“I am fine with the price. Write that down. I am fine with the price.”
Speakers identified by role. Callers as screened.
2:04 p.m. — top of the show
Host: All right. So. Everybody’s had a night. I’ve had a
night, you’ve had a night, the phones have had a night, we had people calling this building at eleven
o’clock last night when there was nobody here to answer, which I love, that’s a great use of a
Tuesday. Denzel Ward is a Pittsburgh Steeler. And I want to start where I always start, which is the football,
and then we can do the other thing, because I know we’re going to do the other thing.
Co-host: We are going to do the other thing.
Host: We’ve needed a corner since — and people are going
to laugh at me for the year I’m about to say — since 2019. Since 2019 we have been putting guys out
there on an island and telling ourselves the pass rush will cover for it. Some years it did. Last year it did
not. Denzel Ward is a top-ten corner in this league on any list that isn’t written by somebody with an
agenda. He’s twenty-nine. Our window is open right now, today, this year, and I don’t know how many
more of these we get with this defense.
Co-host: Sure.
Host: And here’s what people keep skipping over.
Those are two late firsts. Twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, wherever we pick. If this team is good, and it should
be good, those picks are the back of the round. You’re trading two guys who might start in 2029 for a guy
who is going to be on the field in Week 1 across from a quarterback who throws it forty times.
Co-host: All true. All of it true. And I want to say something and I
want you to let me finish because I’ve been holding it since about nine-fifteen last night.
Host: Go.
Co-host: I am fine with the price. Write that down. I am fine with
the price. If Arizona calls us and says two ones for Denzel Ward, I say yes before he finishes the sentence. If
Carolina calls, yes. If the Jets call, yes, and I’ll drive him up there myself. What I cannot do,
and this is my whole day today, this is what I’m going to be doing all day, is the phone call.
There was a phone call.
Host: There was a phone call, yes.
Co-host: Somebody on our end picked up a telephone and dialed a man
who uploads videos. And that man said, my price is two first-round picks. And our guy said okay.
Host: Yeah.
Co-host: He said okay!
Host: I heard you the first time.
Co-host: He said okay to the video guy. I want the tape. I want the
recording of the call. I want it played at halftime of a home game in front of sixty-eight thousand people. I
want to hear the exact second where our guy goes, well, hang on, let me… no, you know what, sure. Two.
Fine. Two.
Host: That is not how those conversations go.
Co-host: That is exactly how it went and you know it.
2:19 p.m. — calls
Denny in Carrick: Fellas, how are you. Longtime, first time in about
four years. I want to say something that’s going to make me unpopular. I’m thrilled. I’m
absolutely thrilled. And I’ll tell you why. My whole adult life, this organization does not pay for
corners. We don’t. We take one in the third round every couple years and we tell everybody he’s
going to be fine and we put him on an island in Kansas City in January and then we act surprised. I have been
calling this station saying the same sentence since Cowher was here. Pay for a corner one time. One time. And
they finally did it and now everybody wants to have a nervous breakdown about the draft picks.
Host: Denny, you and I are the same person today.
Denny: Two thousand and twenty-nine is not real. I might not be here
in 2029.
Host: Denny, don’t.
Denny: I’m saying what I’m saying.
Co-host: Denny’s got a point and Denny’s point does not
require us to have called Cleveland to make it.
Host: Who else was selling a corner in August? Name one. Name one
team.
Co-host: I’ll get back to you.
Host: You will not get back to me.
Chuck in Greensburg: Hey guys. I hate it. I’ll be quick. I hate
it and it’s got nothing to do with Cleveland. This roster is old. Our best players are all on the wrong
side of thirty. You just took the only two things that make an old team young and you spent them on a
twenty-nine-year-old corner who’s going to be thirty-one when the second one of those picks comes off
the board. That’s a rebuild’s worth of ammunition for one guy in his back half. And I know how the
show goes, I know you’re going to tell me about the window, but the window’s been open for eight
years and we haven’t won a playoff game in it.
Host: That last part I can’t argue with. Chuck, thank you,
that’s the strongest version of the case against.
Co-host: He didn’t even mention the guy.
Host: He didn’t need to mention the guy.
Co-host: Everybody needs to mention the guy.
