Chris Simms Makes Eye-Opening Claim About Browns’ QB Competition

The Deshaun Watson versus Shedeur Sanders quarterback competition dominated headlines throughout the offseason, with most national coverage viewing it as a genuinely tight battle right up until Cleveland made its final decision. Chris Simms is now revisiting that entire narrative and suggested the competition may never have been as close as it appeared from the outside.

Simms believes the signs were pointing toward Watson all along.

“What if it wasn’t really that close? I think there’s some inklings you can draw there to sit there and go, you know, maybe it wasn’t. The fact that they didn’t even let Shedeur play with the starters in the preseason game No. 2, which we all thought was shocking. We all thought it was swayed for Deshaun Watson. He’s gonna start, he’s going to be the starter now. Then he didn’t play well and he had the postgame press conference, self-inflicted moves and meltdown there about the reaction he got, and that made us go, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he can’t handle this. Maybe he won’t be the guy.’ But everything up to that point was pointing at it looks like Deshaun’s the starter. Those are the things I think about now in revisionist history and go, ‘Maybe it wasn’t as close as we thought it might be,'” Simms said.

Simms believes that Sanders not receiving reps with Cleveland’s starting offense during the second preseason game was a strong signal the organization had already leaned toward Watson before that decision became official.

The clip also touched on Monken’s own comments about fan reaction to the decision, with the Cleveland head coach making clear that outside noise played no role in how the competition was ultimately decided. That stance lines up with Simms’ broader point, reinforcing the idea that Cleveland’s process was more decisive internally than the shifting public narrative suggested throughout the summer. Whether or not Simms’ theory holds up, it adds an interesting wrinkle to how this competition gets remembered, particularly if Watson’s performance under center this season ends up validating their decision.