Buckeyes Roll, Cavs Rise

Buckeyes cruising, Cavs building, Browns boiling over—this one moves fast and hits hard. We open with Ohio State’s statement win over Penn State, a freshman-sparking Heisman surge, and the kind of one-handed grab that flips a game and a season’s belief. Purdue is next on the docket, but Michigan is the storm cloud on the horizon, and you can feel the confidence humming in Columbus.

Switching to the hardwood, Cleveland’s 4–3 start brings equal parts optimism and urgency. Donovan Mitchell’s flamethrower night papered over a shot diet that leans too heavy on threes, while Lonzo Ball’s bench leadership steadies the second unit. The fix feels obvious: feed Mobley and Allen, hunt paint touches, and let Darius Garland’s return unlock better spacing and pacing. Around the league, the East is chaotic in the best way, and the West is a showcase—SGA operating like a surgeon, and Victor Wembanyama bending geometry with added strength and timing. The Lakers become a contender if LeBron shifts to a smarter load, Austin Reaves keeps cooking, and roles stay clear.

Then comes the Browns. A bye week bought time but not answers. If the offense won’t test defenses past 20 yards, the ceiling stays glued shut. Let the coordinator call plays, establish a real run rotation, and be honest at quarterback. If the current plan can’t unlock the receivers, give the young arm a shot with a clean, vertical script. Meanwhile, the AFC landscape is tilting: Baltimore looks dangerous, Buffalo is stubborn in the regular season, and Kansas City doesn’t feel inevitable. Adapt now or get left behind.

If you’re here for sharp takes, clear fixes, and real talk on Ohio sports and the wider NBA and NFL landscape, you’re in the right place. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves ball, and drop your hottest take in the comments—what change would you make first?

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back & Episode Setup
• 0:20 Buckeyes Dominate Penn State
• 3:14 Heisman Buzz & Michigan On The Horizon
• 3:48 Cavaliers Early Season Pulse
• 6:44 Shooting Choices & Frontcourt Priorities
• 9:33 Around The NBA: Surprises In The East
• 12:55 West Watch: SGA, Wembanyama, And Lakers Roles
• 18:30 Grizzlies Turmoil & Ja’s Fit
• 21:16 Browns Bye Week Frustration
• 25:20 Play Calling, Leadership, And Roster Fit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back. I had a little hiatus. I was going with my wife in Chicago. We had to do a little some business stuff. She had a speaking event, but hey, we're back. And this is the Ryan Smith Show, episode three, season one. And we got a lot of stuff to talk about, man. Hey. So we're about to jump right on in. Hey, last weekend, I thought the Buckeyes were going to have at least a challenge. But I didn't know that Penn State's quarterback was out and they had to put the freshman in. I feel bad for the kid, but again, I don't because we ended up beating the brakes off of them boys 38 to 14. And I'm just saying, I didn't know who this kid was. Beginning of the season, I had no clue how good he was going to be, but I'm just saying, another four touchdown game. Back-to-back four tubs a game. That's crazy. And hey, this kid is now the front runner for the Heisman right now, which is, hey, I'll I'll take it. That's amazing. This kid is looking great. The first half had me a little nervous, though. It was 17 to 14. I'm like, oh, these Penn State boys came to play. I don't know. But Ryan Day must have got up in them. Paul Ryan Day had something to say in the locker room. And he lit a fire running them boys, and they went out there and didn't look back and straight, just did what we had to do. And hey, they beat, they beat them boys pretty, pretty thoroughly. And that catch Jeremiah Smith had at the in the third quarter was that one-handed off the tip. Jeremiah Smith, boy, you need to knock it off. This boy, I mean, we got two, we got two Heisman, two Heisman guys right now. Two Heisman nominees, as I should say. And I'm just I'm happy to be a Buckeye fan right now. We got Purdue next week. I don't know. They're not ranked either, but it's another Big Ten win for us, and we got to get it. We got to get out there and just keep it rolling. Hey, get another four touchdowns. I ain't mad at you, boy. Keep getting them. They're giving them to you, keep getting them. And the Buckeyes, yeah, I mean, we're rolling, man. So I can't really, I have no complaints. Again, this is the second week where I really can't complain. The offense is rolling. I'm just saying, that kid, that's gonna be my quote for the rest of the year. I'm just saying, man. Julian's saying it's the truth, man. He might mess around and win the Eisman this year. I ain't gonna be mad if he do. And this team is really looking like we're about to win the championship again. Like, we look like we're not really worried about nobody