Leroy Hoard on why Shedeur Sanders hasn’t played yet & what changing play-callers really impacts

Leroy Hoard on why Shedeur Sanders hasn’t played yet & what changing play-callers really impacts

Better one falls into your lap and let’s get Leroy in after a quick read. Yeah guys, nobody likes paying rent, but if you must, you might as well get something for it. That’s where Bilt comes in. Built is changing the game by turning your rent payment into real rewards that you can actually use. When you pay rent with Built, you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed towards hundreds of hotels and airlines and future rent payments or your next lift ride and much more. But Built isn’t just about rent, it’s about rewarding you around. You rewarding you and around your entire neighborhood. Built makes every day and every life feel more rewarding from your neighborhood to your travel plans. Turn your rent into rewards and start earning points around your neighborhood by going to joinbuilt.com/lockdownNFL. That’s J O I N B I L T.com/lockdownFL. Make sure to use the links so that they know we sent you. And with that we are thrilled to welcome Leroy Hor to the show. Leroy, how you doing my man? Uh, Leroy just listening to a little bit of that conversation and, and just. Like, yeah, I would, I would say. And all of that, you can go to the starting point of all of this. You invested so much money. And Deshaun Watson. That it hamstrung your ability to do anything, and then. Just imagine you’re investing that much money in a quarterback, and for the next 3 years, you got to go find a quarterback. Yep, yup. You see, so, so if you start there. Then all of the other things, because nobody else. Even with what the Jets were doing, even with what everybody else is doing. Nobody else has been hamstrung like this, because even if they went out and got a quarterback, it was a short-term thing. All right, they drafted a quarterback. It didn’t work. They can move on and find another quarterback. Right. This has hamstrung the the the the Browns to a point where if I just get a reasonable quarterback like a Kirk Cousins and spend 25, 30 million. You now have $80 million on the quarterback position. Now they patched it up for short term stuff, but it’s never been substantiated. It’s never been a long term thing and that is the one move that kind of hamstruck, not let’s not even talk about all the pictures you lost and I’ll go further than that. I’ll go further than that. You know when the offense fell apart when they fired Alex Van Pelt. Why did they fire Alex Van Pelt to give DeSean the offensive coordinator in the offensive system that he wanted. And they have never recovered from firing AVP. As silly as that sounds, that’s when all of this started running downhill. And they because they fired AVP. That’s that’s what I was getting ready to say. When did the struggling when went to go with his son. Right, so, so there’s, there’s other moves or other things that have happened. To this team where it’s not just as simple as comparing them with the Jets. Because the Jets situation was this. We invested a 2nd round pick. That’s it. Right? We didn’t, we didn’t, uh, put 230 million on it. Right? So, after a couple of years, if you decide you don’t want that quarterback, it costs you 20 million. Right? It don’t cost you $50 or $150 or 130, like it has the Browns because they gave it all guaranteed money. Now you got a quarterback that’s not performing. Or not even playing. And you don’t have any draft picks. Hm. So one of the two things have to work. Either you go through the pick process and even if you draft wrong, you’re gonna accidentally get it right. I mean, say what you want about New England, they accidentally got it right with Tom Brady. Yeah. Right? There’s a lot of quarterbacks when when you look at Dak Prescott, wasn’t he a 3rd or 4th rounder? er. 4th rounder. So, so while we’re sitting here. Talking about all the things that’s going on, let’s also be clear that It’s not always a top 5 pick. That ends up turning your team around. Like we can go look through the history of football and look at most of the guys. A lot of these guys were drafted in the teams. You know, some of these got Dan Marino was drafted in the twenties, right? So, so we have a bunch of examples of where this thing has just to have the picks and have the option. To do that. And what you need to have is this. Either the picks or the players you traded the picks for, but you can’t not have both. And that’s what happened to the Browns. Leroy, this is the first week that Tommy Reese will take over play calling and duties for Kevin Steansky. I, I’m curious, are you expecting the Browns offense to look significantly different, minorly different, relatively the same with the new play caller in charge? It it’s one of those things, the streets need a body, right? Like the fans, the fans, the fans are so mad, something got change. And so you say I’m gonna let somebody else call the place. The last time I checked, you got the same damn players. Hm. You got the same quarterback. So, what is, what is gonna be different? You know, From that standpoint, um, I would say this about the other, the other issue that’s been going on is the Shado Sanders thing. And let’s see what he