Transcript of Deshaun Watson Named Starting QB for the Cleveland Browns | Hour 1

You are listening to the Dan Levatar Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports App, now live in all 50 states.

This episode of the Dan Levatar Show is presented by DraftKings Sports.

I like your style.

DraftKings, the crown is yours.

You know, when you think about it, the Cleveland Browns, the Cleveland Browns are a poverty franchise. I, you know, people in Cleveland will hear me say that, Zazzle, you hate Cleveland, whatever. It's true. It's a poverty franchise.

I think if you polled most Americans, what's the worst franchise in the history of sports? I think with how gigantic football is, the Cleveland Browns Take the title.

Juju, put it on the poll: are the Cleveland Browns the worst franchise in all of sports? And I bring this up because for a poverty franchise, for a franchise that has never— literally never done any winning in the Super Bowl era, all right, they rarely make the playoffs, they're no good— they're always talked about. They're always in the news. Like, there's something There's something admirable about that, you know? Like, the Dallas Cowboys are always in the news. But all right, you know, you got an owner who loves being in front of the camera. You always have high-profile players. They always sign big stars. They won 3 Super Bowls in the '90s. That's a major, major franchise. So okay, it makes sense they're spoken— and there's Cowboy fans everywhere. It's not like there are Brown— Cleveland fans everywhere. Including fans in Cleveland. But the Browns are always talked about every single year. There's, there's something admirable about that. And they've been front and center this entire preseason because they have a shitty quarterback battle on a shitty team.

And in week number 1, and all the other shitty quarterback battles outside of Atlanta seem pretty set. Yeah, so this is what you talk about this time of year.

You're right.

This is what you talk about this year. And if you're Deshaun Watson, what you do is— I know this is strange for him— you keep your head down. You keep your head down and you don't give people reasons to talk about you. And yeah, the performance wasn't great. It was bad. But then he made news. I think he might— Tua kind of lost his job too with some press conference stuff. But in terms of like being in a quarterback battle, has anyone ever lost a job because of a press conference. Because I don't know if you caught this over the weekend. This was a disastrous day for Deshaun Watson. I had a friend that was at the game, said he's never seen anything like that where a dude on his team— Browns fans, good fans— they cheered when Deshaun Watson threw an interception. Cheered as if it was their team that was catching the interception. And Deshaun Watson said many things in the postgame presser. We expect a decision any minute now from Todd Monken.

Well, I saw his press conference. His media availability today is going to be a little after we wrap today.

So I expect him to name Shador Sanders QB1.

Oh, I think he's going to name Watson.

I don't think you can after this. This was, this was so bad. Let's run it.

Man, I didn't have no reaction. I think the biggest thing is I don't— I think you guys know too, and I think the whole world knows it has nothing to do about the performance. It's a little bit personal than that. So I think that's a disrespectful thing. So yeah, I mean, I'm gonna keep whatever I feel with me and my family internally on how I feel about that. And yeah, just move on.

But don't you think, Deshaun, that winning and playing better would eliminate some of that booing?

Um, last time I played on this field, I tore my Achilles, and that same fan base, they cheered when I got hurt. So is that— is that have to do with— what does that have to do with anything about performance? When a person get hurt, especially for your own city, and they cheer, does any of that make you regret coming here? No, I don't regret anything in my life. You know, I think the Lord put me through situations for a reason, so I don't regret anything at all.

He is out to lunch. Ugh! He is—

Where do you want to start?

He is in outer space.

Where do you want to start?

I think the first place to start is— I loved chastising the fans while you fix your diamond earring. I love that. That's a great visual. Please chastise the fans and make sure while you're doing it and you've been a terrible player. But please, please, before you're gonna chastise the fans who hate you because not just your play at quarterback has been horrific in Cleveland, the only thing worse than your play at quarterback in Cleveland has been your behavior off the field before you got to Cleveland. But please, please, while you chastise the fans who are mad that you suck while you're taking in the most guaranteed money in NFL history, please Please start the conversation playing with your diamond earring. Please.