right now. I just can't wait till we get to Michigan. I don't want to look past Purdue. I know we gotta play one week at a time, but I just can't wait to see that team up north, man. Ryan Day, you gotta get us one, man. We got to get this one this year. We gotta get this one. But hey, like I said, I really don't have anything bad to say about the Buckeyes, man. Just keep rolling. We got another star quarterback on our hands. He's gonna be a problem for the next couple years. I feel bad for you boys. But yeah, Bo Jackson, he looked pretty good, too. Don't let me stray off from everybody else. Bo Jackson looked pretty decent. He had a decent game. Jeremiah smashed. He had a couple tugs. So we look good, man. I'm not mad at all. Just keep rolling, Buckeyes. Keep rolling. And hey, man, that's all I got to say about the Buckeyes. And I'm gonna dive into the next next topic right after this. All right. Back to my favorite. One of my I love basketball now. If y'all know me, I love me some basketball, man. I love this time of year. And I love my Cavaliers, man. And I just can't wait. I'm just I'm so excited, man. So excuse my little giddiness right now, but the Calves are looking good right now. They started off the season. I haven't been right, haven't been able to talk about them too much since I've been out of town, but I can talk about them now. We are four and three right now. We just played the just beat the Hawks in the last game. It was 117, 109, I want to say. And the Cavs looked pretty good. It was a rough game, though. Don't get me wrong. It was a rough game, but Donovan Mitchell hitting eight threes, eight for 15 from the three-point line was clutch with the 37. We needed that. Lonzo Ball looked great coming off the bench. I think he's going to be a very, very, very key point to this team. Like him coming off the bench once we get Garland back is going to be beautiful. I would like for him to be six man. You know what I mean? I like seeing him coming off the bench and controlling that second unit. His IQ, Lonzo Ball's IQ, is off the charts. And I love it, even though he still has that weird jumper. It goes in. But I like him coming off the bench and sparking up the second unit. Once we get Darius Garland back, it's going to be different. It's going to be a different look for the Cavs. We got to get more points in the paint. We have to get Mobley established and Allen established in that paint just to get more buckets in the paint. That's all we need to worry about. We shot a whole ton of threes. And that's one thing that I don't like. I don't want us depending on the three-point. We can't just depend on the three-point shot. I know everybody, that's the, that's what everybody's doing now, but come on now. We can't just be chucking up 33s a game and trying to win. Because that ain't going to win a lot of games. Especially like we got the 76ers coming up on the fifth. And that's going to be a tough game. They're seven and two right now. So there's no, we can't just be chucking up threes all the time. We got to establish a big man. We got to establish some end-to-point points. We need that in order to win. Because we're not going to win just chucking up. Depend on Donovan Mitchell going 8 for 15 every night. It was fun. Don't get me wrong. We didn't have any football in Cleveland, but we won a basketball game in Cleveland on a Sunday. So I'm happy. But we can't just rely on that to be different, to be everybody. That's not going to make it. But like I said, the Cavs do look decent, and once we get all our pieces, I think we're going to be back at number one again, like we were last year. Again, I like the Tyson kid. We got some new faces. I'm like, dang, this kid came out of nowhere. He had a couple big threes in that game against the Hawks. So we got some promising young stars coming up. So the Cavs look good, man. I'm not really mad. We just got to tighten up and keep this offense rolling. And I think we're going to be all right. We got the Sixers coming up. Hey, the sky's the limit for the Cavs right now. And I'm excited. Can't wait to get down there and get to a game. It will be coming soon. So I'll be there. And hey, man, the Cavs look good. I'm going to take it like that and on to the next one. Let's talk about the NBA a little bit. Let's keep it going with the NBA because you know I'm watching you guys all over the place. And let's talk about the standings right now. We got the Chicago Bulls sitting at 6-1, which is no one's seen that coming. Josh Giddy is out here tearing up the NBA right now. I didn't even, I didn't even think I never knew the kid added any, man. Shoot, he got these Bulls running, got to run the wild out there. So I ain't mad at that. We got the 76ers sitting at 5-2. Like I said, the Calves have to play them coming up on the fifth. So we'll see what we're going to what we're going to do with them