Deshaun Watson has a very good chance to become the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns again, something hardly anyone saw coming over the past two years. If media reports are to be believed, the veteran may already have a significant edge in the competition with Shedeur Sanders.
This offseason, the door has been left wide open by head coach Todd Monken and general manager Andrew Berry for Watson to regain the job he last held in the 2024 season. Even owner Jimmy Haslam, who has called the Browns’ 2022 trade for Watson a “big swing and miss,” seems to be fully on board with the idea.
NFL insider Jeremy Fowler of ESPN recently revealed what he’s hearing about Watson, saying the quarterback “will be a factor” in the Browns’ upcoming offseason team activities.
“[Deshaun Watson] will be a factor in OTAs when they start going with first-team reps, second-team reps,” Fowler said on SportsCenter, via Bleacher Report. “So, he’s been a factor already on the practice field. I’m told he’s hit it off with Todd Monken, who’s got an offensive concept, some elements that Watson has run in the past and been his best at; a little bit of a departure from what they were running with Kevin Stefanski.”
Watson has not played in an NFL game since October 2024, when an Achilles injury ended his third season as Cleveland’s starter. He sat out all of last season after a setback during his recovery.
That allowed Sanders, a fifth-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, to compete with Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, and fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel for the starting job in the preseason last year, though many of Sanders’ supporters did not believe he was given a fair chance by former head coach Stefanski. Nevertheless, Sanders did wind up starting the final seven games of last season after Pickett and Flacco were traded and Gabriel suffered a concussion.
That led some to believe that Sanders would at least enter the offseason as the incumbent starter, but Monken was very quick to declare that would not be the case and the job would be there for the taking. It still did not seem like Watson would be in those plans until momentum started growing, particularly after his “phenomenal” performance at a recent voluntary minicamp.
If Watson were to become the Browns’ quarterback and succeed, it would be a reclamation story that would rival anything the NFL has seen in its recent history.
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