I also think that because of how he's describing the fans and his reaction, what does it tell the fans if Todd Monk can say he's number one for us?

This is why. This is why I think he blew it. It was— it was an easy decision to have Deshaun Watson be your starting quarterback.

Easy decision to go with Shedeur.

No, I don't think so, because you always have the Shedeur thing in your back pocket. Deshaun's obviously going to struggle. There's going to become a— there's going to—

so obvious.

There's going to be a point in time where, hey man, this guy stinks, let's put in a spark plug, and that's a winning position for the younger Shador Sanders.

So obvious. Let's name the guy quarterback who's definitely going to suck, but let's do it.

Yeah, but that's what Cleveland does, right? This is how quarterback battles go. You put the veteran guy that's expensive in there if they haven't done a lot to separate themselves. But Deshaun Watson did a lot to separate himself from Shador Sanders, who, I mean, compared to him, total pro. Total bro, not, not no off-field thing. Like, forget even about the Prime stuff. Like, compared to Deshaun Watson, it's a walk in the park. I think he totally lost his job because he was bad there, but he was even worse in that press conference. Number one, dude, it is not just a personal thing. It is absolutely a performance thing because anybody that jumped off the ship jumped off the ship, right? There aren't many people that are sitting there in those stands that are still repping the Cleveland Browns rooting against their starting quarterback. If you performed well, they'd be cheering for you. You didn't get those boos when you stepped out onto the field for the first time wearing number 4 in brown. They were cheering you tearing your Achilles because you're a bad person, but you're an even worse quarterback, which says a lot.

Well, let me walk that back. You're a pretty rotten person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, his words.

Yeah, you're, you're a pretty shitty quarterback. You're a totally rotten person.

Has nothing to regret.

That was another part. And God put him in those situations. God put him on that massage table. What the fuck are we doing with this, guys?

Nothing to regret.

I think my boy is being willfully obtuse. Like, and that, like, you playing in our face now. And I feel like that's the violation, bro.

Who's the most famous person to be obtuse? It's gotta be the warden in Shawshank, right?

Yep, yep.

By far.

Absolutely.

This was so out of touch, so wrong of him, so just so ill-advised that I think he did it on purpose. I think he went—

oh, I don't think he's bright enough.

I think he knows that he's toast. I think that he knows that he's toast on the football field. It's not just in games, it's been in practice. The guy's been terrible with very— I, I still follow a lot of those beat writers. It's not like, man, Sean looked good at camp today. Haven't seen that over the last few years. I think he knows he's cooked. And I think he just decided, you know, last year was pretty fun getting paid to not play football. I have this terrible contract. I'm probably at the end here. Let me just not put myself through this. Let me not suffer the indignity of trotting out there for maybe 1.5 weeks and then losing my job. Let me just burn it all down right now. And I think that's why Monken announced. Yeah, I'm gonna announce a starter, and I, I definitely think that is a key data point on what we're gonna see. I am going to be stunned. How do you do that? This guy just flamed your own fan base. Guess who's going to be booed the next time he steps onto that field? It's going to be Deshaun Watson.

He, he went at the, the one fan base he can't afford to lose. I think he did this with intention. I think that was self-sabotage. And I don't think it's an overthink down to the fix it. Every little detail, fixing the million-dollar earrings to saying, I don't regret anything. This is all personal. I think he knows what he's doing. I think he checked out.

I think generations in the future who do deep dives on pro football reference like we do back, you know, quarterbacks back in the '90s and '80s, they're going to look at Deshaun Watson and be like, oh yeah, I remember that name. Like, man, he was bad. And then look back and see how good he was in Houston. You're like, wait a second. What happened here? And funny enough, in Pro Football Reference, usually when— because we were just talking about Klay Thompson, I was looking at some of his stats, and it's like, you know, 2022 injury Achilles, 2023 injury, you know, ACL, whatever. Here there is no blank. It's just blank, completely blank. Take a look.

