ESPN’s Marcus Spears Talks Browns, Cowboys, Jags, Saints & More with Rich

Marcus Spears does not think the Cleveland Browns quarterback decision came from the coaching staff. He thinks it came from the checkbook.

Rich asked him what is happening in that locker room. Spears redirected immediately, and the number he kept returning to was $230 million.

"The locker room not important," Spears said. "This is ownership unwilling to admit that they made a tremendous mistake bringing Deshaun Watson in."

His football case for the alternative is straightforward. Shedeur Sanders should start, first because you need to find out whether he can play at a high level. And pragmatically, if Sanders plays well and you still want to move on because of the first-round picks you hold, you have just raised his trade value.

Spears was careful about where the blame lands. "This had nothing to do with Todd Monken or Andrew Berry," he said. This is about guaranteed money handed to a player who arrived from Houston carrying allegations and turmoil, and about an organization that will not say out loud that it went wrong.

He was equally careful about the booing, and this is where he refused the one-sided version.

"I don't think any player should be booed when they get injured, no matter what the circumstances," Spears said. Watson has every right to be angry about people cheering a torn Achilles. What he does not have a right to be angry about is being booed for football, for performance, for an unavailability that has become part of the evaluation.

"Two things can be true," Spears said.

Then Rich changed the subject to a team that feels different this year, and Spears lit up.

The Cowboys excite him precisely because nothing about them has been loud. The George Pickens situation could have become the thing it usually becomes, and it did not. Quinnen Williams got his contract done without noise. Rashan Gary arrived by trade with almost no attention. The Von Miller signing was unassuming, and Spears is clear-eyed that this is not the gold jacket version of Miller, but the man did have nine sacks last year. The Caleb Downs pick "just felt super mature," he said, connecting it to the history of safeties in Dallas and Darren Woodson quarterbacking a defense.

"I think they going to be very good," Spears said, walking the tightrope deliberately. Not a Super Bowl prediction. A playoff team, with a defense good enough to give anybody a game, and Dak Prescott as a quarterback you can win a title with. In the playoffs, as he puts it, you just need a better three hours than the team across from you.

The credit goes to Brian Schottenheimer, and Spears framed it as insulation. The coach has walled the football team off from everything that comes with being a Dallas Cowboy, including the owner, and Spears believes Jerry Jones is starting to recognize he has people in the building who can do the job.

"The football of Dallas is what we've been talking about all offseason," Spears said. Consider how big a change that is from the last five summers.

Asked to name the team nobody is talking about enough, Spears went to Jacksonville. He watched Trevor Lawrence shed something last season, the weight of being drafted first and never quite being what that demanded. The defensive line got no credit for what it did down the stretch, the back end needs work, and Josh Hines-Allen rushes the passer as well as anyone in the league without anyone mentioning it. However they manage Travis Hunter, Spears thinks he is best served as a defensive back with situational offensive snaps. His NFC answer was the Saints, though he called them a year away in a division that might not require the wait.

The last subject genuinely bothered him. Jayden Daniels sent a cease and desist over number 5 at LSU, a number the school has not retired.

"It is crazy as hell to send a cease and desist letter over a jersey number that you ain't retired," Spears said. Asking for your own jersey retirement is not how it works. That call belongs to the school, not the player.

He added the fairness. Daniels is only the third Heisman winner in LSU history, so retiring the number would be warranted if the school chose to. And if the top defensive lineman in the country wanted 84, Spears said he would deliver it to the house personally.