they're
a Power four conference champion unless there's a group of
(17:04):
five team that's ranked ahead of them, which is very unlikely.
So again, the rankings won't determine the seedings. The top
four conference champions will be the top four seeds, and
then five through twelve those are the highest ranked at
large teams. So it's not like, oh, if you're number eleven,
you're guaranteed a spot. No you're not. It kind of
(17:25):
depends on who these conference champions are. So I think again,
right now, perception and you maybe even want to call
it a little perception bias. That's gonna help the Big Ten.
It's gonna help the SEC, where a two and maybe
even three lost team from the SEC or the Big
Ten could potentially jump a one or two loss team
(17:49):
from the ACC or the Big twelve. People are not
gonna like it, but I mean, I'm just looking at
the AP rankings. And I know the college football playoff rankings,
which don't come out for another few weeks, don't always
reflect the AP. But if the first batch of playoff
rankings are heavily weighted toward the SEC and the Big Ten,
that's bad news for the Big twelve in the ACC.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yes it is, There's no question about it. And like
you said, brand bias and what you perceive to be
the strength of a conference top to bottom, and you know,
and and I'll say this, I've made a new rule
for myself. Oh this point, from this point forward until
further notice, anybody that loses the Vanderbilt you can no
(18:33):
longer label that as a bad loss. You don't get
to say that's a bad loss. That's my new rule
on Vanderbilt.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
They beat Kentucky. I'll be honest. I didn't think they
had a prayer to beat Kentucky because I didn't either.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Again, they'd read their press clippings and how many.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Times have we seen that movie?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Oh exactly, exactly. You go right back to being Vanderbilt. Right.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
What did Northern Illinois do? What did Northern Illinois do
the week after they beat Notre Dame?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh, they lost a Buffalo lost a.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Buffalo, right. I mean that that's just how it happens.
You beat Bama, the goalpost down Broadway, Nashville is in
your corner. Everybody's telling you how great you are. This
is a win for all time. Yeah, common sense tells
you you're hungover, You go to Lexington, you lose, right.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
And they won, and they won, by the way, outside
of Texas, is the sec as good as people are
saying it is.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I don't either. And that's where the brand side of it,
like you mentioned, can come into play and hurt other
and hurt other teams.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
LSU, they got the big win at Ole Miss. I'll
give them that. They've looked human at times. Alabama let
South Florida hang along, hang around too long, almost got
snipped by South Carolina over the weekend. And then you
know again, I look at a team like Clemson, for example,
who everybody saw have written off after the Week one
(20:02):
loss to Georgia. They've been blow torching people for five
weeks here.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
They're really good. And outside of the game versus Wake,
they've been playing without Peter Woods for three weeks. Yeah,
and they just got him back. Yeah. I think they're
going to be really, really good. This thing is going
to be so much. I just think it's really cool
that over the next five to six weeks we are
gonna I mean, who in the world, Like, if I
told you right now that Iowa State was the ninth
(20:30):
ranked team in the country, what would you tell me?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
I wouldn't be surprised, because I'm pretty familiar with the
Big Twelve. We've done a couple of Big twelve games,
and I have a ton of respect not only for
Matt Campbell, but for of course John Haycock, who's the
defensive coordinator. And if you remember, Haycock was the guy
who really originally came up with that now three three
five defense, which was basically kryptonite against the spread, and
(20:57):
he helped fundamentally change the DNA of the Big two well,
where all of a sudden, everybody wasn't thrown for five
hundred yards every game and everybody wasn't scoring forty points.
He figured out how to stop the spread, and he
helped turn that into a defensive league.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
No doubt, I totally agree with you, and it's it's
spilled throughout college football and a team like Iowa State,
which I think is awesome. A team like BYU, which
is awesome. How about Indiana?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, great story, Kurt Signetti.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Exactly, it's a great story, Sam use a good story.
