Longtime Cleveland voice Kenny Koda of WHBC joins Nestor from the cradle of football in Canton to discuss the agony of Browns fans and disgrace of ownership in the DeShaun Watson fiasco after years of last-place football.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Maryland crab cake tour, Cleveland Guardians, Browns ownership, Deshaun Watson trade, Jimmy Haslam, Andrew Barry, Kevin Stefanski, Cavaliers season, dome stadium, Art Modell, LeBron James, Guardians success, Canton Akron area, Kenny Rhoda, Jiffy Lube multi care
SPEAKERS
Kenny Roda, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
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Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 tasks in Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are taking the show back out on the road. It’s the Maryland crab cake tour. Thought we’d be doing the World Series this week, but we didn’t spend enough money to get in. I guess we’ll be watching the Dodgers and the Yankees. But on Friday, we’ll be at mamas on the half shell, doing it up at Foundry row, the old painters mill and Owings Mills. Our friends at the Maryland lottery give us the Raven scratch offs. We’ll have these to give away. Also, our friends at the Jiffy Lube multi care, putting us out on the road. 26 years, 26 oysters. Our friends at Liberty, pure solutions of one 800 a clean water. I’m actually wearing the shirt right now. Also, our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter making the 26th anniversary happen, browns and ravens this week gives me a chance to get together with lots of old Cleveland friends. I do this guy show a lot. Usually we play the browns, not so much, Orioles guardians just yet, although maybe that can become a thing. Kenny Rhoda and I have known each other for about 30 years, ever since art modell pirated the Browns out of Cleveland as I remember, you were like more of a Pittsburgh guy than a Cleveland guy doing radio in Cleveland. Now, in the Cleveland Canton, Akron area, we’re proudly wearing his pro football hall of fame. Doesn’t say masalon on it says Canton. He is at 1430 whp during the afternoons there with the Kenny JT Show. Kenny roto, the defending champion of all things Ohio. What’s going on? Man? How you been? Well,
Kenny Roda 01:23
it’s been a fun baseball season for the Cleveland guardians. Unfortunately, we lost to the evil empire, so came up one series short of reaching the World Series. And now that baseball season is over and football season is over for the browns, we’re focusing on the Cavaliers who open up tonight on the road in Toronto. Is
Nestor Aparicio 01:43
that a Dusty Rhodes bobblehead over there, over your shoulder? Who is that with the
Kenny Roda 01:47
that’s the Nature Boy. Whoo.
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Nestor Aparicio 01:51
I couldn’t tell because he has a knee pads on it. Looked a little bit more blond hair like dusty, but I figured anybody could have a Ric Flair one. But I thought if he had a dusty one to be Scott’s more dusty. But I love Ric Flair, you know. So it’s all good. Do you want to talk about the browns? I mean, you already led in with the Guardians. You want to talk some Ohio State because, like, the Browns thing here, we watch it from afar, and watch what Flacco did, and just the whole thing. It’s a horror show for your fan base, you know?
Kenny Roda 02:20
Yeah, it really is. I mean, even Jason and Michael Myers look at it and shake their head. They can’t believe, you know, how horrific it really is. And that starts at the top, with Jimmy Haslam, the owner. He’s trying to get a new stadium, which I’m fine with. Build a dome. I don’t care where you build it. That should have been done in 1999 but we all rushed back, you know, to get football in Cleveland back then. So Jimmy, as an owner, has been not very good in his assessment of talent, putting people in place to do certain jobs, and then meddling, kind of like Jerry Jones does with the Dallas Cowboys. Very similar. So it starts at the top. Andrew Barry on paper, it looked like he put together a good roster. Well, you don’t play the games on paper. You play them on the field. And we’re finding out that this team is not a very good football team on offense, defense or special teams. Andrew Barry, Paul D Podesta, Mr. Moneyball, those guys deserve the blame there. And Kevin Stefanski, I can’t give him a complete pass, because he’s got to play with the players he has. But sometimes you sit there, you scratch your head with the play calls and what he’s trying to do offensively, and he’s still calling the plays. He’s a two time AFC Coach of the Year, so I look at it and it’s just from top to bottom. It’s been a complete disaster. Kenny,
Nestor Aparicio 03:44
