The Cleveland Browns had one last chance to make Deshaun Watson just another quarterback.

They could have looked at the whole mess — the $230 million contract, the three first-round picks, the injuries, the suspension, the four seasons that never went the way anyone in Cleveland hoped — and started fresh. Watson's entering the final year of that deal. Kevin Stefanski's gone. Shedeur Sanders has a full rookie season and an offseason in the books. Even owner Jimmy Haslam has admitted the trade was a “big swing-and-miss.”

Instead, the Browns went back to Watson.

New head coach Todd Monken named him the starter for Cleveland’s Sept. 13 opener in Jacksonville after making it clear that this decision was going to be based strictly on football:

I'm not going to let one half of football, one frustrating moment, dictate what our decision is going to be that we think is in the best interest of the Browns moving forward, and especially Week 1.

But this decision is about more than who looked better in practice. It's tied to the contract, the trade, and Cleveland’s desperate hope that Watson can still become the quarterback the franchise thought they were getting in 2022.  

The Football Case Is Fading Fast

Watson didn't win this job by lighting up the preseason.

He finished his two appearances 16-of-27 for 162 yards, no touchdowns and one interception. He also lost a fumble on a fourth-down strip-sack against Chicago. Sanders went 15-of-22 for 153 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions. Sanders had the slightly better completion rate. That's about as close to a statistical draw as you can get in a quarterback competition.

Of course, the comparison wasn't that simple.

Watson started the opener against Chicago and spent the first half with more of Cleveland's front-line offense. He completed 11 of 15 passes for 126 yards and watched rookie KC Concepcion finish the Browns' only touchdown drive with a jet sweep. There were some operational issues and the strip-sack, but overall, it was a decent return for a quarterback playing his first game in nearly two years.

Sanders came in with the backups and went 6-of-11 for 79 yards and an interception. A week later, the roles flipped. Sanders started against Buffalo, completed nine of 11 passes for 74 yards, threw a touchdown and an interception, and then Watson went 5-of-12 for 36 yards and a pick while playing with guys much closer to the cut line.

That last image was the ugly one. Watson couldn't get the offense into the end zone and heard boos after the interception. He finished the preseason looking nothing like a quarterback who had just won the job.

Monken still said he felt Watson had the edge before the Buffalo game, then went back through everything with his staff before making the decision official. So the Browns didn't watch four preseason quarters and blindly pick the quarterback with the worse stat line. They also evaluated months of practices we didn't see, the joint work against Buffalo, and how each quarterback handled the daily grind of installing a new offense.

Watson's experience probably showed up more in those settings than it did against backups.

Monken said early in camp that Watson had a better feel for the operation because of his time in the league. That's not the most exciting advantage, but it's a real one. Watson's started 72 NFL games. Sanders has only started seven. When this offense has finished last in scoring over the past two seasons and is learning another new system, the quarterback who gets everyone lined up and keeps things moving has value.

The scheme also gives Cleveland a reason to believe Watson could look different from the quarterback they saw in 2024. Monken spent the last three seasons coordinating Lamar Jackson in Baltimore and has already worked designed quarterback runs into Watson's camp reps.

Nobody should confuse Watson with Jackson, especially after two surgeries on the same Achilles. Still, Monken's offense can give Watson defined throws, movement, and a run-game structure that doesn't ask him to recreate the slow, broken offense Kevin Stefanski spent two years trying to fix on the fly.

Sanders didn't exactly force Cleveland's hand, either.

His rookie year he threw for 1,400 yards, seven touchdowns, 10 interceptions, a 56.6% completion rate, and a 68.1 passer rating. He went 3-4 as a starter and showed enough playmaking to keep the conversation going, including a 364-yard, four-touchdown performance against Tennessee. But the full picture was still really rough. He held the ball and took 23 sacks on 235 dropbacks.

PFF graded Sanders 42nd among 43 qualified quarterbacks. He threw more turnover-worthy passes than big-time throws. This wasn't a choice between Watson and a young quarterback who had already proven he belonged. It was a choice between a veteran the league hasn't seen play winning football in years and a second-year passer who looked overwhelmed plenty of times when Cleveland finally gave him the job.

That's why the decision can make sense from a football standpoint. Monken may believe Watson can run the offense more consistently right now while Sanders keeps developing, then turn to the younger quarterback later if Watson falls apart.

The Browns Keep Ignoring The Signs

A majority of the time, keeping these types of decisions strictly about football and nothing else is the right move. This was one of the rare times when it should've been about more than what happens on the field. 

After the ugly preseason outing against Buffalo, Watson was booed pretty heavily by Cleveland fans. That reaction wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t just about one bad throw. This fanbase has spent years telling the organization exactly how they feel about Watson as a player and as a person.

The Browns heard it and started him anyway.

Watson’s postgame press conference only made the decision harder to defend. Asked about the boos, he said:

I think the whole world knows it has nothing to do with the performance. It's a little bit more personal than that. So I think that's a disrespectful thing.

