Jonathan Peterlin | 92.3 TheFAN Cleveland Host

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Nobody beats that. Head to BetUS.com and join today. That's BetUS, where the game begins. We are always excited to share our stage with another night owl, fellow night owl, and Jonathan Peterlin. He commandeers the airwaves for our Cleveland affiliate 92.3, the fan, from 7 p.m. to midnight Eastern time.

That's his weeknight slot, so he hands off to us here at CBS Sports Radio after that, and every now and then you'll hear him on the network. We're pleased to talk to Jonathan now, so what was it like to see the Browns back on the football field, even if it was kind of fake football? It was fake football, for sure, but it was fun.

It's good to see the Browns out there. I was upset, though, because Safanski decided he wanted to basically play nobody. And it was like you knew before the game even got underway, there wasn't going to be anybody that you could really judge or go off of. Now, there were some things that were just fun as far as watching football is fun, like Dorian Thompson Robinson.

That was great. Second half, lit it up, like that's enjoyable, but ultimately none of the camp battles or any other fun, juicy stuff really got help to her tonight. Even though we didn't get any questions answered, what would you say are the top questions for the Browns going into this preseason and ultimately the 23 campaign? I mean, Deshaun's got to be the number one. Everything really revolves around that because everything revolves around the quarterback, but I wonder about this wide-receiving core.

I really do. Mike Clay's power rankings, putting the Browns 21st, I thought were wrong, but it has me a little messed up because I think Amari Cooper is good for 1,300, 1,200 yards, somewhere in that range, more like 1,150 to 1,200, and eight, nine touchdowns. And after that, it's Donovan Peoples-Jones, and then what can you do with Elijah Moore, right? Can they turn Elijah Moore, can they turn the Jets trash into their own treasure? And that's got to be one of the big storylines in trying to figure this all out because we know they got one of the best offensive lines. We know the Browns have one of the best running games in football.

They now have a revamped defense. There's a lot going on for the Browns, but the way the NFL is going, Amy, it looks like it's how good are your quarterbacks and wide receivers? Right now, if DeSean Watson is a top 10 quarterback, if we assume everything goes great and he is that, well, how do you keep up with the Joneses that are the Bengals? How do you keep up with Chase, Higgins, Boyd? And that's got to be one of the questions the Browns have.

Okay, well, I'm going to follow up on that then. How likely is it that DeSean Watson is still a top 10 quarterback? What have you seen or heard coming out of Browns camp and even minicamp and OTAs? So I'm hesitant on this one, even though I want to, and I tell people nightly, I'm like, it's okay to believe in DeSean Watson. It's all right.

Jump head first if you want to. Last year, Amy, when he went to training camp, and I think what I'm hanging on is the idea that he had to wait 10 weeks then to go play at the Texans. But last year, I went and watched him play because we did shows from them.

You know, the way you do radio shows from training camp, it's just the thing we do. And I went and watched him and I saw him next to Jacoby Brissett. Jacoby Brissett had a good year last year.

At one point, they were top five in offensive rating. Like he was good last year. And he looked like a high school kid next to DeSean Watson. The throws were incredible that DeSean could pull off. And it just, it was night and day. But then we watched him get on the field. He completed 58% of his passes. The Texans game, he had a bunch of warm burners, throwing balls in the dirt.

Like it wasn't, just wasn't pretty. So like there's a part of me that even though we've seen a lot of really good stuff from the minicamps and then the brief amount we have seen them here in Berea, because they were out in the Greenbrier in West Virginia for a week prior. But the brief amount we've seen, like he looks really, really sharp.

But then again, he looked really sharp last year too. We're excited to talk Browns football or really just any football with Jonathan Peterlin who joins us from our Cleveland affiliate 92-3. The fan is the host of Overtime with Jonathan Peterlin and that airs 7p to midnight Eastern time.

It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio. I want to ask another question about the offense because the last couple of years, it's been the one-two punch of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. What happens without Hunt on the roster to back up Chubb or to go one-two with Nick Chubb?