The two service academies. Like, how hilarious would it be
if the two service academies? And I understand it, they
both have to play Notre Dame, but the two service
academies end up having to delay, end up delaying the
college football playoff announcement. How American would that be?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Well, here's the thing, I don't think that's how it works.
Correct me if I'm wrong. So the playoff bracket is
revealed after conference championships, which is the week before Army Navy.
So theoretically, Army Navy, let's say they are one and
two in the American they play each other in the
conference championship, which would be the week before the traditional
(22:08):
Army Navy game. Once that game happens, then the playoff
bracket is unveiled. Then you would have Army Navy as
this singular game essentially an exhibition. And here's the thing.
Let's say the team that wins the Army Navy game,
which let's say they get a spot in the playoff
hypothetical situation Army Navy. We know what that game means.
(22:31):
But now in back to back weeks, are you playing
your starters? Are you playing the leebes.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
It's a great question. But at the end of the day,
they how do you release the playoff racket without two
teams that could be in it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I just think that's that would be a fun problem
to have, be a fun problem to hap. Yeah, and
again you get Army and Navy in the playoff, I
mean they automatically become America's team. So we brought up Clemson.
I want to end on this because a lot of
people have been talking about it, and I have a
theory here. Former Clemson Tiger Deshaun Watson in a tough
(23:09):
spot right now with his career in Cleveland. The Browns
are in a tough spot with his contract. They gave
him two hundred and thirty million guaranteed. His cap hit
for the next two years is astronomical. They're stuck with him.
And I look at this from a couple of standpoints. First,
I want to get into just Watson and how his
play has diminished. And I have a theory. You and
(23:32):
I both covered him in college and I think anybody
who covered him in college would be surprised, slash shocked
and stunned as to how things have gone for him
off the field. And again, I'm not going to be
some moral arbiter here. I don't know, you know what's
true and what's real. But there's enough smoke that Again,
(23:55):
I just think as somebody who consumes news, you say,
all right, there's got to be some fire there. But
the point I'm trying to make is when this guy
was in college, he had a very easy going demeanor.
You heard the stories about how he went and built
homes for Habitat for Humanity, how Habitat for Humanity helped
his family. He gave back, he was a people pleaser,
(24:17):
he was a great teammate, all these things, and he
is now in a position where, let's face it, he's
a villain. Okay, he's a villain in Cleveland, he's a
villain in the NFL, He's a villain to every opposing
fan base. I just don't think he's built to be
the bad guy, and he is the bad guy now.
Whether again I'm not trying to be judge and jury here,
(24:40):
but in the court of public opinion, he is cast
as a villain, and I never saw Deshaun Watson being
as a guy, being a guy who kind of had
it in his DNA to embrace that. There's certain guys
that can kind of run with that. There's certain people
that can kind of run with that, and you know,
you see them on social media. They say all sorts
of provocative things and they get the vitriol and they
(25:02):
feed off of that. Deshaun Watson never struck me as
that kind of guy. And I don't know from above
the shoulders if he's equipped to be that guy, to
be honest with you, And I think that has a
big reason to do with the way he's playing.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Well, Listen, I know what I know of my interactions
with Deshaun Watson, and I'm not saying this applies to
everybody across the board, but I've had interactions with him,
studied him, was in camp settings with him, covered one
of his high school games, all the way going back
to like fifteen or sixteen years old. And if you
(25:41):
would have lined up one hundred players and pointed out
and said point out the one that is gonna have
a problematic future, a checkered off the field situation, however
you want to phrase it, however you want to label it.
He would have been the last person I would have
(26:02):
pointed to, right, the last one. And again, we all
we all don't know what's what. We don't know what's real,
what's not the whole deal. But I also think part
of the issue is that was such a bad deal
contract wise, because of the ripple effect it had throughout
(26:22):
the rest of the league at quarterback when it came
to contract negotiation, that he seems to take the blame
for it, his agent to take the blame for it.
