Should the Cleveland Browns CUT Andre Szymt and look for a new kicker after his disaster in Week 1?

Should the Cleveland Browns CUT Andre Szymt and look for a new kicker after his disaster in Week 1?

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— deal, but you gotta, you gotta go another option. Um, he, there’s no way you could have any confidence in him. You can’t miss in the, I know it’s the first week, but you missed two, like 90, those are, those are that feel of that extra point. Those are 90+ percent kicks. Like it’s not a long kick. Those are easy kicks. I, I, I shout out to my boy Darryl Ryder on the fan who made a great point that It’s usually hard to kick in Cleveland. It’s one of the hardest places to kick. It wasn’t yesterday. The weather was perfect. There was very little wind. There was no rain. There was no, you know, heavy gusts. There was no snow. It wasn’t one of these crazy days in Cleveland. If he can’t. kicks when the weather’s good. He won’t be able to make kicks when the weather’s bad. It’s not like he has any track record of success. You absolutely have to cut him, guys. No, I’ll bring him back. You bring him back? Yeah, I would. I wrote, I’d bring him back because it’s one game. It’s his first game, and the two reasons why I’d bring him back. Number one. I talked to enough people in the locker room who actually believe in him who think he’s a really good kicker. It sucks that he had that day because he’s a really good kicker. Like players in the locker room believe now he may be cooked mentally. He might be. You’re not gonna know that. So what do you got to lose? Another game? OK, fine. They’re gonna lose anyway. Bush may punch you in the face. I’m fine. What they’re gonna lose. They’re gonna lose against Baltimore on a missed field goal or extra points. Then this guy, then you caught him. But then you also look at your general manager and said you wanted to roll them out. Here’s the other thing that I, and I know people are probably gonna roll their eyes at this. I was actually impressed by the fact that like he was standing in his locker and we walked in there yesterday. Oh yeah, I don’t give a shit, but I know, OK, but the, the Guardians had an all-star closer who. Ran home and he blew the game and he put all of his, all of his trophies on Instagram and this kid’s a rookie who never kicked before and he stood there and answered every question and he was accountable. That tells me that there’s a level of maturity with this kid and a level of toughness. I know he didn’t show it yesterday, but to stand there and answer the questions and to be waiting when everyone walked in. There’s merit to that, and I know fans don’t care, make the kick. I get it. I’m not saying keep him all year. I’m saying he’s a rookie in his first game. I’m sure he had the yips and was a little bit nervous. — Give him
— another game. You know what it’s akin to, Jay, and we actually laughed about this on Friday. The Browns made Charlie Fry their starting quarterback in week one. Yeah, and they traded him and in week two, he was traded, um. Again, I, I, I always say I’m, I’m a, I’m not so much knee jerk, but I do like sometimes I let my heart get in the way of my head. Um, the prudent thing to do is to probably give him another chance. — Why another chance because
— what are you? You’re gonna go sign Greg Joseph. — He’s a
— lot better. Well the other guys that they’ve already caught. — A lot
— of these guys that they’ve cycled through have landed with Chase McLaughlin was here. — He’s what did you
— say, Mike? Well, I just, I did do a quick search. Of the best available free agent kickers and here’s the list. It’s a lot of guys that used to play in Cleveland, Jay, you’re not kidding, but Greg Zerlo, Eddie Pinero, Michael Badger, — you just
— signed Justin Tucker. You can hang out with Dean. Tucker is suspended for 10 games. — Don’t sign Justin
— Tucker. Tucker’s got 9 was the quickest 180. — You know what’s interesting
— about that list? Every guy on that list has made more NFL kicks than Andre Schmidt. You’re right. All right, fine. Then go get one of those guys, and then they’re gonna miss the game. They’re gonna suck. — They cut
— them to cut them and then you bring somebody — else in keep doing
— it so a guy can make. I’ve got an idea. I’ve got an idea. guess what? You did that. Dustin Hopkins made kicks, and then he started missing them, right? And they cut his ass. I didn’t see the kick, but someone told me that on game day some dude rolls up and like. Snakes, jeans and blast the 35 yarder, you know how they give away that they give away a large sum of money if it, if the Pat McAfee thing, yeah, the Pat McAfee kick, um, sign him with that let’s give it a shot. Let’s make it entertaining if that’s what we’re here for. This is why, this is why, this is why we get clowned on national TV. This is why people laugh at you. This is why people make fun of your colors, what you’re about, because we are sitting here. Having feelings for the kicker, you know who I think is a stand-up dude, the 18 year old kid that’s going to Iraq tomorrow, Go out there. That’s stand up kicking and you missed, sorry, bro, you missed. They, they don’t feel sorry for me. They’re not about to offer me no contract. You 41 and you can’t walk. They’re not offering contracts. Here’s what I’m gonna say straight up to, you