I would just say, and for any of you media guys, and I’ve had Daryl writer on, I’ve had my old pal Bernie McKinney on, who’s out of the business now, but all Cleveland Munch has been on with me and talking to all of you. And I was in Cleveland a couple months ago, munch and I had breakfast talking about all this, and where the Guardians feel like they are, and where the Cavaliers have been. They’ve they’ve been the thing that has brought home the prize, you know. And we’re here in Baltimore trying to figure out new ownership on the baseball side. We’ve given $1.2 billion to these billionaires to build up stadiums that we built a generation ago. And, you know, I, I beat David Modell up. I mean, we became dear friends, and he was a guy who never lied to me in his life. And I can’t say that many people, and I know you may feel differently about him in Ohio, but I remember beating David up in 95 six, when the team came in saying, it’s got to be a dome. You got to make it a dome. You got to make it a dome. Joe, we’re going to get Mick Jagger. Joe, we’re going to get these things. And it didn’t make sense here. For our people, we play football outside and all that, yeah, and they use the stadium 10 times a year over 30 years, you know. And it doesn’t really benefit the community the way it should when you’re forking it over, but once you’ve lost the browns, and even as awful as they are, and all the decision making and all that you. There still is a feeling you got to bend over backwards to get the stadium done. It’ll because you didn’t really do it. Well, there where that stadium is and how you get to it and the prime land it’s on, I would say, like Cleveland, kind of did it wrong. Building it where it used to be.
Kenny Roda 05:15
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I didn’t have a problem building it where it used to be. I had a problem with not putting a dome on it and then building around it. Now they’re finally offering up maybe Burke Lake Front airport, right as you know, land where you can add some things and really make it a fun place to be with so many options, including year round events if you had a dome stadium. So they’re looking to move it to Brooke Park about 1520, minutes south of Cleveland. For me, that’s closer. I live in Medina, so that’d be an easier drive for me. I used to work in Brook Park. I know the area very well. I again,
Nestor Aparicio 05:53
I don’t I’ve been to the ballet there. I pointed that out.
Kenny Roda 05:56
I don’t care where they build it. I just want a dome. It needs to be a dome if you’re going to be a player in any of these major events. So we’ll see. You know, they’re they’re talking about, if they could break ground soon, they could have it ready for either the 2028 or 2029 season. So that’s, you know, so far down the road. But the reason a lot of people are focusing on that now Nestor is because the team stinks this year. If they were winning football games, right, people would be excited about Deshaun Watson leading the brown possibly into the playoffs. And you can say, well, didn’t he do that last year? No, he did not. That was Joe Flacco. And you all know what needs to be known about Joe Flacco, and he’s doing a great job as the backup with the Indianapolis Colts right now. So it because the team stinks, and they’re one in six. And right now they in the New England Patriots are battling for one and two. As far as draft picks goes bait, you know, the overall number one pick goes based on the strength of schedule or weakness of schedule. People are sick and tired of talking Browns already on the field, and so a lot of the talk has turned to the dome stadium and whether or not that gets done, and now mayor Bibb is talking about invoking the art modell rule, which supposedly, and I’m not a lawyer, so forgive me for not knowing all the ins and outs of this, but has something to do with not being able to move the team to play games outside of Cleveland. So it’s just the browns and that whole organization are a complete mess Well, and
Nestor Aparicio 07:32
that’s the problem, right? Like I saw the Padres win for a minute and Larry lakino out in San Diego to get Petco field built. Right? These municipalities, your place got raped. My city, I got my Baltimore Colts belt buckle up here that I hold up all the time for folks and show you know, I have my Houston Oiler trash can in the corner here. So, I mean, I’m old school. I’m not I, you know, I have San Diego Chargers. I still call them that. So these teams move their businesses, they’re supported by bigger money. And in cases of Oakland, they lost everything, because nobody there wants to build anything, because we have police, firefighters, schools, infrastructure, public health, crime, all of these grown up issues that when I was 25 trying to steal your football team and thinking it was cool and we’re gonna build a stadium. And then I think a generation later, I’ve been thrown out as a media member, kind of famously, after giving them hundreds of 1000s of dollars, hundreds of 1000s of dollars as a season ticket holder