Winners and Losers From First 10 Days of Browns Training Camp
Deshaun Watson's sudden resurgence and a dominant defensive front define days of the training camp for the Cleveland Browns. Who else is standing out and who is falling behind?
Video Transcript
Saturday was an eventful, man, because we get there ahead of practice.
Mm-hmm.
We talked to Todd Monken, and he made it clear that, like, you might see The words he used, I believe, were, "You might see Deshaun get go first in seven-on-sevens," the same way the previous two days, Shedeur had kinda gone with a seven-on-seven group with the ones, and then Deshaun did it on Shedeur's day with the, with the group with the ones.
And then, so it was kinda like, okay, we might see that trend continue.
And as fate would have it, we get out there to practice, and the first 11-on-11 full team drill session, Deshaun Watson's out there.
And so at first, I think we all were kinda like, "Okay, maybe he meant 11-on-11s and he just misspoke," whatever.
But then as practice proceeded, Deshaun ended up taking every single snap with the first team, through 11-on-11s, through seven-on-sevens, through the entirety of the practice, and it was this fascinating development as it w- it went against everything that Todd Monken had sort of suggested was going to happen.
And so, the, the big question now becomes: What does all this mean, and where is the Browns quarterback competition?
So the question really is, Megs, what does all this mean in the grand scheme of the quarterback competition?
Because the explanation after practice was, "Well, Todd said he just wanted to see Deshaun with certain personnel groups on, on this specific day," but there's I don't know.
Like, this is a weird scenario that we were not expecting, and it's, it's interesting because a lot of people who were in Todd's corner, especially a lot of Shedeur fans who thought, "Hey, he's, he's running a real competition now," all of a sudden, like, he's lost some of their faith because it feels like he lied about what the process was going to be, and then all of a sudden he's just favoring Deshaun Watson.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a weird thing, and you got, you kinda got the, the brunt of it, over on X.
You know, there's a lot of people.
Everyone knows by now, there's, there's a very strong contingent of, of, of Shedeur followers who will ride or die with him, right?
So, like, if the coach just made a change or whatever it is, you know, two days ago he's the hero, and he made Kevin Stefanski look like, the world's worst person, and now he's just the same as Kevin Stefanski.
So, you're never gonna win, from that perspective.
But I'll say this, like, you, you had brought up a good point.
We have a bunch of different text chains going and, and we were kinda talking about it.
You brought up a good point.
Like, you know, in walkthrough, something very clearly happened.
Like, and, and, like, you know, whether it was mistakes made in walkthrough, whether it was You know, he's been harping on cadence, right?
And, and Shedeur's pre- pre-snap process.
Like, how many different times now on different, you know, different platforms, Cleveland Browns Daily, NFL Radio, like, To- Todd has said it 100 times.
Like, "Hey, if we can't get out of the huddle and get to the line of scrimmage, I, I can't use you.
You can't be the quarterback," right?
And it's very clear.
He's, Todd is very calculated in everything he says.
He j- and he also says it out loud, so he's very clearly telling these guys, like, "Hey, the first step in this whole thing is getting to the line of scrimmage."
So, you know, I'm just speculating here, I'm guessing, but I, I think you made a really good point earlier.
Like, maybe something happened in, in, in walkthrough, that, you know- Yeah that spooked Monken and was like, "Hey, you're not ready for today," and today is the first competition day.
We were talking pre-show, like, this may have been the best competition day you've seen in a long time.
Install's done.
You know, we're going best on best, good on good.
We need today to be, we need to have today to have juice.
We can't have today, you know, we can't be, you know, having, pre-snap penalties.
We can't be having delayed games.
All that type of stuff.
Like, today's important, and if, if Shedeur wasn't ready, he pulled the plug on it quickly and, and put Deshaun back in that starter position.
Yeah, and I, I, I, reason I said that was 'cause it sounded like, through some things that I had heard, that they were told after walkthrough who was going to be doing what.
And so if that's true, then it seems like something changed with Monken where all of a sudden it was like, "Oh, well, I actually wanna see Deshaun today."
So again, we don't know what that is.
I, w- what I would say is this, like, I know that a lot of the Shedeur fans are now just, you know, anti-Todd Monken- and think that the, the quarterback competition's been rigged for Deshaun and that it's over.
I, most of the tweets I was getting on Saturday as I was tweeting out about, like, how the rotation was staying Deshaun, Deshaun, Deshaun, Deshaun, Deshaun every time they restarted something, was a lot of people just being like, "All right, call it.
It's over," and all this- Yeah kind of stuff.
I don't know that I would go that far yet because I, listen, I, I still believe, I know maybe people aren't trusting Todd Monken right now, but I still believe Todd Monken when he says, like, full body of work matters, that he wants to probably see both play and start a preseason game still, I, I would imagine.
And, and there's still some bigger, more important sessions that have to happen.
They still have three preseason games.
Yeah.
They still have a joint practice with the Bills.
Like, there's still different sessions that are gonna be important to evaluating them as a whole.
And so I, I still would say, like, to those people, let the process play out.
Yeah.
But yes, like, when Monday rolls around, we're, we're, we are all waiting with bated breath to, to hear what Todd Monken's actual explanation's gonna be for this, 'cause it does seem like in a way he kinda put his foot in his mouth by saying, "Yeah, hell, he's gonna be out there for just one, maybe one seven-on-seven," and that was like he was out there for every session.
So- Yeah what changed?
And people are gonna wanna kinda get insight into why he, he went about it that way.