2:41 p.m. — the one where he gets talked over
Marlene in Bethel Park: Hi, yes. I listen to you two every afternoon
when I’m picking up my grandson. Since January you have told me this Cleveland coach is a joke. You did a
whole segment where you read his video titles out loud in a funny voice.
Co-host: That was a great segment.
Marlene: And today you’re telling me he took two first-round
picks off of us. So which is it? Because he can’t be a clown and also be the man who just robbed our
front office. Pick one and stick with it.
Host: Okay, so, Marlene, hold on…
Co-host: No, no, no, no. No.
Host: There’s two separate things happening here and
they’re not in conflict…
Co-host: A guy in a fantasy league beat me on a trade in 2011,
Marlene. He worked at a Sunoco.
Host: Hang on, let her…
Co-host: He worked at a Sunoco and he took Gronkowski off me for a
kicker and I still lost the league. That doesn’t make him a general manager. It makes me an idiot on one
Tuesday.
Host: Marlene, are you still… she’s gone.
Co-host: She got her answer.
Host: She did not get an answer. Nobody gave her an answer.
Co-host: I gave her the Sunoco.
2:52 p.m. — do not let this happen
Co-host: Here’s where I need everybody to be careful today,
because I’ve been on the internet this morning and I don’t like the direction. Do not let this turn
into Cleveland being good. Cleveland won three games last year. Cleveland traded Myles Garrett in June.
Cleveland just traded its best defensive back in August. Cleveland has a hundred and seventeen million dollars
of dead money on a quarterback who isn’t on the roster. That is a team selling everything that
isn’t bolted down and we walked in and paid retail. That’s embarrassing for us. It is not a
compliment to them.
Host: They’re also picking in the top five with our pick in
two years.
Co-host: Do not do that.
Host: I’m saying it out loud once so we’ve said it.
Co-host: We’ve said it. Never again.
3:08 p.m. — the strange part
Vince in Beaver Falls: How you doing. Different angle. Nobody’s
brought this up and it’s been bothering me for two days. This kid is from there. Macedonia. Nordonia High
School. Then Ohio State. He has never had an address outside the state of Ohio in his entire life. He grew up
in that county, in those Sundays, watching us beat his team twice a year, and he was raised to hate us the way
my grandkids were raised to hate them.
Host: That’s true.
Vince: And now he’s got to get in a car and drive down 76 and
put our shirt on and stand there Thursday and be pleasant about it. I’ve been trying to imagine it. Like
if one of ours went the other way, if we sent one of our guys over there and he had to go stand in front of
those people and be nice.
Co-host: He’d be booed at his own funeral.
Vince: That’s all I wanted to say. I don’t have a problem
with it. I just think it’s a strange thing that’s happening and nobody’s stopping to look at
it.
Host: Vince, that’s the best call of the day and it’s not
close. He’s going to get it from both sides for a year. His people back home are going to have a lot to
say to him.
Co-host: He’ll be fine on about the third Sunday.
Host: He’ll be fine the second he picks one off in front of
that end zone.
3:26 p.m. — one more
Tom in Butler: Yeah, hi. My only comment is that these people are
running around this week acting like they won the offseason. They cut a creep, they threw themselves a parade
about it, and they’ve got a hundred and seventeen million dollars on the books for a guy who isn’t
in the state. They’re going to lose ten games with a coach who was making videos in his living room
eighteen months ago and they’re going to tell each other it was all part of a plan. Nothing has changed
over there. Nothing.
Co-host: Tom is angry.
Host: Tom’s not wrong about most of it either. That’s
what’s hard about today. He can be right about all of it and we still handed them two ones.
Co-host: Say that again slower.
Host: No.
Co-host: Because that’s what I’ve been trying to say
since two o’clock and you’ve been arguing with me about the window.
Host: I’m still right about the window.
Co-host: And I’m still going to be weird about this in
November. I’m telling you now, so it’s not a surprise later. When we play them in October and he
does something on the sideline that works, I am going to be extremely difficult for four hours.
Host: You’re difficult now.
Co-host: Also I never got an apology from Gerald.
Host: We are not doing Gerald today.
Co-host: He emailed the station about me. About me
specifically.
Host: Break. Ward at three-thirty tomorrow, we’ll have it live,
and then we’ll take your calls on what he should have said.
[break]