fan, millions of dollars, if you count what I spent on the road going to home and away games for 30 years, and they just took $600 million here, quietly, you know, Annapolis makes it happen. Nobody in Western Maryland. There’s nobody out there, a couple Trumpers, couple people over on the Eastern Shore, but they’re sort of Raven Oriole people. Anyway, we got the commanders here trying to figure out their stadiums a mess, and Northern Virginia doesn’t want them because they can’t sell that throughout the state, and you’re in a place where nobody in Columbus or in Cincinnati or in the Trump Landia suburbs are going to say, let’s give Cleveland something. Let and let’s give a billionaire who’s been a brick, an awful owner who put forth Deshaun Watson, let’s give him money. So I think the hardest part is we love the brand. We love the browns. We don’t want to lose them. We lost them once. What are we going to do for Jimmy Haslam, and how can he get over on any politician? Leo just has tried this down in DC with the Virginia people. Didn’t work. Daniel Snyder didn’t work here in in Maryland, we just gave Angelo’s now Rubenstein 600 million, and said, fix up your crib. And we just gave bashati the money, and your boy, Sashi Brown, we just gave him the money, and nobody’s even said a word. And all they did with the 600 million was fix up. They threw the media out of the 50 yard line and put them up in the Kevin Byrne Little House press box up in the corner. Now. Under the victory arches that David Modell told me about a generation ago, that’s what’s happened here. And I, I don’t know what’s gonna happen in Ohio, but I know it’s an issue. I mean, I know it’s bad because it it’s it’s awful. It’s Jimmy Haslam. This is giving money to Angelo sir Snyder that this is public enemy number one now because he dragged Deshaun Watson in and told your fan base to go pay for it and cheer for it and and treat it like its family, put his wife out in front of it. I mean, what happened there is just gross.
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Kenny Roda 10:33
Well, it’s going to go down as arguably one of the worst trades, not only in NFL history, maybe sports history, considering what they gave up to get to Sean Watson and the results. This is season number three of five, and he played because he’s done for the season now, and I don’t root for anybody to get hurt, so I wasn’t thrilled to see that. You know, the the cheering or booing when he tore his Achilles there, and you can see it was a torn Achilles in slow motion when they showed the the close up on it. But out of a possible, what is it? 1730, 51 games he would he will have played 19 games for the browns. His record is nine and 10, and that was for three first rounds, draft picks, other draft picks, as well as guaranteed $230 million so this will go down as one of the worst trades ever in sports. And I personally think he’s played his last game, whether he comes back from this or not, I don’t think he will ever play for the Browns again. I
Nestor Aparicio 11:29
just want you know if I’m on the radio in Cleveland, as you are every afternoon, I want to give the call letters at 1430 whp, Kenny and JT, Kenny road has been my friend for a long time. You can follow him at the Kenny Rhoda, R, o d a, not like Rhoda and Mary Tyler Moore, just r o d a, to talk about this sensibly. It reminds me of with the Orioles. You know, I did the walk out in 2006 I got thrown out. They stunk for another six or seven years, and then they played decent for a couple years and screwed it all up. The old man went away, and the kid came in and mismanaged it worse, and they lost and lost and lost, and the whole time said, well, we’ll build it. Will win. Well, now they’re winning. They have a new owner, 10,000 MP seats at playoff games. You know, the brand becomes damage when guys like you have nothing to say sensibly about. I mean, I’m thinking, if I’m on the radio now in Cleveland, and this happened here, and we jettison Lamar, and they fell in with this criminal quarterback and gave him a quarter of a billion dollars because our ownerships nuts, and we’re stuck with it in this cap number. And I’m thinking, Well, what’s going to be on the field? Are you now tanking to get the number one pick what? What happens to Barry? What happens to zansky? And what level of trust could you possibly have an ownership to not only navigate this stadium deal, which is a big deal, but also to figure out that they’re going to get the next thing? Then you can have Sashi back if you want him. By the way, Kenny,
Kenny Roda 12:56