He was right about one part. It is personal.

That isn’t an unfair or irrational response from Browns fans. Watson coming to town was never just about football. The Browns traded three first-round picks and gave him a five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract while he faced accusations of sexual misconduct from more than 20 women. The NFL suspended him for 11 games and fined him $5 million.

Cleveland decided all of that could be separated from the quarterback.

The fans never bought that.

They also watched Watson become one of the worst and highest-paid quarterbacks in the league. He’s 9-10 as Cleveland’s starter, with 3,365 passing yards, 19 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and an 80.7 passer rating. He’s never played more than seven games in a Browns season, never thrown for 1,200 yards in one, and never started a playoff game for the franchise.

His 2024 season was especially hard to defend. Watson went 1-6, averaged 5.3 yards per attempt, and took 33 sacks in seven games. Cleveland averaged 15.6 points in his starts. His minus-0.21 EPA per dropback ranked 55th, and his 34.8% success rate ranked 58th, according to nfelo’s 2024 quarterback data.

So when Watson said the boos had nothing to do with performance, he was lying to himself.

The fans were angry about everything. They were angry about the allegations, the suspension, the contract, the draft picks, the injuries, the lost seasons, and** the bottom-tier quarterback play**.

He also brought up the last time he played at Cleveland Browns Stadium, when he tore his Achilles in 2024.

That same fanbase, they cheered when I got hurt. So what does that have to do with anything about performance?

It's really all about how completely this relationship has fallen apart.

Fans cheering an injury is ugly. It’s also a sign that Watson isn’t just unpopular. A large portion of the fanbase doesn’t want him representing the franchise at all. The Browns can’t pretend this is normal quarterback criticism and then act surprised when the stadium turns against them.

Watson was asked whether he regretted coming to Cleveland. He took the opportunity to dig an even deeper hole for himself:

I don't regret anything in my life. I think the Lord put me through situations for a reason, so I don't regret anything at all.

That answer came across as a complete lack of self-awareness. Given the accusations and the collapse of the Browns since he showed up, this was about the last thing Cleveland fans wanted to hear.

That’s the wild part of this decision. Cleveland didn’t just choose the quarterback they thought was slightly better in practice. They chose to ignore the people who have to watch, pay for, and emotionally invest in the team.

The Browns aren’t obligated to let fans pick the starting quarterback. But they should’ve recognized that Watson’s presence has become corrosive to the relationship between the team and their fans.

The contract doesn’t require Watson to play. The draft picks are already gone. The money's guaranteed whether he starts 17 games, holds a clipboard, or never dresses. Cleveland can’t recover the trade, but they can stop letting that trade dictate every decision that comes after it.

This Could Be Over Before Cleveland Gets Home

The Browns are opening on the road in Jacksonville, then heading to Tampa Bay before finally getting home against Carolina on Sept. 27. That gives Watson two pretty tough road games before he has to face the music in Cleveland.

And honestly, part of me thinks this is mostly about making the transition easier.

Monken can start with the veteran, let Watson take those two road games, and then go to the young guy if things aren't going well. It’s a lot easier to move from Watson to Sanders than it is to start Sanders, struggle right away, and then decide you need to go back to Watson. If Watson looks awful in Jacksonville and Tampa Bay, Sanders has a clean landing spot in Week 3, at home, against the Panthers.

That might be the plan here. Give Watson the first shot, but don’t pretend the first shot has to turn into the whole season.

For all Watson’s complaining after the game, Monken offered a much simpler answer:

You don’t want to get booed? Play good football.

That’s really the entire season for him now.

Watson isn’t going to get the normal patience of a quarterback learning a new offense. A bad interception will be proof the Browns chose the wrong guy. A missed open receiver will turn into another discussion about Sanders. A three-and-out at home will bring back the trade, the allegations, the suspension, the injuries, and every restructure that kept the bill moving into another year.

That may feel unfair to Watson on a snap-to-snap level. It’s also the environment Cleveland created when they made him the most protected player in football before he even earned the city’s trust.

The Browns can’t ask fans to grade only the football now.

There’s a real development argument for keeping Sanders on the bench. His rookie numbers were bad, his processing still needs work, and Monken may be able to clean up some of his habits without every lesson coming on Sundays. Throwing him into another unstable offense just because he’s younger wouldn’t automatically be progress.

But there’s also an evaluation clock running. Sanders is 24 and is still one of the few possible long-term answers already in the building. Every Watson start is one fewer chance to learn whether those flashes can become something steady.

The Browns have to be honest about the standard. Watson shouldn’t keep the job because he’s competitive or slightly cleaner operationally. He needs to make the offense meaningfully better. He needs to create explosive plays while also keeping the Browns out of third-and-long.

Anything less should open the door quickly.

All stats courtesy of NFL Pro.

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