Cleveland radio host pushes back on criticism around Browns QB questions

It’s a new dawn for the Cleveland Browns, and yet the questions this year’s team is facing remain the same.

First-year head coach Todd Monken has entered the preseason facing a familiar Browns dilemma: Who is our starting quarterback? While Deshaun Watson is finally returning from injury, he’s battling against Sheduer Sanders, who ended last season as the starter, as well as second-year QB Dillon Gabriel and rookie Taylen Green.

Ultimately, it’s expected to be a battle between Sanders and Watson, the conversation around which has already led to one media-related controversy.

Monken was asked about the quarterback situation on Wednesday following OTA practice and remained firm that there is no decision yet.

“Nothing’s really changed other than it’s a different day and you’re firing the same questions,” Monken said. “I mean, we’re going to rotate those guys and play the best player, and we’ll see.”

The constant questions aren’t just irking Monken, they’re also irking some Browns fans, who want the media to stop asking about it until the coach finally announces a starter. That’s not gonna fly for 92.3 The Fan’s Anthony Lima.

“They were clipping the Cleveland media members, all asking about the quarterback every time, and then Todd Monken goes, well, it hasn’t changed, and they’re like, ‘Oh, another Cleveland reporter gets humiliated by Monken.’ It’s like, we’re gonna ask every day who’s in the lead. That’s how it works,” said Lima, talking with co-host Ken Carman. “That’s why Todd Monken gets paid a lot of money, not to just coach the football team, but to take our questions.

“Todd Monken is getting briefed before every one of these with the likeliest 5 questions every time. None of these are bombshells. The only way there’s a bombshell is if there was like a media report of a player off the field that they didn’t know about. And that has happened before. And boy, you can see the look on their face when they are truly blindsided. In this case, this is not blindsided. He knows he’s going to be asked. In fact, he’d probably be disappointed if he wasn’t asked.”

Lima later took to X to further his argument, saying that the pressure Monken is getting from the Cleveland media isn’t even that bad.

“Seeing Browns fans who think that coach should be shielded from this,” Lima wrote on X. “You could never make it as a fan in a big market with 10 times the media size. I covered a Jets training camp coming off the AFC Title game, and every day, Rex Ryan was asked whether Sanchez was good enough. He handled it like a big boy. Pretty sure Todd can too.”

There are few questions more eternal and everlasting than “Who is the starting quarterback of the Cleveland Browns?” And until someone finally comes along to prove that the question doesn’t need to be asked, it’s going to keep getting asked every day.