boys. Detroit Pistons, which is shocking. They're 5-2, too. Like, this is crazy. The East is kind of getting a little bumpy and pushy in the East right now, starting off in the season. Everybody's around the same, you know what I mean, one or two, or you know what I mean? Got the Bucks sitting there at five and three. Then you got Miami, Miami, New York, and Cleveland tied with four and three right now. So all these teams are capable of being number one in the East. Like, this East is going to be rough this year. That's all I want to say about the East. Now we're going to switch to the West Coast and the defending champs, the Oklahoma Thunder, are 8-0. This kid, SGA is out there tearing it up again, man. I don't know what's going on. Y'all can't stop this kid. And we got an alien sighting in San Antonio. Them boys is 5-1. And this win Miana kid is something to watch, man. He is must see TV. I'm trying to tune in every time I see them on TV. These kids are. This kid is a freak of nature, man. Like he then went to the Shaolin monk and went to the, went to Shaolin and learned some old, some, I don't know what he learned over there, but hey, man, this kid came back on fire, man. I'm scared of this kid. I'm really, I don't know what's going to happen. I think he's only like 20 years old, too. Like, this is the scariest thing I've ever seen. 7'4. He didn't put on some weight. And he is definitely scary. That's all I can say about this kid. Look out for them Spurs, man. They're scary with that kid out there, the alien. Then you got the Lakers. They were going, they're 6-2 right now, which is amazing, being that they only had Luca for two games. And Luca got a triple-double, and I want to say a 50-point game, but AR-15, boy. AR-15 been holding it down since Brown and Luca was out. And I didn't think he added any. But man, Austin Reeves is the truth, man. That's another one, man. Hey, this kid is different, man. He really got it. And I hope that when LeBron and Luca get back, that he can still provide that spark. And he'd be that third, that third scorer that they need. And hey, they might be making some noise coming up. Hey, you never know. Old man might have one more inning. We'll see. So yeah, I'm sure somebody is out there thinking, like, hmm, do they really need LeBron? The way these two kids are rolling right now. What kind of role is LeBron going to play on this Lakers team this year? Is he going to be a number one go-to person, the go-to scorer on the team, or is he going to take a step back and just chill and just be like, hey, man, I'll let you two kids let them cook. What I think is going to happen is LeBron is going to do exactly that. He's going to take a step back and be like, hey, these two kids are the future of the Lakers team. I only got one or two more years left. I ain't got to go crazy. Give me 23 points, eight assists, five rebounds. Hey, I'll go out. If I was LeBron, I'll go out riding just like that. Like, hey, man, I ain't got to do everything. But do enough to make sure that they're winning games. Do enough to make sure that they're not losing focus out there. Just because they got LeBron out there. Don't watch me. You watch 77 and you worry about AR-15 out there. You need to worry about these cats and Hachi Moore out there. And the up-and-coming guy like Justin Hayes. They got a nice, nice roster this year. I think they can really make some noise if they stay healthy. And use LeBron the way you need to use LeBron. He's coming up there. He's getting up there, man. He's old. So he shouldn't have to play a ton of minutes. He shouldn't have to do too much. Just do enough to win games. Do enough to win games and get them in the playoffs. Get them high be an upper seed in the playoffs so you don't have to play in the play-in and do any of that other crazy stuff that the Lakers have been doing for a couple years now. So with this team, they're looking pretty good. I ain't gonna hold you. I'm not a Lakers fan, but I am a LeBron fan, and I'm always watching out for the kid, and I'm always gonna watch out. I'm a witness, so I'm always gonna get my little two cent in on LeBron and the way I feel like he should be playing right now. And I really feel like he should just dial it back a little bit. You ain't gotta go out and hit and go out and get 40 every night. If it comes, it comes. If you're hot, roll with it. But let's Luca's looking pretty good right now. He's he's in shape this year. And we are 15. Austin Reeves, he's out there doing his thing. He's throwing lobs at everybody all over the place. Hell, he threw a lob to Browning the other day. I'm like, oh shoot. Brownie catching lobs now. So I think he's the only person in history to throw a lob to a father and son on the same team. Hey, I think Austin Reeves made history out here. So hey, just keep doing what you're doing. The Lakers, I mean, hey, I like to see when