Yeah, it'll be Nick Chubb and then it'll be Jerome Ford after that. But I think the difference here, so fantasy football, are you a fantasy football person Amy or no? Oh, I won my championship last year. Congratulations. All right.

Glad to hear it. I'm not the biggest fantasy football person, but I love diving into like numbers and everything attached to the game. And with Nick Chubb, the way I see this playing out is that he's not going to have as many touches as maybe he did last year.

I don't see that happening. When he was basically on a pitch count, they wouldn't put him anything more than like 20 attempts per game. I think it's going to be more like 15. But the difference here, this is for the fantasy football people out there, okay, so listen up. The difference here is I think they're going to try to use Nick Chubb in the passing game more than they've ever used him. That's going to be the wrinkle to the Browns offense and how it looks completely different under Deshaun Watson is obviously the amount of passing attempts they have.

I'm thinking closer like 35 to 40 a game. But the idea that Nick Chubb will be involved in the passing game. I don't know that Austin Eckler being rated ahead of him in the NFL Top 100 is enough to make anyone mad in Berea. But like think Austin Eckler and then attach that to Nick Chubb. And that's what I'm going for this year.

Do you prefer it that way? Do you think the Browns will fare better without the power run game that has served them so well the last couple seasons? I do a trade Nick Chubb conversation or after next year Nick Chubb's got to be gone. Pay attention.

And I'm telling you, it's doomsday for the fans. They don't want to hear it. Nick Chubb's a favorite. They love Nick Chubb. He's one of the best role models in the community mixed with just good humans that you could find. And he's also one of the best running backs in the league. He's incredible. He's second in the NFL in yards per attempt in NFL history tied with Jim Brown. He's incredible. The hard part is that when it comes to Nick Chubb and it comes to this Browns offense, I want to see him utilized in his best way.

I think we all know that. But I think his best way is what I talked about there. I think his best way is being able to catch as well as he can run and go from there. And I think that'll be best for the Browns. Who are a couple of young players, maybe a couple of rookies that people are really excited about with the Browns? Really it comes down to the third round receivers. Cedric Wilson who they took this year and then David Bell who they took the year prior. He was a Big Ten receiver of the year in a conference at the time that had Olave and Wilson, right?

So there's a lot attached to that. And I think between those guys and then between what they added defensively, and obviously not rookies, but new to the team, I think is getting people excited. Tom Winston, Zadarian Smith. We didn't have a first round pitch. That was gone in the Deshaun Watson trade. So a lot of our hype has been attached to really in all reality just guys we acquired in free agency.

I was actually going to bring that up and ask you if you wouldn't mind. What was it like on draft night with no picks in the first couple rounds? Really on that Thursday night having nothing specifically to Cleveland to look forward to? I started in Cleveland in 2016. 2016 was a crazy year. That's when the Cavs won, the Guardians went to the World Series. Crazy year, right? And we talked so much that the Browns followed it up with a 1-31 stretch as you remember.

One of the worst teams in football. And starting in October, you started talking about the draft. And I'm like, wait a second. We just, we got a lot of really cool things to talk about. The Browns are like, ah, you're learning.

It's a Browns town. You're going to learn. And so every October, we turn around and we just do six months of draft conversations. And you're like, this can't be real.

How is this real? And so this last year, what was fascinating is that I didn't have to go like seven deep on left tackles. You know what I mean? We had to like actually have just like normal sports conversations in February and March. And then leading up to the draft, we just kind of let it be what it was. I didn't pick up a draft guy this year. I didn't go deep into who's in the first round, mid-first round or anything. Like it was surprisingly really nice for a fan base that once treated the draft like it was their Super Bowl. We were really easy to just kind of like kick it to the curb this past year. Okay. That's interesting because I wasn't expecting that response with the way that the Browns missed the playoffs last year.