know what, Milesar, I apologize for everybody. Because when you came out and you said that they didn’t have no plan and they wasn’t trying to do nothing, people jumped on you and made a reverse, oh you, you’re trying to take a dump on the city. No, you was just actually telling the truth. And guess what, they couldn’t trade you because, you know what, no one else had the assets. The only thing they could do is say, yeah, Miles, we’re gonna be trash for a long time. So here’s a here’s, here’s a nice parting gift for you because you were absolutely correct. Because we today when the game start, now it’s like, hey, bring Right on back to keep missing games. You think Miles Garrett put that type of work and film out there to dominate a game, one of the greatest offenses in the league, and Joe Burrow, and he’s out there putting his body on the line and the kicker can’t do, can’t put his shoes on right to make a kick. This is wild. This, I don’t understand. Like to me, I feel like I live in a world where like it’s, it’s straight fantasy football and the only thing that matters is if we know the front office and the coaches names and we get to draft fantasy players. It’s like a bunch of toy soldiers. It’s like the games don’t even matter no more. None of this matters. It’s like, hey, as long as we got the storylines and We could, uh, you know, go on FanDuel and put a couple of dollars down. None of this matters. It’s wild. I’m sitting here thinking like, OK, so, What did you, what, what, what do they work out all, all spring for? You think those dudes go out there, you think Martin Emerson is sitting there crying cause he tore his Achilles heels up and then it’s like the kicker cost us? — And then there’s no outrage because the kicker calls
— you. Oh, there’s outrage. — There’s
— outrage. But you said the people in the locker room, they think they got, they like him. I talked to players who said that they felt bad for him because he’s a good kicker. Yeah, but, but, but did you, did you really expect one of them to say this, this is garbage, man. We bust our tail. He’s got. I want that. I need. I need that, of course not. I guess. What it, it should be on record. Like, listen, listen, this is the thing we didn’t got so watered down puff marshmallow where we feel like that like be we being nice to each other means something. I don’t care if they’re evil to each other. When these damn football games. Maybe, maybe we need that. Maybe the coach need to be like, you know what, Cedric Tillman, you dropped the ball. You’ve been here 4 years. Yeah, see how scout team feels. — Maybe you do need
— to call a leader needs to come in — and tear up the club
— out like because other than this, this is, here’s what, here’s what you, what you talk about everybody said talk about I there’s a silver lining, no silver lining. If Miles Garrett or Denzel Ward go out with an injury, you’re done. Let’s stop making excuses. It’s like, oh we got these young dudes that’s gonna do something. You two, you got 2 ball players, 2 on defense, and some young guys. See how them young guys look when you don’t got the best corner locking Jamar Chase up and a freak of nature at the at the defensive line position. We talked about, and guess what? You didn’t draft neither one of them. They was gifted to you on a platter. When you got here, you had Chubb, Baker Mayfield, Jarvis Landry, Kareem Hunt, Miles Garrett, Denzel Ward, can I keep going? Where’s your best players now? Oh, they’re the same best players and they’re getting older and you had a top 5. To a lot. Buttonio and you had a top 5. Stop with the. No, no. Two players go out. You, you gonna be getting the ball ran all over you. We gonna talk about what the season’s over because we don’t have miles. Yeah, I know we, we, we know that, but you did it on purpose because you knew they were not trying to win football. one of their best players, Corey Borquez. That’s a good, you see that, you see how he’s not wrong. You said brought attention. He’s not wrong. No, but, no, you’re dead on. You’re, you’re dead on. And that’s why one of my first points today was I don’t know how anybody with a straight face can look at Andrew Barry’s record of work and say, yeah, he’s done, he’s done a job well enough to stay here. — I gave him
— JLK. JLK, he, he picked JLK was a monster, unfortunately, the way the NFL works, not for long, he’s no longer with us. — That’s
— just the way I did think, but you know, we didn’t talk and we’ll talk. Well, we’re gonna do the rookie report, so I’ll say that yeah yeah yeah. Go ahead, Mike. So, you’re getting rid of Schmidt. Jay, you’re getting rid of Schmidt. Boy, you’re getting rid of Schmidt. Jason’s Jason, you’re keeping him. I bet they will keep him. I think they will too. Got some things, I think they will too, but I, I think he’s, I think he’s, he might be mentally cooked. He might be. — You’ll know
— next week. That’s the problem with the. Kickers, he missed the second one because he missed the first one, probably he did he missed it the same way. 31, 36 and 37, I think the extra points at 37. — 36 was the field goal and then 33
— in fairness, it was a rough day on kickers yesterday, man. It was a rough day. — The Bucks missed an extra point that would have put them
— up 4. At all, misses, uh, a gimme. I said it already, Mike. Yeah, no, like it’s perfect conditions and those are chip shots. — You just can’t miss
