The Cleveland Browns have a clear setup for the quarterback position when the season opens on September 7 against the Cincinnati Bengals.
- Veteran Joe Flacco is the starter due to a combination of having made 191 starts in the NFL, being familiar with head coach Kevin Stefanski’s offense, and having survived training camp and the preseason without sustaining an injury.
- Rookie Dillon Gabriel is the solid No. 2 quarterback thanks to experience (63 career starts in college) and demonstrating a solid grasp of Stefanski’s offense throughout the summer.
- Rookie Shedeur Sanders is the developmental No. 3 quarterback who, while showing flashes of talent, still needs time to shake off the demons that plagued him in college.
- Veteran Bailey Zappe is hanging around on the practice squad, filling the role of “oh, crap, everyone else is hurt and we need a semi-functional body to start this week.”
Then, like something from a Victorian-era horror novel, is the specter of Deshaun Watson, who will open the season on the physically unable to perform list after tearing his Achilles tendon twice in the span of a few months.
Throughout the summer, short videos of Watson
engaging in various football-related activities have surfaced on social media. These would then lead to a litany of posts proclaiming how great he looks, how the Browns have not “ruled out” the idea of him playing this fall, and that a “hard decision” is looming on the horizon for a player that still has two years left on his fully guaranteed contract.
The reality is much different, however, as there is no way the Browns can put Watson back on the field ever again.
Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong for Watson and the Browns ever since he arrived in Cleveland. An 11-game suspension by the NFL in 2022. A season-ending shoulder injury in 2023. A season-ending Achilles’ injury in 2024. And some of the worst quarterback play in NFL history.
While general manager Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski will never come out and rip a player in public – what value is there in doing that, after all? – they watch the same games, and they know that putting Watson into a game is a disaster waiting to happen.
So what is the plan for Watson?
Here is how the upcoming season can (should?) play out for the Browns and Watson:
- He is going to miss a minimum of the first four weeks while on the PUP list, according to league rules.
- The Browns then have five weeks to decide if he is healthy enough to start practicing again. Take the full five weeks and then bring him back to practice as the fourth quarterback.
- After three weeks of practice, the Browns have to decide if they want to activate Watson to the 53-man roster or put him on season-ending injured reserve.
- The team is now 12 weeks into the season, it is the beginning of December, and there are just five games remaining.
- If Watson is truly healthy, or if the Browns just don’t want to get into a fight with the players’ union, activate Watson to the 53-man roster. Someone will need to be dropped from the end of the roster, but that is life in the NFL.
- From that point on, simply make him a gameday inactive for the rest of the season. Healthy players are on the inactive list every week, which, again, is life in the NFL.
- Who is going to complain about this? Certainly not the fans.
- If Watson or his agent complains, who is going to be sympathetic to their cause?
It makes for good copy to overcomplicate this situation or create some wild scenario where Watson sees the field again in a Browns uniform. But the reality is so much simpler, and everyone comes out of it fine. The Browns don’t have to deal with a headache or poor quarterback play; Watson keeps cashing paychecks and moves another season away from his latest disastrous season.
As the NFL shows every year, sometimes the best thing for a quarterback is not to play for a season to allow everyone to forget that they were not very good the last time everyone saw them. It’s great that Watson wants to continue to play, rather than grow fat while collecting his salary, but the last thing he or the Browns need is for him to be on the field this fall.
Get through this season, then worry about what to do with Watson next summer.
It really can be that simple, even if we are talking about the Browns, where things rarely go smoothly.