It's just a missing year.

It's a gray line of 2 years, no injury. There's no suspension. There's no nothing.

Some signs of his play diminishing a little bit in Houston, because that was part of the discourse, right?

But hold on, in 20—

his last year in Houston, he was real—

he threw for almost 5,000 yards, 33 touchdowns 7 picks and it just fell off the face of the earth. We've been— this, this is another name to add to the, the growing take that I have, that the Brady-Anderson year, that's something that you see with quarterbacks now in the NFL because quarterbacks can just drop off when the NFL is on your ass. And yeah, he spent a lot of time away from the game. I, I don't think he's got the most professional approach. And yeah, this is going to go down in history as the worst contract of all time in the history of sports. And a friend of mine asked an interesting question.

What do you say?

Is this even more damaging to the franchise? The acquisition of Deshaun Watson, was that more damaging to the franchise than Art Modell moving the franchise?

Wow.

And I would say just from my own personal—

it has to be no.

No, no, no. Let me— all right. I hear you. I hear you.

Especially what's worse, Deshaun Watson or not having a team?

Well, that franchise also ended up winning a couple Super Bowls. So that they— Baltimore is now considered, you know, one of the great franchises. I remained a Cleveland Browns fan when they left the NFL.

It's such a cruel truth too, that not only did they leave, but they became one of the premier franchises.

I guess so.

Well run.

They drafted Ray Lewis like right away.

It's crazy.

But just speaking from my own experience, when the Browns moved to Baltimore, I did not become a Ravens fan. I remained a Browns fan. I rooted for the local team. TV was different back then. Dolphins were on the TV every week. I wanted a rooting interest. But when the Browns came back, and I knew they would come back, I went right back to the Browns. Yeah, yeah, it was talked about pretty immediately after they were moved that this was unjust because this is a great franchise. And I know I wasn't shaken off the Browns branch when they moved. Was when they acquired Deshaun Watson. So in that respect, yes. And also, it's put them in this terrible spot. They are nowhere franchise. This guy's sitting on their books. It's been wasted years because his contract demands that you give him opportunities. Mind you, they made the playoffs in spite of this contract. They made it with Joe Flacco. Joe Flacco— Joe Flacco, who was on the street, showed you, like, they had good teams. They had a good head coach. They had things going in the right direction. They had Myles Garrett, they had the quarterback, they won in Pittsburgh.

Ben Roethlisberger was crying on the sidelines.

Put it on the poll, Juju. What has been worse for Cleveland, the Deshaun Watson trade or the Browns moving to Baltimore?

They almost went to Arrowhead and had a terrible call go against them. The Higgins— what should have been a touchdown was targeting, took a helmet straight to the side of his helmet, fumbles, goes out of bounds. It should have been a touchdown, was targeting. They should have won that game against the prime Chiefs at Arrowhead. They had everything finally moving in the right direction, and then they decided, you know what, Baker played hurt that entire year, we've soured on him, this is the direction that we should go in. It was obvious, it was obvious to me what was going to happen, because if the Cleveland Browns were going to make a big bold move like that it was gonna blow up in their face because that's what happens to Jimmy Haslam and the Cleveland Browns. They finally got the right management team and the right quarterback in place. They built a hell of a roster. There were many Cleveland Browns teams over the last few seasons with Deshaun Watson on the roster that you're like, "Man, they are absolutely a quarterback away." Dan Levitar! You're gonna go to Buffalo! With Bernie Parmley! Mike Ryan! And the Jags!

This is the Dan Levitar Show! Well, look, the, the worst part about it is the acquisition of Watson meant they, they were giving up on Baker Mayfield. They are giving up draft picks. And if we want to be honest, it's why Miles Garrett's not on the team anymore.