LeBron's doing good. So I'm I'm sorry, guy. I'm Ohio guy. I'm biased a little bit, but I it is what it is. That's my take on the Lakers and what LeBron's role should be coming into this season, coming back from the injury. All right. So yeah, continue on about this West Coast. Yeah, everybody's like a game within each other. Golden State Warriors are 5-3. Minnesota is four and three. Portland Trailblazers are starting four and three, which is who knew. But I I had I do have a take about these Grizzlies. I seen them a couple games. I want to say it was the last game. And John Moran is actually suspended for this next game coming up because of he didn't, he didn't want to participate. And it was something weird that was going on on the bench. And I don't think I think this is the last stint for Memphis Grizzlies in John Moran. I think he wants out of there. He didn't like the coach being traded. And I really think that this head coach, this, well, he was the assistant coach. They bumped him up to head coach. And I don't think anybody on the team likes this kid. It just looks like there's no continuity with the team. And it's like you got John Morant playing off the ball when you know that he is a scorer. You got to get, you got to get the ball in John Morant's hand. You got this dude chilling by the three-point line after the first. As soon as you inbound the ball, he's passing it to the point guard. He goes, and he's going to chill on the corner on the three-point line. If I was John Morant, I'd be mad too. I don't know. This is just this is weird. I don't know what's going on with this head coach out there. But I kind of want John Morant to lightweight get traded, man. Hey, go somewhere where you where the coach will appreciate you, man. I'll feel him. I ain't mad at him. And they suspended him. That was that was kind of whack to me. So I'm just, that's just my little take. That's just how I feel about the situation. I just didn't like the way that played out. You only played the kid 31 minutes and he's sitting on the sidelines the whole damn game. I'm sitting there watching the guy. I'm like, why is he not taking any shots? I'm like, what are you doing? You're not even running no plays for him. And you know this dude is a high flyer. He needs the ball in his hands to, if you want to win, geez. I don't know. But I digress. That's a whole nother situation. That's that's not my team, but that's that's a whole nother situation. All right. Now, let's get into this NFL situation that's going on. We had a bye week. Hopefully, we had an intervention with the coach. Somebody needs to Kevin Savanski and let the kid play. This dude cannot see over the he can't see over the lineman out there, man. I'm sorry. I know that's your pick. I know that's your pick. But he ain't it, bruh. He's gonna end up being a quarterback coach for somebody somewhere. I'm just saying, dude. Give Shador a chance. Oh yeah, we talked about, oh, his back. Where the hell he get hurt? How you get hurt? How you hurt his back? Sitting on the bench? He hurt his back up. He hurt his back so much that he couldn't even suit up or he can't play. Really? Really? Okay. Alright, y'all. Yeah. Alright. So he's had a whole week to recover. I seen him in the Colorado with his dad. He went and visit his dad and got some treatment for his back. So he should be ready to go come Sunday. And if you need him, which you do need him, you're playing the Jets. The Jets are one and seven. You guys are two and six. You guys are pretty much on the same level. Quarterback-wise, you don't know who's going to be your starting quarterback. So go ahead and let's have a quarterback controversy in the middle of the season right now. And put Shador in because there's no reason that he shouldn't get a chance to play. This is it's it's becoming so frustrating to watch this game, watch these games every week, being a Browns fan, and just watched him sit on the bench. Okay, last week he had a back issue. I call cap. I call bull bull crap. I'm not with it. I've seen something where they're saying that Seventh the Fancy is gonna let the office of coordinator call the plays from now on. Ooh. You don't think that should have been a thing the whole damn season, but okay. Now you wait until you're two and six to start letting somebody call plays. You shouldn't have been calling plays in the first place. You should know better. You need to get your hands slapped for that. You should have never been calling nobody's plays nowhere. The way y'all playing, and the way that you ain't producing nothing, and but you letting you keep letting your quarterback play. You can see the frustration in me right now. It's just it's so frustrating to be a Browns fan right now. But our defense is holding us down, and the only way that we're gonna beat the Jets this week is if the defense has a stellar game like they've been doing. We