The Browns should take the blame.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Well, listen, he's not going to apologize for saying yes
to two hundred and thirty million dollars guarantee.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Exactly exactly, none of us would kind of none of
us would. But he's playing with the way to that
as well. And but I agree that the interactions and
the Deshaun Watson that I had known as a younger
individual was never it was never the villain or would
have ever been somebody you thought would be the villain.
(26:59):
And that's what's been so just strange to me. I
I've never been able to reconcile it. But again, what
we do know what we don't know what's done behind
closed doors. I said, we don't know, No, we don't
and and so, but it is what it is. But
I agree with you. I think it's it's weighing heavily
(27:20):
on him and that's that's not who he probably wants
to be. But that's the position he's got himself in.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
All right, So we'll end on this. If you're the Browns,
you basically have three doors that you can open. Door
number one is, well, you're paying this guy all this money.
You're just gonna have to ride out the next two years.
You trot him out there, and it is what it is,
and you basically wait out the contract and then you
start over once he's off the books. Option number two
(27:49):
is do you bench him or cut him and eat
that money and play Jameis Winston and maybe go get
another quarterback in the off season. Or option number three,
and I've heard this being talked about, which is you
trade him.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
If you trade him, and even if you eat some
of the money or you get somebody to pick up
a considerable amount of his salary, to get him off
your roster and to get that contract off your books,
you are going to have to attach significant, significant draft
capital to the team taking on Deshaun Watson. And again,
(28:28):
what does that do? It just it sets your rebuild
back even further. This was supposed to be a ready
made contender and Watson was supposed to be the missing piece.
That contract now is not going to allow you to
resign other key players to fortify other areas that you
may have to in the next couple of years. So again,
(28:50):
I'm not sure there is a great option, but I
almost feel and this is now, this is tough tough
pill to swallow for Browns fans, Like the path of
least resistance, the one that might hurt the least is
just you might just have to ride this thing out
for a couple more years.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
And I know, I know, I mean that is and
then the other question that you have to ask yourself
on the on the trade platform side of it is
who wants him? Who thinks he's good enough to make
him better?
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Well, that's what I mean. I don't think anybody does.
That's why I think you might have to attach multiple
first round picks to get somebody to take him.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's I have to ask him a lot, man, I.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Mean think about think about this, like, think about what
Cleveland gave up to get him, and now you might
have to pay a similar price to get rid of him.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah. Unbelievable decisions, decisions and consequences that come with those decisions.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
All righty, where are you this week?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I got to go off to the West Coast for
a classic ACC matchup between SMU and Stanford.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I thinks there's ACC like a team from Texas and
a team from California. I will be exactly in the
mountains of Provo, Utah, Oklahoma State and BYU it is
a big twelve of the best after dark. I think
it's as good as it gets in terms of the
scenery the pictures.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Is there snow on the lost at yet?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Uh, we'll find out. I would imagine October probably there's
got to be some snow. But yeah, that's one of
the great backdrops in all of college football and all
sports with the mountains, Why Mountain and Lavelle Edwards Stadium
just a just a beautiful setting. And BYU is six
and zero pick to finish thirteenth in the conference and
currently ranked thirteenth in the AP.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Love it, Love it.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Alrighty, safe travels out to uh, Palo Alto. What are
you flying to San Francisco San Jose.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Well, I used to fly in to San Jose from Charlotte.
They used to have three directs a day there and
now they have none, And that's so much easier to
get to Palo Alto from San Jose and then you
avoid all of the issues of SFO in San Francisco.
So now I'm stuck doing San Francisco. But for me,
so I've got to do my serious XM show every
Sunday from nine to twelve Eastern Time, but now it's
(31:10):
going to be from six to nine, and then I
got to get out to the airport and get home,
So that's a whole wasted Sunday.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Well, we'll talk plenty of NFL then now on the
show a week from now. Yeah, yeah, all right, Luke's
be good, safe travels. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
See you
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