got. Coaches don’t think like let’s see what he got, right? You can’t operate like that. So, I don’t have a problem with that, but I would say this. Those guys are around him, and the excitement you felt in that one preseason game. You overlook a few aspects of what he was doing, right? He never dropped back planted his foot and threw the football. Which was one of the differences between him and Cam Ward. Right? And being down here with Cam Ward, I saw that dude put his foot on the ground at 3 or 5 step drop, get rid of the ball, throw it with timing and accuracy. We never really saw that out they should do it, so that’s a skill set that he has to pick up on. Right? We watched him in that preseason game. It was a lot of scrambling, running around, throwing the ball on the run, making plays. As a quarterback, as a coach, watching that. That’s not something you can rely on week to week. So those skills and that skill has to be developed. The other thing is, is you think Kevin Steansky don’t want to win? For people to think he got something against your door. That man want to win. He tried to keep his job. They’re all trying to win. And you got a responsibility to the other 52 men on that roster. To play the guy that gives you the best chance to win. Because if you don’t, then you lose the other 52. And that’s kind of how that goes. So, where, whereas I want to see Sha do it develop because I think that the skills that we saw in his ability to make plays. Will be an advantage for him. But he has to start with the basics. What gets you on the field is being able to do the basic stuff. What keeps you on the field is your ability to make plays. But if you can’t get through that first process, you’re not gonna get to to use your skills on the second part of it. Well, you know, Leroy, I will say this, um, I’ve always said, you know, I think there, there’s, uh, you know, from the time we, we started talking about Shadora Sanders, whatever the case may be, I’ve always made the point of Dylan Gabriel’s skill set is was gonna keep him on the field. Dylan Gabriel has to go out and perform. So if Dylan is not performing, I, I, I could say Shadoora’s not ready or whatever he’s at, but You know, Dylan Gabriel’s performance and and how he looks is going to be what’s the referendums on. I gotta look and see what Dylan is doing, how he’s moving, how is he progressing, because I gotta look at it in a in a in a vacuum and say if Dylan Gabriel is regressing, then as a coach, I, I have to at some point say, OK, well if this ain’t gonna work, we got, we gotta see what we got. Absolutely. But what part of that, see, you’re evaluating his play. The coach is evaluating his play through the prism of the whole offense and what he should have been doing versus what he is doing. You, you understand what I’m saying? So, is he throwing it to the right guys? Is he making the right reads? Is he, you know, getting them in the right places? Things like that. If all those things are, are, are good. Then, yeah, I can understand him sticking with him, even though the production doesn’t look great. And, and so that’s, it’s much deeper than. Oh look, the team’s losing the quarterback’s not good. Let’s see what the other guy has. It it’s much deeper than that. And, and so from that standpoint, um, and, and I’ve been a part of that, right? How many people, how many people, when Bill Belichick said he wanted to get rid of Bernie, how many people hated Bill Belichick? — I remember
— that. — You
— see what I’m saying? And, and, but, but, but here’s the other thing. As much as the players love Bernie, right? And I was a ride or die Bernie guy. I’m not gonna lie, y’all know my relationship with him. Right? How many players came out and said anything? I don’t believe any, but I was a kid. No, but, but, but that’s that’s just that’s just that’s kind of my point is that if Should do it was a better option. Somebody, you would have gotten a hint of it from the guys who were on the field. You understand what I’m saying? In some kind of sly remark or comment or something along those lines. And you’re just not getting it. So, it’s not that the coach, the players all agree with what Stefanski’s doing. But they understand. And, and as long as he has that. Then you you keep moving forward. So, I want, what I want is I want Shadour to to develop and and to be able to show the whole skill set of the position instead of just the making the play aspect because we’ve all seen guys who can make plays and run around or whatever, but at some point you got to plant your foot in the ground and throw the ball in a timely manner. How — will
— that I, I don’t, I don’t see a path to that working here with him. Because they’re gonna take another one next year and that’s the point I’ve sort of been making all year is I don’t know where the path lies for Shador because he I everything you said is gospel to everything I’ve been told in the building, everything, right, and that’s, that’s, that’s without, and again. I’m making this based on what I know about football, not on what I know about. Well, I can tell you what I’ve been told from people in the building, it lines up exactly with what you’re saying and I’m saying this without having any knowledge, so I, I know how this works. And, and so, you know, it’s One of the things that you have to do. Right? If you have, you have to be. Honest with the situation. That’s all parties involved. Shadour needs to be honest with what he needs to do to improve. The Browns need to be honest with how they approach Shadour. The fans need to be honest with what they really think Shadour is, OK? Um, what put him at Well, put them at a disadvantage, right? Was all the people projecting him to be drafted in a certain place. Right? — And so now