100%. They gave up so much draft capital that they can't even replace Deshaun Watson. If they want to.

So like Mike said, coming up probably in a couple hours from now, Todd Monken, the first-year head coach of the Cleveland Browns, is going to name the starter for this season. Here is Todd Monken. This was after the preseason game, but before Deshaun Watson's comments.

Hey, how's it feel to get booed? I mean, it's a pretty easy question. It sucks. I don't want to get booed. It comes with the territory. You don't want to get booed? Let's play good football. Let's play good at quarterback. Let's play good on offense. Let's play good as a team. And then you don't have to worry about all that because it can turn just like that. Win, play good football, and everybody will be fine. That's just part of it. I mean, so I told him, you good? We're good. Part of what we do.

We're good.

And then he—

and he says that, and I respect Todd Monken, but there has never been a coach that looks more one-and-done than that guy.

Yeah, here's the problem with Todd Monken, and here's why— here's why I believe he can go Watson. All right, Todd Monken, he's 60 years old, first-year NFL head coach. This wasn't a hot candidate, you know. This is— this is not like the offensive coordinator, the young offensive or defensive coordinator who, you know, you're going to give a few years here. Todd Monken is likely going into this season needing to win games, not even to make playoffs, but needing to win games, needing to prove y'all were wrong not hiring me until I'm 60 years old. I, I can be an NFL head coach. And what happens there is, because I think, I think Mike is right, it feels like a one-and-done type situation. So what winds up happening there is you're gonna have decisions made from the head coach that are about self-preservation. And going with Deshaun Watson, I believe, is a self-preservation move where they probably do have a better chance of winning games this year, or at least right out the gates. That, like, Shedeur is better for the future— there's no future with Deshaun Watson.

Says—

I don't disagree, but the math just changed after that Todd Monken press event.

You don't think it makes it—

the math change—

you don't think it then makes it look like He's letting the crowd dictate who his quarterback is.

I don't think you can have that guy as your quarterback.

I don't either.

You cannot have a dude that decided with his press availability following that game. Number one, it shows you a lot about how he's going to handle adversity here. Like, I don't know how you do that to your team. And there might have been guys on that team that believed in Deshaun. I happen to know there were guys on that team that thought Deshaun Watson should be QB1 based on merit, because it's not exactly like Sha'Dur Sanders is lighting the world on fire. At training camp either. But you can't— I don't understand how you can do that to your fan base, to your team. Send that message that after Deshaun Watson said that, performed the way that he did, and recused himself of any responsibility from the last few years and put it all on some agenda— what could that be? That the fan base who stuck around is one of the most loyal— loyal to a fault, by the way, because I gotta judge anybody that stuck around through this.

So, so it shouldn't have taken me this long to bring this up as well, where he— so Deshaun Watson has taken it very personal. It's clearly personal that they're booing me, uh, can't be about my play when they cheered when I got carted off with the, with the injury at the end of last season. This is obviously a personal thing. He has no clue how sports work, just none, because you can say whatever you want about us as fans or Cleveland Browns fans as fans that, you know, we lack more morality when it comes to stuff like this. But the reality of it is he is clueless if he doesn't think that if he played good football, that that crowd would forgive and forget. I know there are people like Mike who jumped off the bandwagon right at the start. But Mike, Mike jumped off and there are people like him and there are still 60,000 people at the stadium every single game. All, I guess it's 3 years prior that Deshaun Watson had played, 1 year he was absent, so this is his 5th year with the team. Those 60,000 fans at the game, if the quarterback is playing well, they're not booing him and they don't give a shit about the off-field stuff.

And like I said, that leaves us vulnerable to you making accusations about our morality, but guess what? Welcome to sports. We've seen it a million times where a player is a dirtbag, but because he plays well, the fans are willing to look the other way. And this idea that Deshaun Watson doesn't understand that the reason that they're cheering when he's carted off the field and they're booing when he's playing poorly in preseason games, he doesn't get that despite the off-the-field stuff, that if he played well they would be cheering him. He's on another planet, this guy, right?