need Miles Gary to get some more sacks out there. He's been playing phenomenal. I'm not mad at anything with the defense is doing. They're giving up, giving up points where they don't need to give up points, but man, defense can't win every damn game. We gotta do something. We gotta at least attempt a pass over 20 yards. How about that? Can we do that? Can we try that? We do have we have decent receivers out there. We can try a little, or can he throw the ball over 20 yards? Is that an issue? Is that why we keep doing little dump screens and little rinky dink little passes, but he's still throwing picks? I mean, come on, man. Enough is a damn enough. I'm gonna say this every week. Enough is enough. Until you put him in, enough is enough. I'm glad the trading deadline went past and we ain't trading. Jeez, what the heck are you gonna do with this kid? You just gonna let him sit on the bench and watch this bum just stink it up every week because you picked him. That's your pick. You're gonna have to live and die with that pick. That's not, you shouldn't put that when you have talent on your bench, you're just gonna keep putting poop out there just because your ego. Because you know if you push Shador out there and he starts going crazy, you're gone. And I know that's that's probably the reason why he's not playing Shador. That's and that's in my mind. That's the reason why he's not playing Shador, because he knows that if he pushed Shador in and Shador goes out there and throw 300 yards and have two touchdowns, and we win a game and score more than 14 points a game. 14 points in a game. We haven't even done that yet. Like, this is ridiculous. Like, we're not putting any points up. But he knows if he does that with Shador, his butt is gone. And I don't care. You just put the kid in, man. Just quit hating, put the kid in, let him play. I'm sick of saying this every week, man. It's like I'm just watching his talent just sit on the bench with a hurt back. You just making up injuries at this point. I don't know how you could hurt your back not doing anything. He's not even getting no reps. How is he hurting his back? He ain't getting no reps with nobody. Make it make sense to me. Then you're gonna bring up this Brady Free. I don't even know the kid's name. I'm not even gonna say his name. I don't know who this kid is, but I don't care. Let's be smart, Browns. Let's really think about this. Season is pretty much a wash anyway. We're not gonna make the playoffs. You're not about to turn around with this Gabriel dude and win out the rest of the season. You're not about to do that. So let's get Sandor some reps, man. Let's please let's get this kid some reps. He's had a week off. You guys have had a week off. Hopefully, you guys figured out some kind of a scheme, an offensive scheme that's better than a high school offensive scheme. Like you gotta figure out how to get the ball up the field. And you need a quarterback with an arm. That's the only way that you're gonna do that. And it don't look like we have a quarterback that has an arm that can throw past 20 yards because we ain't seen it yet. I haven't seen him attempt a 20-yard pass yet. So what are we gonna do, man? We have to figure this out, bro. We have to figure this out. I'm tired. I'm tired. I don't want to see it no more. Let's go. All right. So, yeah, I've been hearing a lot about people saying, hey, but you can't just kick a Kevin Stefansky out of here. He was coach of the year two times. Yeah, coach of the year two times. How many years ago was that? Huh? All right. Again, coach of the year, two. Yeah, I'll give him his kudos. He got coach of the year. Great. Good job, kid. All right, what were we doing this year? The NFL is a win now league. Like, no one cares about what you did a couple years ago. Nobody cares about that. Hell, we had Nick Chubb and a young Miles Gary. He was tearing the league up. Him and Chubb. Yeah, we look good. Yeah, you look like the coach of the year. You would look like the coach of the year with them two type players. Of course you would. But now look at what you're doing. You can't play the same way. You can't do the same things that you did. You're not looking like Coach of the Year right now. You're looking like you're about to get fired. So I don't know. I'll give it to you guys that want to say that. Oh, he won coach of the year. Okay. But what have you done for me lately? We want to win now. We don't care about back then. Yeah, we won a playoff game with him. Oh, great. Great. We won a couple playoff games. Okay. Now what? Can we win a couple games this year? More than four? Can we do that? Can we put a star quarterback? Potentially a star quarterback? Can we give him a shot? Or do we trade him or let him go away and play somewhere else and then become a star? Like we did with Baker Mayfield. What do we do? He's so quick to this Browns organization