— that’s right. So, so regardless of where he was drafted. And regardless of what everybody says, the question is, this man was supposed to be the next quarterback taken after Cam Ward and something, they got something against him and they try to find all these reasons why. I’m telling you why. Right? I’m telling you why. And, and when you watch those two quarterbacks play in college and I watch them play. One looked like a quarterback that could go to the next level and one looked like he could make a lot of plays, but the other stuff had to be developed. So I don’t know. Can you learn that as a quarterback like the stuff that you’re talking, put a foot in the ground and throw because I, and I, I get killed because I say all the time, guys, he’s not ready, he’s not ready, he’s not, and everybody gets mad at me and I get why they get mad at me. But the stuff that he has to learn is not stuff that you learn between March and October. To me, like, I don’t, frankly, I don’t think he’s gonna play at some point, and I don’t think he’s gonna be ready when they put him out there, but they want to see what they’ve got in them and they’re gonna take another quarterback. How long does it take to learn some of the stuff that we’re talking about as a quarterback on a team that has a horrible history of developing quarterbacks and, and, and let me add one other thing to this. All right. Joe Flacco threw for 470 yards. Look who he threw it to. Guys that get separation, guys that can go up and make plays. Guys that on any other team would be number ones on 90%. Of the NFL rosters. Who’s that guy for the Browns? So Jerry Judy would be the probably the at least the 3 if not the 4 receiver on the Bengals, and he’s the number 1 here. So, so, so there’s a lot of things that, that play into this. There, there, there’s a lot of stuff that plays into it, not just the quarterback making throws. Now, one of the things that Shadour has to learn, right? Got to learn how to read defenses. Got to learn when defenses are fooling him. That’s why you always, you know what they say about young quarterbacks, you can trick them. You can line up in one coverage, run a different coverage, and you can get them, right? Why? Repetition. You ain’t used to seeing it. An old veteran to see you line up in the defense, look on the other side of the ball and say there’s no way in hell they’re gonna run that defense. I know what defense they running and operate accordingly when the ball snap. But, but don’t you have to do, don’t you have to do that by playing? Don’t you have to, don’t you have to, yes and yes and no. The film study, the, the, the other work that you do off the field gets you into that mind frame to look for those things, right? If they’re not comfortable that he’s able to do that. Right? How do you expect him to be able to do it in the game? Well, well, here’s what I say. I, I get it. Like the Browns, they, they. The, the thing that people have a problem with is you got a 2 and 16. You got a 2 and 16, you got a quarterback who’s playing right now who people don’t believe is better than the guy who’s sitting behind him. Now I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt because they drafted him in the third round. They drafted him, that’s their guy. They’re gonna give him every opportunity. But at some point, people are gonna say, OK, listen, I get it. You’re gonna give him a runway to play. He played, he is not looking good. And at the same time we got in the back of our mind that we already about to go get another quarterback. So at some point you have to say. If you drafted a guy and you drafted two quarterbacks this year, the problem what we have is we took those quarterbacks, if they didn’t like him. They drafted those quarterbacks. They could’ve took those those pieces and got a lineman got a receiver, the same stuff that we say we need. So if you’re gonna take those pieces that said that you kinda liked them and you wanted to see the owner said I wanna see what it looks like, but one thing I it’s hard for me to think and envision is that if I see the quarterback that’s playing right now that’s, that’s a lot of people didn’t think was ready, that’s making mistakes. I’m, I’m ready to see the other dude make the mistakes because at the end of the day. The Cleveland Browns need to get a lottery ticket. We just expressed it, right? Deshaun Watson costs a lot of money. Deshaun Watson costs you a lot of picks. If I got a guy that could be a lottery ticket, I’m gonna just scratch the ticket and see. If you scratch it, he don’t look good, then you can move on and find whatever quarterback he got in 27, 26, whatever the case is. That’s the, that’s the premise that I come at it with because right now we’re seeing, we’re seeing, I’m, we pay, I’m, I’m playing the patient game, but at some point, the patience wear out. But, but isn’t that giving you an indication of where he is? I, I don’t, I can’t, I can’t, because you can’t look. I, I get everybody wants to see Shadour. Based on what? Who what football coach makes this, let’s see what we got. No, it’s on there. — What’s the worst thing could