— those. I understand. — I
— can’t. I talked to Phil probably about 5 years ago on and I said, why is kicking so bad today in the NFL? And he said it’s better than it’s ever been. Yeah, it’s not bad. Said if you go back and look when he was like Gary Anderson, Morton Anderson, these guys that we look at as legends, they were like 75-80%, and now we expect 100% every single time and Phil’s like, hey, listen, kicking is better today than it’s ever been. These guys are really good. You have to have a little bit of patience. Phil said, if I were starting my career now, I would have been cut my rookie year. They never would have stuck. He didn’t have a good rookie year. I think he missed 4 kicks his rookie year and his point was, and listen, I’m not saying Andre Schmidt is Phil Dawson. I’m not saying that, but you’ll never know if he is if you cut him today. But I’m saying Phil is the one who’s saying you’ve got to have patience with these young kickers, especially early. — But
— you gotta, you gotta be smart enough to know which kickers you gotta have patience with and which ones you don’t. — How should the special teams coach know
— that? I think that’s my point. My point is it’s a blind spot for the organization. It’s a blind spot for a lot of organizations and the fact we’ve talked about this before, the fact that like I think the Ravens are the only team that actually has like a kicking specialist blows my mind when you look at the number of games that come down to 3 points or less, you can attack the Browns for their lack of investment in the kicking game. That’s fair. That’s totally fair. The and the. A lot of other teams as well. They just don’t like, what does Bubba Ventron know about kicking field goals? Nothing. — What does
— he know? Nothing. Is there a team in the NFL though that has had the kicking problems that we’ve had over the last 5 years? I don’t know. We’re, we’re, there’s probably a couple of others. We’re not looking closely. I’d like to do a deep dive on it. Fra when he was his last year with the Titans. Started going for 2 because he just hated his kicker. They, — they didn’t
— kick thing to do. Now, the amount of kickers, I started to look this up yesterday. The amount of kickers they’ve had since Phil retired, it’s crazy. It’s in the I don’t know why we haven’t started the kicker jersey. — We’ve got the quarterback jersey with all the
— names. But isn’t that depressing enough? You guys are golfers, right? No, not you, but, but, OK, so golfing, the way you said that was funny. Yeah, you guys are golfers, right? Like, I mean, so you, you have golfing. Uh, you have base you baseball guys, right? Sure. Do they not videotape every swing? Of course, uh, golf swings, golf coaches, swing coach, swing coaches. Why is there not a specified person videotaping your leg angle plant for every single, I’m sure they are, but why don’t they have a coach? Why don’t they have a coach to coach? Yeah, every team should do that. — I’ve
— been screaming that for years. Analytics, you, you guys are analytics. You guys, you guys got all the money in the world. I went out, we got there. How many support staff they got? The Browns might got the most support staff in the game. They got people on top of them. — They
— got staff to support the support staff. Yes, it did. And, and, and the sport is called football. The leading scorer on most teams is a kicker. Get that right, guys. It’s not as hard as you’ve made it look. I’m sorry. I know that teams struggle with kickers. I get all that. It, — it should not be this
— hard. Now are you gonna be surprised if Matt Prater misses a game winning kick next week for Buffalo? I’m, I’m not. 41. 0, look, Buffalo got out of the 41. OK. — He made a kick and then
— they got it right. Yeah, he’s not gonna be their kicker in week 5. Everyone was hailing Dustin Hopkins not that long ago. We were hailing Cade York after that week 156 — yardina of
— the fickle position that is kicking. That you look great one week or one year — and you look and
— you know what’s so frustrating? Dallas falls into a guy that didn’t play high school football, didn’t play college football. He kicks soccer balls for a career. He tells his girlfriend, I think I could do this. He goes to a high school field, starts blasting 60 yarders right down the middle, and he goes, yeah, I’m pretty good at this, it turns out. And now the Cowboys of all teams have it, have this guy fall on their lap, but he’s gonna be the best kicker in the NFL for a decade.

Andre Szmyt converted 1-of-2 field-goal attempts and 1-of-2 extra-point kicks in Sunday’s 17-16 loss to the Bengals in Week 1.

Szmyt, who made his NFL debut, was fine in the first half, drilling a 45-yard field goal just before halftime, but missed both of his second-half tries wide right. Those were obviously big misses for the Browns , whose defense played well enough to steal a win. Szmyt won the job this summer, outkicking incumbent Dustin Hopkins , who was coming off a poor 2024 and missed kicks in preseason games. Whether Szmyt rushed his approach, or if the NFL stage was too much for him, Cleveland may consider looking at kickers this week. | https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/news/browns-andre-szmyt-shaky-in-nfl-debut/

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