I liken it to Kanye West, bro. Like, last couple of years, I would have never thought my boy would bounce back from this goofiness. He put on a black KKK mask. He done said everything about Jay-Z. He been very rude, disrespectful to a whole culture, and yet he putting out music and still touring around because he letting the music talk. And I would never believe he's able to sell out SoFi and all this stuff.

Biggest concerts that he's had, like, ever.

Almost exactly. So I think he should— if Deshaun could pay attention to, to stuff like that, like, like Michael Vick as well. Michael Vick went through that situation, and I could not stop hearing about the charities that Michael Vick was starting, donating to when it comes to dogs.

But that's also a huge difference between Watson and Vick, where Vick was fully about that.

We should interrupt this. We have breaking news on this front. Well, it seems as though the Cleveland Browns got sick of watching morning television because we're not the only one saying you cannot trot Deshaun Watson out there. But the Cleveland Browns have indeed named Deshaun Watson their starting quarterback here.

Yeah.

So probably the smart decision to do this right now before First Take chews on it all morning long. But this is— I am super surprised. What a terrible message to send. It is terrible to everybody. And let me remind you, Nearly 30 lawsuits. Nearly 30 lawsuits from women that accused Deshaun Watson. This isn't one, this isn't two, this isn't— this is over two dozen. It's a third. It is an ungodly number of accusations.

No regrets.

No regards. When you say that though, it makes me— it reminds me like this was kind of the temperature around Deshaun before they signed his ass in the first place. So how dare I think that Cleveland was going to do something different than goof on themselves again?

He just reignited the conversation, which had diminished. He just had the final two lawsuits dismissed. He was out of it. He was out of it. In fact, the conversation was just going to be about him being a shitty quarterback and not just a shitty person.

You're probably right where You know, if you go with Watson, which I felt they would, if you go with Watson, you can always then go to Shedeur. But if you start with Shedeur, it's tough to then go to Watson because nobody wants to see him. You know, it's like you have two outs going Watson. Maybe he'll play well. He probably won't. But then you can go to Shedeur.

He's going to be booed by his own fans.

But the other way around, if you start with Shedeur, You're really only giving yourself one out because nobody— Dylan Gabriel.

Yeah, Dylan Gabriel, who's— who doesn't even have a jersey number anymore.

Well, now the question becomes, I think there's a chance they cut Shedeur now, because does this become— this is now a conversation every single week. Every single week when Deshaun Watson plays poorly, this is a conversation. And does a first-year head coach want this to be the story of his team every single week? Dylan Gabriel's a fine backup, non-controversial. You have no issues with Dylan Gabriel as the backup. Do you want to play this game every day for the rest of the season?

I think this was a huge test for a first-time head coach, and I think he failed. I think he failed. I think Deshaun Watson just made this a hell of a lot worse. Hell of a lot worse. Look at what we're talking about here.

We had—

it had gone away pretty much. There was, all right, this is the realization of the situation. Like, he, he's had this in his past. They're trying to move on. And we're trying to see if somebody who was once great, once looked like a certain Hall of Famer, one, one time was compared to Michael Jordan by his college head coach, said if you pass on Deshaun Watson, right, you are passing on Michael Jordan.

That's right.

And for a couple of years there, it looked like Dabo was absolutely right. People were crazy to pass up on Deshaun Watson.

And he was so likable at Clemson too. He really was. Every— you know, he came from one of those homes that Warwick Dunn donated to families in need. You know, Warwick Dunn, amazing person.

Funny that you mentioned charity because we looked this up because I could not believe it. I could not believe this tweet that I saw. You know, Deshaun Watson, like many athletes, has a charitable foundation. The Deshaun Watson Foundation raised over $500,000 last year, which I'm all for philanthropy, but if you're, if you're trying to decide where you're going to put your money, where you're going to park your charitable donation, landing on the Deshaun Watson Foundation is a choice. But I guess, as Juju says, that's neither here nor there. Last year they raised over $500,000 but only gave out $85,000. Oh, and this is true, we checked out the—

gave it out to what?