— have been you’ve seen enough of Dylan, I guess, — is that what you’re trying to ask you like you’ve seen enough of
— they might be having that conversation every day and then having a conversation what’s our other option? And he goes, That ain’t it. There’s a lot of people sitting in the room right now trying to determine that. So, maybe it comes, and again. I’m not speaking from knowledge. I’m just speaking from just being around it long enough. Maybe it comes. Maybe he does something to To warrant, OK, I’m at, uh, I’m at the same level as Dylan, but I can do things on the football field, he can’t. But he has to get to a certain level. Now, part of the problem with that is Is one of the reasons why he’s behind the. is because I don’t think people understand the difference between QB2 and QB 3, right? QB2 is getting all the reps like he gonna play. QB 3 run the scout team. So you got to do a lot of that stuff on your own, your preparation, your, you know, maybe making throws after practice. Maybe go and look at some film and some game playing by yourself. Because they’re not including you in any of that stuff, you run the scout team. So, there’s that Um, but a lot of times coaches will do it to say, let’s see how committed he is to this. Let’s see if he’s willing to put in that work. Let’s see if he’s willing to do, you know, the work on his own. And then he’ll show us something. There’s a lot that goes into that. It’s not just a matter of like As far as right now, I get what people are saying, right? But you’re only looking at it from one. One aspect of the quarterback position, right? If I go out there and, and, and all the guys on the field have se should do a practice, right? And they know what he’s putting into it and what he looks like in practice. And the coach still throws him in the game and he’s terrible. And the players knew it because they’ve been seeing him work or whatever and I’m like I said, I don’t know what he’s doing to get himself ready, right? But what do you say to the other players? And I get, but you still have a responsibility to all the players, so whatever you think. The situation is, whatever you believe to be that situation on the outside looking in. Those guys in the locker room know. And they understand that, man, we, we got it tough right here at that position, or, or whatever. So I don’t know what the solution is. I, I know that. Kevin Steansky has a responsibility to everybody in that locker room. You can’t just be winging it, right? Even if you’re making wrong decisions, you can’t look like you’re just winging it. And and and that loses the locker room even quicker. So I don’t know if he already has lost it. Um, I’m more than sure if it was like you guys say it is. Somebody in the locker room would have said something. That’s just how this works. And the reason why I know that. It’s because Tony Jones said it about me. He needs to get more carries. See, so here’s the thing is cause I’m in, I’m in the locker room quite a bit and So this is the part that I Struggle sometimes to properly explain. You got a player standing at the podium, he’s got all these microphones around him. He’s asked about Shaddoor. Right. What’s he supposed to say? No, I know. So, so, — so
— a lot of times they’ll say the right thing. But then when you’re talking to them at the locker, you get the. So, but, but again, again. You, you find out, you know what I’m saying? I’m not saying it’s for public consumption all the time, but I’m saying you go in there, you’ve been in the locker room, you hear guys talking, right? So you kind of have a better feel than everybody else. And, and, and you express that and, and like I know. I can tell just by. How they’ve set this up and how they’ve treated the two quarterbacks. I can pretty much give you an idea of what’s going on. I don’t need to be there. But Somebody would have heard or said. Sources You know that term sources? So, sources have not said should do or should be planned. It’s true. But, but I will, but I’ll say, but I will say there are people that when they, when they talk and say Shadoor not ready to play, there are people in the locker room that say Shadoor is ready to play, and they are excited to see him play. No, they may say they’re, they’re excited to see what he has. They ain’t saying he’s ready. Here’s, here’s, here’s the thing. I know that you, we can say what Shaoor isn’t. The reality of the situation is, it goes both ways. You can lose the locker room by continuing to run a person out there that is not proving that he’s good. And, and, and the play on the field and we go back and watch Dillon Gabriel. I, I have a hard time saying what it looks like when, when he’s throwing the ball in the in the corner of the end zone for safety and don’t know where the where the receiver is. He’s making turnover worthy throws, so I get the fact. I think that there’s a, there’s two different conversations. Is Shadoor ready and what is Dillon