But we'll get back to that. Jonathan Peterlin from 92.3, the fan in Cleveland, joining us here after hours, CBS Sports Radio. If you can, what does Joe Thomas mean to the Browns organization? I mean, he's just the epitome of class. He just represents everything you'd want in a football player. I mean, not only just what he did on the field, which you can debate. And for a while, some fans did debate whether or not they should have traded him at the end of Denver to try to get some value and try to get something out of him as far as what the future would then hold. But ultimately, the fact that he goes in as a Brown, only a Brown, no other team can claim him. I think in retrospect, I'm happy the Browns didn't trade him to Denver, even though it would have been sweet for Joe to win a ring.

I'm happy they didn't do that. Ultimately, everything he does, he's always in the community. He's always down talking to people on the radio station, for instance. He's always there. He's available to people. He's available to Northeast Ohio. And he's just kept it a part of himself in a way that I don't think many athletes these days tend to do.

He doesn't have to do the things that he does, but he constantly does. Joe is the epitome of class. There's no other way to put it. Let's say there is a Mount Rushmore for Cleveland Sports. We put Joe Thomas on that.

Who else? Who else can compare with the realm of what Joe has meant to Cleveland Sports? LeBron, Jim Brown, and then as far as the Indians slash Guardians go, I think we could come up with like 12 different names, right? You could put Tomi on there. You could put Tito on there. You got to have some representation there. There's all sorts of guys you could throw in there.

I think if you started with LeBron, Jim Brown, and Joe Thomas, you're in a really good spot. I love the way that he is so proud of being a Cleveland Brown, so proud of the fact that he played his entire career there, and so proud of the fact that he's a Brown. It's a great place. Amy, have you been recently? We got to get you down here. Of course.

Yeah, it's a hidden gem. I've made a case before. I've done it on CBS Sports Radio, actually. I've done it on one of the weekend shows I did that Cleveland in July is just as good as Las Vegas.

We have every amenity that Vegas would need or want. It's just not 107 degrees. I'm telling you, it's miraculous. I grew up in Chicago, so people are like, oh, well, you live in Cleveland. You've never lived anywhere that's bigger than Cleveland, so you don't like it. I'm from Chicago.

I genuinely think Cleveland is one of the best cities in the country, and I think it's a hidden gem. And every time I go on National and I tell people that, I always get all sorts of responses. You think they'd be like, oh, way to go, JP. You're in our corner. They're like, no, hush, hush. Keep it for ourselves. We've got to keep this our hidden gem.

We've got to keep this a secret. Stop telling people how great Cleveland is. My first ever baseball game with my grandfather when I was seven years old was in Cleveland, and I remember so fondly my summer spent with my grandparents in Northeast Ohio, so you do not have to sell me. I love it.

Yeah, absolutely. That's where my mom's whole side of the family is from, the Youngstown area, so we spent a lot of time in Cleveland. Jonathan Peterland is with us from the shores of Lake Erie here on CBS Sports Radio. What do you think of the AFC North, the Bengals right now, the team to beat, of course, because of what they've done the last couple years, but after the Bengals or even in competition with the Bengals, how does it shake out?

It's really tough. You ever see on TikTok the little dogs that kick the balloons or the balls into the little baskets at the bottom of the stairs? That dog might have a better chance than I would right now, telling you guys which direction it would go for the AFC North. You start with the Bengals at the top, and then you try to work your way down, but it wouldn't even really surprise me. As good as the Bengals are, and we're this close to renaming it the Joe Burrow Patrick Mahomes Invitational for the AFC title game, like one year away from it, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Ravens won the division. It wouldn't surprise me if the Browns won the division. It wouldn't surprise me if any of those teams, maybe the Steelers, maybe the Steelers, I'd turn around and be like, wow, Kenny Pickett really got it together? But with Tomlin, who's ever to say that you've got to count them out either? For my money, it's the toughest division in sports right now, and I don't know that there'd be many... Toughest division in NFL, let me clarify it that way. In NFL, I don't know that many people would go back on that. You really don't think it would be a surprise if Cleveland went from 7-10 to winning the AFC North? Not at all.

