Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken is facing his first major decision as an NFL head coach, and it is one that only has a wrong answer.
With the Browns just days away from the final game of the preseason and three weeks away from the season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the expectation was that Monken would make a decision today. But Monken decided to kick the can down the road for at least one more day as he now “anticipates” naming a starter on Monday.
Monken also said that he is
focused on who gives the team the best chance to win in Week 1, and he will worry about the rest of the season after that.
In truth, wherever Monken turns in determining the starter, the options are all bad:
- Deshaun Watson, who has not been good since 2020, has been a polarizing figure since joining the Browns in 2022 and seemingly put the final nail in the coffin after a poor performance and bizarre post-game press conference on Saturday.
- Shedeur Sanders, the other contender for the starter’s role, is coming off one of the worst rookie seasons in the past 25 years. His key selling point is that he is not Deshaun Watson.
- Dillon Gabriel, who played just as poorly as Sanders as a rookie and is disliked by fans almost as much as Watson.
- Taylen Green, a rookie sixth-round pick who is not ready to be a starter at the NFL level.
So what should Monken do?
If he goes with Watson, the backlash from the fans will be brutal. But with the Browns playing their first two games on the road, the anger from the home fans will at least be delayed until Week 3.
There is also the outside possibility that Watson plays well enough, or at least not horribly, and the Browns take the field for the home opener with a 2-0 record, which would pacify the fans a little bit.
If he goes with Sanders, it will be better received by the fans, but there is not another team in the NFL that would hand the starter’s job to Sanders. His improvement is only in comparison to how bad he was as a rookie, so that context needs to be taken into the decision.
But Sanders does represent the safe choice from a PR standpoint, and it is not as if any other team is beating down the door to pry Watson away from the Browns. Start Sanders, and even if the Browns open the season 0-2, there will still be some grace given to the team.
Starting Sanders would also finally put to rest all the excuses about why he played so poorly, as he will have had several weeks of practice with the first-team offense and will have all the starters in the huddle when he takes the field in Week 1.
From an on-field perspective, the Browns are going to struggle no matter who the quarterback is, as neither Watson nor Sanders has shown enough so far to shout “I’m QB1.”
From an off-the-field perspective, Sanders is the call 100 times out of 100. Watson’s time in Cleveland is done after this season, and there is no upside to naming him the starter.
It’s a big decision, and Monken is running out of time to make it.
But the reality is, the odds that the starter in Week 1 will still be the starter in Week 18 are very low, so the time has come for Monken to pick someone and start focusing on Week 1 and the Jaguars.