Paid out to whatever this foundation pays out to. They kept the rest. I think that's the minimum required by law in terms of actually dispersing, uh, some of those charitable donations. Yeah, the rest stayed in the foundation's account. We'll see where that goes. But just a, you know, not that I needed an additional data point, Zazz, to know that Deshaun Watson was a bad guy. But he's a bad guy. He's a shitty person. And they made their bed and they've had every opportunity to just turn the page, get out from this. They're still going with this. Next year seems to be a big year for them. They have two first-round draft picks. I imagine they'll have a new head coach because he, he just showed he's a nothing. He just failed the first test. And Deshaun Watson's not a good quarterback. Shitty human, shitty quarterback. He'll be benched. Shedeur Sanders, not super hopeful. They just traded away Miles Garrett.

It's such an— you're right, it's such an easy way to get the fan base behind you in your first move, first big move. It's like what we were complaining about with John Eric Sullivan and Jeff Haffley, where take Reuben Payne. It's the easiest way to get the entire fan base on your side at the very start. And this would have been a really easy way to get the fan base on your side, Todd Monken.

Yeah, it would have looked like he was coming to their defense. We are nothing without our dog pack.

Yeah, he went out there and chastised the fans. It really is an incredible quote where I think the whole world knows it has nothing to do about the performance. He's so clueless. If he was a good quarterback, they would forget so fast about the 30 lawsuits. He's like, he knows nothing about sports and Todd Monken, after he chastises the fans to Sean Watson, Todd Monken then names him their starting quarterback. It's, it's a bad look. It's a really bad look.

There's just no way this works out. We can say that with certainty.

You know, I made this point about Tua after his first preseason game for the Falcons a couple of weeks ago, where if you're, if you're a veteran quarterback, if you've been in the league 7 years You can't come out of a preseason game admitting your performance was substandard, wasn't even up to par. If you're a veteran quarterback, doesn't have to be a starting quarterback, go look what Jameis Winston did to the Dolphins, you know, this past Saturday. If you're a veteran quarterback playing in the preseason, you crush it. You crush it. And, and Deshaun Watson this weekend was 5 for 12. By the way, he wasn't the starter, so he's going up against second and third team guys. Deshaun Watson was 5 for 12 for 36 yards. And an interception. If that's your preseason stat line and you're a veteran quarterback, you are not a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Deshaun Watson went on to say that if Monken chose him as QB1, then it's maybe 17 away games for me. Then get him out of here, man. Just get this guy out of the league, bro. He will be out of the league soon, but just the Achilles was going to be it. It certainly didn't help.

I thought he was going to be—

he looked cooked before that. He was— he looked cooked well before that. Never a time that he's looked good. Never been a time that he's looked good in that uniform. In that uniform, never has been a time where he looked good.

Shoulders on the team week 1?

Yes, yes, yes. Especially after this. I think it helped his case. I would have been there with you at the start of this whole thing. I was like, I think the loser is going to be on another team. I don't know if anybody's going to take Deshaun Watson. He is literally on the only roster that can have him on the roster. And he decided the move was blame the fans for a shitty play.

I mean, Shedeur couldn't win the job in an incredibly embarrassing QB battle. He's still on the team week one.

I don't know.

I mean, you said it yourself. What option do you have? And whereas there's a bunch of negativity now surrounding Deshaun Watson where it makes his job even that much more difficult, something that he's already said, now Shador becomes even more popular, is looked at as even more of a potential savior, and the fans will be so fervent in their praise of him that that's a, that's a cool opportunity for Shador to make something happen. And when he fails, Dylan Gabriel will have less enthusiasm surrounding him, but you know, this is going to be a terrible season for Cleveland. It's gonna be brutal.