we’ve been down that road one time. I don’t need him, and it’ll be interesting to see if Andrew Barry is back for next year. Now, both he and Kevin Stefanski got contract extensions this off season. And again, I have no inside information on this. It’s just my Butch Davids, my gut feeling telling me this okay, and that is, those guys were rewarded for, yes, some success on the field. But also, I think it was management, ownership, if you will, that wanted to make the Deshaun Watson trade and said, make this work, and we’ll reward you. But after this season, you have to wonder if one or both of those guys, you know, get fired this off season. Unless they’re, they’re starting to tank. And the the first example of that that raised some eyebrows was last week, when before the game and Deshaun Watson even got injured, we find out that the number two quarterback was Dorian Thompson, Robinson and not Jameis Winston, who they paid 4 million for to come in in the off season to be deshaun’s backup, in case they get in the playoff race because they saw how disastrous it was last year. Well, lo and behold, DTR gets the number two spot this past week, and we still don’t know why. The the explanations given by Stefanski don’t make any sense. And what do you know? Deshaun Watson goes down with an injury. Dorian Thompson, Robin comes in. He throws two interceptions. Jameis Winston comes in at the end of the game, leads him right down the field, touchdown, two point conversion against the Bengals, they don’t recover the onside kick. They lose 2114 and you sit there and you go, Well, isn’t that what you brought Jameis Winston in here for the best chance to win a quarterback. It’s not. DTR, he was in college for five years. Nestor, you know this, if you play five years in college football, that means you weren’t good enough after three at quarterback to get drafted in the NFL, right? So you’re sticking around for those five years. And now, with n i l money, a lot of guys are going to do that because they’re not going to be able to make it in the NFL. I don’t think Dorian Thompson, Robinson is a starting quarterback caliber of. Player in the NFL, and so for me to see him trotted out as the backup. Now he did hurt his finger. We don’t know if he’s going to play this week because of an injured finger on his throwing hand, or if it’s going to be Jameis Winston, but if it’s DTR, that tells me they’re tanking, and they’re they’re looking towards having the highest possible draft pick next year with him. If they bring back Jameis Winston, could they win more games? Yes, but let’s be realistic, they’re not going to make the playoffs now at one and six, that’s not happening, so maybe tanking does make sense, and it’s better to play DTR, and you could say you were just looking at him to find out if he was the future quarterback, uh, instead of playing Jameis Winston, who maybe they’ll trade, along with zaderia Smith and others, to teams that are in playoff contention, like the Detroit Lions looking for some defensive line help. Is
Nestor Aparicio 15:49
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there any humic gaining Haslam at this point? I mean, I think you get to the point with Angelo’s with me. I did the walk out in 2006 The one thing I’ll go to my grave on, and I wrote this in a letter to David Rubenstein, is I? My conscience is real good that I chose the right side to say this isn’t ever going to work, because this person is unchangeable, unmovable, arrogant enough to bring Deshaun Watson and give him against all of his partners wishes I saw a piss Bucha he was, you know, at the at the owners meetings two and a half years ago, just the notion of what he was going to have to go through with Lamar Jackson, and what every owner in the league was going to have to go through giving guaranteed money to anybody. Let you give it to Patrick mahomes, or Lamar has got two MVPs right now, you would say that’s not certainly the Brown family then, and the other side of Ohio doesn’t do business that way. Um, it set a bad precedent a lot of ways. I mean, is anybody on the Jimmy Haslam side? I mean, is anybody in Brook Park on his side? Is anybody in Columbus on his side? But more than that, the fan base itself. At some point you just stop buying tickets when they get expensive. Kenny, you know that, but
Kenny Roda 16:57
having three years without football, this is still better than no football at all to a lot of people, and they’re going to continue to buy the season tickets. They’re going to continue to buy the merchandise. God bless the Browns fans, the most loyal fans, I think, in the entire world, based on what they’ve been through, especially when art modell was there, yeah, he won a championship with Paul Brown’s team, but after that, art modell got rid of Paul Brown art modell got rid of Jim Brown. Art modell helped get rid of Paul Warfield, and he he sold the Browns to the Baltimore Ravens. So the fans have stuck by this football team, hell or high water, and they will continue to do so. But no, they’re not happy with Jimmy has on and the football team that’s being put, you know, put out on the field each and every Sunday or Thursday or Wednesday or Friday, or whenever Roger Goodell wants to play games these days.