Gabriel doing? You can have the conversation about what Shadoor is. What he ain’t, but the thing that I have to say is we also have to evaluate what’s going on right in front of us because sometimes we don’t go into depth about what is Dillon Gabriel bringing to the table, not the antithesis of Shaor. What are we talking and what are we seeing with here because the team also sees Dillon Gabriel, who’s been getting reps since the beginning of practice, beginning of camp. They see that they moved on from Joe Flat. who’s throwing 4 150 yards, they see they moved on from Kenny Pickett. So if the Browns can say, OK, well this isn’t about your door, but the thing is we have to also evaluate the starting quarterback in his evaluation and if he gives you the best opportunity to win football games and at some point if he continues to struggle, um, they’re gonna have to make a move and do certain things. So that’s the only thing I’m saying. Here’s what I would say to that, right? What if that’s your best option? You’re screwed. — And Kevin Saansky chose the wrong person in the 3rd round and
— that and, and, and, and, and guess what? Like that is the deeper issue. Is that you can complain about who’s playing and who’s not. But the bigger issue is, if that’s your best option, you’re in trouble. OK, because guess what? If we would have had it the way we should have it, those guys both would have been developed and Deshaun Watson would be playing. Well, I would even go a step further. I know we got to go. I know we got to go. This is really good though, because the point I’ve been making the last couple weeks is how did we get here? They had two veterans. They had 2 veterans. The plan was two veterans draft Dylan in the 3rd round. Dylan was never supposed to play this year. And, and now he’s just starting quarterback. And now like, how did we get here? They had two veterans. — They
— gave — them
— all the reps and keep in mind. And here’s the part that really hurts, OK? You have a quarterback that went to uh went to a team on Tuesday and threw for 300 on Sunday. That’s the Browns’ fault. So, but, but it’s not their fault for getting rid of Joe Flacco. It’s their fault for not having any weapons for Joe Flacco to throw to. Joe Flacco went somewhere. Joe Flacco went somewhere that had some weapons outside and all of a sudden everybody talking about he hit the fountain of youth. No, he didn’t. He’s still Joe Flacco. But he got guys open. Right, so like it it’s, it’s. The, if I had to say what caused all this. Your inability to draft because the investments you made and the picks you gave up for Deshaun Watson. That’s it. That’s it, and you’re paying for it and it’s a cautionary tale to anybody who trades for not only a player, but a player you know that ain’t gonna play for the 1st 10 games. Like you knew he was gonna get suspended, right? Everybody knew he was gonna get suspended. And I never thought the Browns rebounded from not having him that first year. Forget all the other years and injuries or whatever. The 1st 10 games or 1111 weeks that he missed the very first year he got there, set this team back. And to that they thought it was gonna be 4 to 6 games and then the NFL played the Uno reverse and said never mind, there’s too much public pressure and scrutiny. Exactly. Exactly. And they don’t have an out. They like think about this. As great as a quarterback you have in the league, right? All these teams give these multi-million dollar contracts with an out after a couple of years, right? You renegotiate even with Patrick Mahomes, everybody has an out after a couple of years. The Browns signed a contract where there’s no way out of this until that contract is done. Yep. Yep, Leroy, we started with DeShawn. We wrapped DeShawn. That’s the most full circle conversation we’ve ever had with him, in all honesty. So we appreciate you, Leroy. We’ll talk to you in a couple weeks. Thank you, man.

Two struggling teams…and franchises for that matter…meet Sunday at Met Life Stadium when the Cleveland Browns (2-6) line up against the New York Jets (1-7).

This game pits the Browns’ elite defense against a Jets team in flux after trading away top defensive players Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams at the trade deadline.

The major storyline entering this game is the Jets’ decision to trade their two best defenders, All-Pros Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams, in exchange for future draft capital. This leaves significant holes in a defense that already was too often far too generous. Only twice in eight games has New York allowed less than 27 points. Can the Browns take advantage?

Cleveland’s season has been defined by an elite defense (third in yards allowed) but a dismal offense (last in yards gained, third-lowest in scoring). Tommy Rees has taken over as the play-caller for QB Dillon Gabriel as the Browns look for a spark.

Keep in mind that with a combined three wins, this game has significant implications for positioning in the 2026 NFL Draft as both teams hold multiple first-round picks in the coming draft. | https://www.nbcsports.com/betting/nfl/news/browns-at-jets-prediction-odds-expert-picks-qb-matchup-injury-update-betting-trends-and-stats

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