Dan Levitar.

Put a finger in there, but if you tell anyone, I'll deny it.

Mike Ryan.

Don't just stare at it, eat it. This is the Dan Levitar Show. Tony, take us in a more positive direction here. Alright, the Cowboys, Cowboys offensive lineman, he got you really fired up over the weekend.

Zazz, have you heard this speech?

No.

Boys, you guys have heard this speech?

No.

Alright.

Do we know homeboy's name here?

Saez Peet.

Okay.

Saez Peet, he's the first Navajo in the NFL. So shout out to him.

Alright.

Brian Schottenheimer, they have a big win in the preseason and he told them, alright, We're going to close it out with Pete. Pete, get over here. And this is what he delivers as a speech. Tell me how fired up you get, because this had me running through a wall.

That was an incredible win. I am very fortunate to be amongst you and to play in the same field where the same— with the same star holding on our chest. And I'm proud of us. I'm proud of how far we've come. Man, this game Fate brought us here as strangers, but this game, this star, this team will make us brothers. That's the bomb! That's the bomb!

That's the bomb!

That's the bomb! Cowboys on 3!

Cowboys on 3!

1, 2, 3!

Cowboys!

Come on.

I like that.

Goosies.

Fate has brought us together.

That made me happy.

But the star makes us brothers.

Come on.

I like hearing that.

That made me happy.

Oh, dude. Cadence. I was captivated.

I like how he talks. I like his voice.

It's like very mellow, very just like nonchalant, and then all of a sudden—

He sounds like very Native American. I like how he sounds.

And then the bar comes out and you're like, whoa, he just said it.

That was crazy.

What do you mean that was crazy?

No, I'm saying what he said was awesome.

Yeah.

You guys are playing a different game over here.

That made me happy.

You know what?

At least he said Native American. I was a little worried there. A little dicey.

I like that. I liked him.

Fired me up yesterday. I was like, hell yeah, dude. That's football right there. A guy that you've never heard of all of a sudden becomes the star of a team that has 15 different stars on it.

Yeah.

Did you say something weird, Chris? What happened?

I was saying what you were saying.

That's right. That's what I'm talking about.

I like that, Chris.

Oh, that's what I'm talking about.

Anyways.

So, okay. There you go.

All right.

So speaking of weird things, you know about this Daquan Wright?

We were speaking on weird things?

Yes, it's just a thing to say. It's a crutch.

I don't think we were. I don't think we were speaking about weird things.

It's, it's not weird, uh, uh, Deshaun Watson being named starting quarterback. It's weird, right?

We had already separated from that.

Yeah, but like it's still in our minds.

We had the Russell palate cleanser. Yeah, the Native American palate cleanser.

Yeah, I like how he sounds.

All right.

It made me happy hearing from him.

Yes.

Daequan Wright is, or I guess was an NFL player. Is, was, was. He's on waivers now. All right. What team?

Browns.

Browns. He's on waivers from the Cleveland Browns and he's in the transfer portal. And if he clears waivers, not if he clears the transfer portal, if he clears waivers, that's— waivers is not a new thing in college football. If he clears NFL waivers, he's going to play for LSU.

Played for Lane at Ole Miss. Nuts. Now I know a lot of people don't like this. I can understand that it's less than ideal, but to blame anybody but the NCAA here is foolish. This one was easy for the NCAA. Already instituted 5 years, no matter what, you get 5 years. The COVID people came and went. You had this one class that was in no man's land. Anybody with foresight would know that this would happen, and anyone at the NCAA would recognize we are over a million in court cases. Just give them the extra year. You would have avoided this mess of people wearing pro uniforms one day and going to college the very next, as it seems to be the case. This is a failure on the NCAA, which is an absolute joke.

Well, and he's not going to be the only one, right? Like guys who don't make a 53-man roster who are undrafted free agents, they're going to enter the transfer or they're going to contest to go back.