Nestor Aparicio 17:51
It is amazing. I mean, I met you in the middle of the mess back in 1995 we’re playing baseball playoff games, stealing your football team, all of that. And here we are, like 30 years later, through all this, my community has no respect for art modell, who’s back on and I see you wearing the Hall of Fame thing to make any inertia, to try to put forth anything for him. They also have no respect for the Earth. Say, just the fact that Flacco is wearing a colts helmet doesn’t mean anything to anybody who’s not 50 here and the 13 years where we had the Washington Redskins stuck onto our televisions here, and they tried to keep our franchise out of here. They came in here in different helmets two weeks ago with their new star quarterback. There is an amnesia part for all of it, and there only really is the here and now and the right here and right now. And I do wonder on the outside, when the Guardians feel like the the place that’s done right by the fans there for the longest period of time, or trying hard and saying, you know, we’re not a big market. We can’t sign certain players, but we can sign these players and still be relevant. I mean, it feels to me like the Guardian should be the beloved franchise there in the modern era,
Kenny Roda 19:01
it’s a football city, and that we’ve had this discussion time and time again. It was a basketball city when the local kid, LeBron, was here, and he brings you a championship, first one since 1964 and now that last year, they actually won a playoff series for the first time since 1993 when LeBron James wasn’t on the roster, right? People are excited about tonight opening up on the road at Toronto against the raptors, and being one of the top four teams in the Eastern Conference, and maybe they’ll have a shot at a championship run this year. So while the Cavaliers are good, the Guardians made an unexpected run into the ALCS. I picked him to finish under 500 I think a lot of people did. Did not expect this. It was a surprise. It was a fun season. 2 million fans showed up. They sold out all the playoff games. So they love their guardians, Indians, tribe, whatever people call them. Still to this day, the Cavaliers are starting to become. Are respected and loved based on how bad the Browns are. But guess what? If you hold 100,000 sports fans in Northeast Ohio and said, what one team would you want to win a championship? I would say 90% of them would say the Cleveland Browns.
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Nestor Aparicio 20:16
And you know, that’s the NFL. That’s why it’s 365 Kenny Rhoda does it 365 he’s on Monday through Friday out in the canton Akron area. He’s on 1430 whp, the Kenny njt show you can find him at V Kenny Rhoda, R, O, D, A out on the interwebs. Go ahead, Kenny. My
Kenny Roda 20:33
partner will kill me. 1480 not 1480
Nestor Aparicio 20:35
Why did I say 30? I’m an idiot. I’m an okay, my bad. Okay, let’s find it right. 1570 I don’t be 1580
Kenny Roda 20:42
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Yeah, 1480 WHC. We’re going to be 100 years old next year. 1480 WHC. And this is our 80th year of doing high school football in Canton, and we have the huge game this weekend. It’s the 135th meeting of the greatest high school sports rivalry ever. Can’t McKinley is traveling to mass one to play the defending state champion tigers, and this will be our 135th go round of that great rivalry, and our 80th year of doing it on the radio at WHC, alright,
Nestor Aparicio 21:13
I screwed it up. 1480 I’ll never do that again. Don’t call me 1560 or 1550 I’m 1570 uh, Kenny, it’s always good to visit with you, and I love that every time I have someone on from your part of the world. And by the way, I went to blossom, and I saw Sammy Hagar and my dear friend Thomas Dolby. So I made it to that part of the world down there. I went to old rich field, the whole thing. And so I made my way out there. But masalon, I want to make sure I’m pronouncing it I call it masalon. That’s wrong, right?
Kenny Roda 21:42
Yeah, that’s like, your GPS lady that would say you are now entering masalon, no, it’s not that. It’s the masculine tigers, masculine, alright? Masculine, just let it roll. Masalin, yeah, masculine. Like, like,
Nestor Aparicio 21:55
being masculine, masculine. Okay, I, I’m working on it, man. I don’t want to get my Ohio all messed up. I still had to dot the I though I don’t have to do that. Kenny road is here. I’ll be on his program this week as well, and it’ll be a 1480 not 1430 knucklehead. The Maryland lottery sends us out on the road on 1570 we’re gonna be up at the foundry road mamas on the half shell on Friday afternoon. Got some great cast. Old friends. My bio pal, Mike Warren’s coming by. We did a television show with LT and Buddy Ryan 20s. I haven’t seen him in 27 years. He’s coming by on Fridays 82 and he’s still picking games my buddy Howard share. We’re gonna have a tribute to the great, late great Jeffrey amder skippers on a war path. Go, go. Little hockey talk on Friday as well, with hump and Howie, my old pal and and former Critics Choice DJ partner, also our friends at shifting the multi care, putting Luke on the road to Owings Mills as well. We have ravens brown short week, lots of Cleveland visitors as we get ready for football on Sunday. Sunday, Sunday. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, Maslin. I wish we were in Massillon. You know, if I put to w, s o1, up. Some people will call it Tosin, but we call it Towson. It’s.