is just all over the place, man. I just don't know what's next with these guys. Yeah, we got Deshaun Watson sitting on the bench. What are we gonna do with this kid? We just gonna keep paying him his 250? Guaranteed? I'm not wanting to put I do want to put a lot of the blame on the coaching and the play call, and I want to put that on it. And that's just there's no leadership. It doesn't like there's any leadership. Yeah, you were coach of the year a couple years ago. Cool. But where is that, where is that same mentality at right now? Where is that leadership right now? Because that's what they need. They need a leader. They need a leader. And they definitely need a leader on offense because right now there's no one leading that offense. No one. No one. Offensive line is shaky, very shaky. Running backs, we don't know who who our running back is at this point. Jukins seems like he should be the number one running back, but we don't know. And we have a quarterback that can't get the ball to the receivers that we have. The fan ski, you have to figure out a way. I'm glad that you're not calling plays anymore. Stick to, I don't know what your what your forte is, but just manage the team. Do that. Just manage the team. Just I don't know what to tell you what to do, man. I really I'm I was a fan of Kevin when he first cuts to the fan ski. When he first got out of here, I was a fan. I was like, damn, he got the Browns winning a little bit. But now it's like last two years, it's like the last last couple years, man, it has been ratchet. Like this is this is ugly, man. I don't know. You have you have personnel. You can't say you don't have the team, you don't have players around you. It's you and your playing style that has to change. And once that changes, and once we get add some more feet more pieces to the offensive line, I think things will start to change for the Browns on the offense. But this Gabriel Kid is not it, man. I don't care if you just let this, I don't know. He's not it. If you got to draft another quarterback next year, which you're probably gonna do, because that's all we do is draft quarterbacks every year and then ship them away so they can go win the Super Bowl somewhere else. But I'm I'm telling you right now, this Gabriel Kid ain't about to, he ain't about to go nowhere and win nothing for nobody. Sorry. Sorry, not sorry. All right, I'm just gonna stick with the NFL just just for a hot little second. I just want to talk about last Sunday, Sunday night's game against the Chiefs and the Bills, which is a great game. It was a good game. But despite all the little trickeries and the little things that the Kansas City Chiefs were, the Chiefs were pulling, they still couldn't pull out the win. And it's looking like no matter what the Chiefs do, no matter how staged these games kind of look, and it's not going your way. It's not going your way. Kelsey, he doesn't look the same anymore. And all you Chiefs fans, I told you guys, I said, they're not. I know it's early in the season, they're five and four, and I know Patrick Mahomes can just go out there and just win every single rest of the games and then be like, oh no, look at us. But I don't see that happening this year. These the Chiefs don't look the same. The team that is the team to beat, I think, coming out the AFC is going to be the Bills or the Ravens. Once Lamar Jackson gets back in the in the playing form, he already looked great last game. So that's scary. But the Bills, Josh Allen, man, he's a problem, man. He's definitely a problem for the Kansas City Chiefs. Only thing is he he can beat them all day in the regular season. But once it comes to the postseason, he's 0-4. So Josh Allen, you gotta don't let the first off, they might not make the playoffs this year. So if they don't make the playoffs, you might have a nice little, nice little sweep going into the Super Bowl as a Josh Allen with the Bills. But I don't know. I think the Ravens are gonna get they're gonna be tough coming out the AFC. But Kansas City, man, I told y'all. Shift is over, man. Sorry, KC fans. See you later, honey. Alright, guys. So that's about it for today, man. I got a lot more in store for you. I got some stuff that I wanted to talk about, but we're kind of running kind of long. So I'm gonna keep it short and simple today. I appreciate everybody that subscribed to the channel, man. Please listen. Like, share, and subscribe. I'm on all platforms. Wherever you listen to your podcast at, wherever you're watching your podcast at, check your boy out, man. I'm gonna be posting very soon. Very soon this week, matter of fact. And comment. I want to see your comments. We can debate all you want, man. Come on. I want to see it. Like again. Thank you, everybody. And please subscribe and stay tuned, man. We got a lot more to go, man. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time.