No. I can make a legit argument, and we'll throw the Bills up there, we'll throw the 49ers up there, like the best 2-53 for my money with the additions the Browns have made. I would put the Browns right in that conversation.

It all depends. Deshaun Watson could be good. The hard part is, I'm sure you saw Mike Sandoz quarterback here, right? A lot of people in Cleveland, they loved it. They're like, oh my gosh, wow, Deshaun Watson's 11th.

This is great. And I'm like, well, look at the list a little bit further. You have seven quarterbacks in the AFC ahead of Deshaun Watson. And the top five on that list all live in the AFC. So there's a world where Deshaun Watson plays as a borderline top ten quarterback, and it still means nothing because the AFC is just so loaded right now. And honestly, that's like my biggest fear, is that they finally get the quarterback. The Browns finally land the guy, and we're just in the greatest time for quarterbacking in AFC history. Looking at the Browns' schedule too, even as you were pointing that out, the first four teams on their regular season schedule all come from the AFC. In fact, they play every other team in the North in the first month before they host the 49ers. It is a doozy, Jonathan. What do you think?

Brutal schedule. There's one thing I like about it, though. Let me tell you what I like about it.

Even though it's not kind, obviously it's not kind. I like that the Bengals are week one for a couple reasons. So the Browns have beat Joe Burrow five out of the last six times, and I think there's something to that. But what I like about this the most is that the Browns with Jim Schwartz, new defensive coordinator, going to have a whole new mix-up, whole new everything for Joe Burrow. And with Deshaun Watson, say this, Amy, I think the Browns, I think they held something back in the six games with Deshaun Watson.

I'm all but convinced of it. And so I believe that Kevin Savansky is going to unleash things the NFL has never seen with Deshaun Watson, and it's going to catch the Bengals by surprise because there's no film of what happened. So I think if you're going to take on what is, in my estimation, the second best team in the AFC, I think week one's a good time for it, and then week 18 is what it is. We've got a nice gap in between there against the Bengals.

That's true. You can see him in week one and not see him again until the end of the regular season. All right, before I let you go, you mentioned Jim Brown on Mount Rushmore. It sounds like the franchise is planning to honor him. How much do you think that will matter this season?

How much of an impact will it make to have him really kind of interwoven into everything they do? The Browns just did a fan vote for what would happen at the midfield. The Brownie logo was up there, all these other things. A fan campaign started to put the number 32 there. It's not going to happen, but that kind of speaks to the above and beyond nature that a lot of Browns fans want to go in honoring Jim Brown.

I just don't know what else they can do, Amy. They put him in the Ring of Honor. They gave him a statue amidst the 1-31 season because they wanted to bring some positivity to the franchise, even though some could argue that maybe isn't the right positivity in that moment, but that's a different story for a different time.

They ran out of things, so I think we're going to get probably the helmet decal. Maybe he'll have a tiny, tiny little 32 on there, but he is such an interesting athlete to talk about because he is a true reflection on some of our great athletes that we've had, where sometimes they're fantastic on the field and maybe sometimes less than fantastic off the field, but for some people that doesn't really matter the same way. It's a weird situation with Jim Brown, but ultimately there's just so many people that still remember when the Browns were on the top of the NFL world, and Jim Brown was the reason because of that. He definitely is a one-of-a-kind.

There isn't anybody quite like Jim Brown, so we'll see how that is part of their season, their ebbs and flows this year. All right, Jonathan Peterlin, plenty to talk about. He's the host of Overtime on 92.3 The Fan. That starts 7 o'clock Eastern Time in Cleveland, and he's even got me beat with five hours a night.

I am glad that I just have four. You'll catch him every now and then on CBS Sports Radio as well. Jay Peterlin on Twitter. It's so good to talk to you. We look forward to doing it again. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Thank you, Amy.