CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
THE DAILY BLOVIATION
I am capable of truly massive, nearly Herculean feats of endurance.
As the OBR’s designated bloviator, it is my duty to wake up every morning and try to prepare an early-morning update for you. Sure, the Massive Morning Missive has spawned a few imitators, but it’s still unique enough that I’m compelled to produce it each morning, waking up at 5am to try to come up with something to say.
Of course, I grab breakfast and play a game of “Wordle” first, but that’s just a warm-up to get my brain operational. It’s all part of the deeply intricate process of bloviating.
I am not helped in this endeavor by the NFL’s focus on maximizing profitability by doing so many primetime games, a lengthy list of contests that include the so-called “Super Bowl”. While the start time of 6:30PM isn’t as late as some contests, it’s a long affair with padded halftime and pregame shows, shortening my available nighttime reboots.
Getting through last night’s Super Bowl and remaining awake is one of my proudest accomplishments, which not only speaks to my endurance for incredibly dull football but also makes me question the record of stuff I’ve done during my time on this planet.
But, make no mistake, watching the Cleveland Browns over the past few years was the perfect training for the task. I’m used to ineffectual offenses and total offensive line collapse, like we witnessed last night with the New England Patriots, who found the bright lights of Santa Clara a mountain they could not climb. Watching Drake Maye in a perpetual state of freak-out due to in-his-face pass rushers was just a reminder of what Browns fans have endured over the past few years. It was comforting, in a way, feeling a bit like a Browns home game, but it was still ultimately a trial to sit through.
At least, as loyal fans of the orange and brown, we now have a very interesting offseason ahead of us. The Browns are on the prowl for young talent and have some obvious problems to fix. But first, they need to figure out who their defensive coordinator will be.
Steps in that direction have been taken with reports that the Browns have already interviewed safeties coach Ephraim Banda and linebackers coach Jason Tarver for the role. One possible candidate, Texans DB coach Dino Vasso, withdrew from consideration for the job, even though he was in high demand, having been interviewed by the Titans and Cardinals, and further being linked to the Browns and Raiders.
That leaves the Browns two internal candidates, Banda and Tarver, in the running. Rumored to be of interest as well as well-traveled coach Cory Undlin, also of the Texans. Jerod Mayo has also been mentioned as a candidate, but mostly by wistful fan bloggers and social media folks. There’s no direct link between the Browns and Mayo that I’ve seen.
Here’s some other stuff happening in BrownsWorld this morning:
— Bleacher Report survives on speculative trade rumors and similar listicle nonsense, and is back at it today, repeating the notion that Packers QB Malik Willis is more likely to land in Arizona or Miami than Cleveland because of his familiarity with the coaches at those spots. This, plus the Browns’ spending situation at QB already, probably helps kill the Willis pursuit before it starts, but the Browns are desperate enough at quarterback that I expect them to at least sniff around any potential Willis interest in Cleveland.
— Terry Pluto says that Todd Monkens “big job” with the Browns is to restore accountability to the team. Pluto points to pre-snap penalties as an example of the lack of accountability under Stefanski, as if the coach should have benched players for jumping offsides on a paper-thin offensive line. At any rate, if I don’t hear/read the word “accountability” for a few weeks, I’d be fine with that.
— This mock draft contains a Pete Smith nightmare, with USC WR Makai Lemon going to the Ratbirds rather than the Browns, who are projected to select Ohio State WR Carnell Tate instead. Smith was unavailable for comment at this early hour, but I made sure he saw the blasphemy and will report back on any reaction.
— Buckeye-related, but perfectly predictable.
— The Athletic has a fix for AI Scraping, freely scraping content for their own purposes: Live Blogs and Video. We already have game threads and live blogs here, but I’m not sure that AI really wants to scrape the Cooler’s semi-weekly special-purpose melt threads. But, by all means, help yourselves, techno-overlords. Just make sure that your massively trained neural networks have anti-suicide protocols in place, because game threads tend to be filled with I-480 bridge-jumping references, and we’d have to Claude Grok immolate itself. In the meantime, I’ll be happy to continue to amuse myself with having bloviations spit back at me by AI models after they scrape them from here, CBS Sports, and Channel 19, where they also run, entertaining massive audiences of appreciative Browns fans.
— I’ll be hosting Gang of Three again tonight at 7:15PM. I hope to see you there and that you interact with us in the YouTube chat room. I usually prep some questions for the show, but I really prefer to focus on questions from our chat room to focus on the show on what people really want to know. I’m generally the old dude with some extra padding on the left.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
OBR GOODIES
OBR VIDEO
Mike’s Draft Pours: 2/5/26 – (youtube.com)
TONIGHT: Gang of Three at 7:15PM – (youtube.com
OBR ARTICLES
Cleveland Browns Free Agency Preview Quarterbacks – Jack
Cleveland Browns News and Rumors 2/8/26: I Killed Dawg – Barry
FROM THE FORUMS
Browns andor OBR staff at the Senior Bowl?
Any information on defensive personnel that could be DC ?
Cleveland Browns Free Agency Preview – Quarterbacks
Was that the worst Super Bowl half time show in history ????
A Public Service Announcement to the Defense wins Titles Crowd
RIP Barry Wilburn was with Browns in 1992
Speculating on DC Hiring Process
Vasso Withdraws from All DC Opportunities
Per MKC Banda & Tarver Already Interviewed for DC
Super Bowl LX – Call your shot
LiveWire Thread for 28 – Twitter, Video, Articles
O.T. Song of the Day or what are you listening to right now?
THE LIFT
Positive news from the world of sports and beyond…
All claims of extraterrestrial life must pass these 7 hurdles – Big Think
We’ve barely even started to look for extraterrestrial life, but we already have rules to eliminate pretty much everything we’ve seen to date. That’s no fun. In other news, Spielberg’s new movie “Disclosure Day” looks interesting. Somehow, deer and small birds are involved. Can’t wait.
WRAPPING UP
When not preparing to take a nap, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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