There's been— yeah, I think there's been rumors of Tommy Castellanos being linked to Texas Tech in a backup capacity. You have to keep in mind, college football is starting this week. This is less than ideal for everybody involved. Like, it is hard to jump in. We're an insult. This is not like— these are grown men coming into new situations. Many of them, some of them are going to go back to their original schools and I guess it's a little bit more plug and play there, but this is, this is a mess.

Can I ask you an honest question? So like when this guy Daquan Wright, he— did he go to LSU prior?

No, he went to Ole Miss for Lane Kiffin.

Even better. So when he arrives at LSU, does he feel like a loser? Like walking into— no, but like walking into that locker room with college kids. Like, like 18-year-olds. You were just taking snaps in an NFL preseason game and now you're like, you're a man. He's a man.

He's the man. The way Van Wilder was the man.

Oh, he's the man.

The man.

He's a man.

Yeah. He goes into that locker room. What's it like in the pros, man? My quarterback said some crazy shit, right?

I think the brother to look out for right now is the starting tight end on LSU currently. It's like, hell no, bro.

Right?

Your ass in here.

Yeah. Yeah. Like he's going to take classes. He's getting a schedule.

No, he's not going to take classes.

Nobody's taking classes.

Come on. What are you doing?

It's their first time ever.

He's done it. Look, Carson Beck didn't take any classes. He had eligibility, but he had already done it.

That's not true. He did take a class.

Lenore Sellers, I think it's just like golf intern. Yeah, he's interning at a driving range. He doesn't need to take classes. Some people are at that game. Pancake Honcho on the, on Miami's offensive line. He graduated last year. Like they're just there for football. You get it. That guy's going to have so many. Number one, he knows a lot of the staff. He knows a lot of the players because a couple Ole Miss players went to LSU. And for everybody else, like, man, what's it like in the big leagues?

Yeah, you're like 25 years old.

It's like, I don't know, man. I came from the Browns. This is a crazy operation. What's it like here at LSU?

I don't know, I think it's weird. He's playing against— he's playing against real men, and now he's gonna go in the locker room with like kids.

He's gonna still be playing against real men. He's inside the SEC.

He should ask for number 5.

Yeah, that's a good joke. That's a good job out of you, Juju.

He won't be the only one that goes back to, to college here. I am curious to see how these guys work themselves in a little bit more of a routine for him because he's familiar with the playbook and the staff and some of the players and whatnot.

Is it true when Todd Monken said Lane called me and left me a message, I should have called him back, or was that just a funny anecdote?

No, that's true. I saw that.

That was true?

I saw that quote.

No, I saw—

He said I should have called him back.

Right, but do we— like, was he just messing around or did Lane actually call him, we think? That's what I'm asking.

No, I assume Lane's out. Todd Monken's very well respected in coaching circles.

Well, what, he doesn't have time to call Lane Kiffin back? He doesn't have one minute? I should have called Lane Bagley. 60 seconds.

Like, I would see my phone like, what does Lane Kiffin want?

Yeah, call back.

Hey Lane, what's up? Hey buddy, I'm taking your tight end.

Who?

Okay, are you in the NFL again? How are you taking my tight end? You coach in college, I'm in the NFL. I don't know if you are.

I was asking Kevin Clark on Friday, uh, Kane's Insight. Now you're gonna have— I don't know if it's the GM who's like— you're gonna have a personnel person. They have to scout the pros that is going to have to worry about talent retention. Yeah, right now, because Byburn had 2 sacks. That's a body that you want in your practice squad. Tampa Bay had a bunch of injuries at that position, especially now. You got to worry about college programs trying to take your kid. And Kevin Clark said earlier, like, a lot of these players don't even know the rules still. They're like, coach, it's not working out for me. I think I'm going to enter the portal in the NFL.

Did you hear what Dan Lanning said? Once you leave, don't come back.