Most of the reports involving Deshaun Watson and his performance at quarterback for the Cleveland Browns during their recent workouts have been overwhelmingly positive. The veteran seems to have all of the momentum in the competition against Shedeur Sanders and seems well on his way to reclaiming the starting job he hasn’t held since early in the 2024 season.
However, some dissenters remain, most notably the large legion of fans and analysts who support Sanders and believe he is not getting a fair chance to show that he is really the Browns’ franchise quarterback. It has created a divide that will not go away until one of them is off the team for good.
Insider Zac Jackson of The Athletic says the Browns’ current QB plan makes “zero sense,” based on Watson’s long history of failure since arriving in 2022.
“This is one of the dangers of judging quarterbacks based on social media clips. When we see Shedeur throw short, which we’ve mostly seen, that might be a successful play judged by the coaches. Deshaun looks fluid. He looks healthy and fresh, and he should. For every highlight throw, and there were a handful, he is flat out missing guys. The reason the Browns are where they are and the reason we have to talk about maybe trading Myles Garrett is because the Deshaun Watson thing has been a grand failure, and for them to go back to it makes zero sense to me,” Jackson said.
Not only does this quarterback conundrum have the Browns in a difficult spot, both now and moving forward, but it is also creating an interesting dynamic among the reporters who cover the team. Insider Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, who has been on the beat for more than 30 years, has been an unabashed supporter of Watson so far, saying he will be the choice because the team needs to win now.
However, that blatantly ignores the idea that the Browns would be better off finding out what they have in Sanders than allowing Watson to retake the job, which he arguably has been terrible at whenever he’s had it. If he somehow does play well, which remains to be seen, he may be more likely to leave as a free agent after this season than to give the Browns the long-term solution they crave.
Ultimately, Cleveland may just move on from both Watson and Sanders, with the 2027 NFL Draft expected to provide multiple quarterback opportunities, potentially including coveted prospect Arch Manning. That would make all this current back-and-forth seem silly in hindsight.
But until then, this quarterback battle is front and center for the Browns, and no one really knows how it’s all going to play out.
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