Deshaun Watson is the Browns starting QB, for worse and for worse

CLEVELAND, OHIO - AUGUST 22: Deshaun Watson #4 of the Cleveland Browns walks off the field after the team's 31-7 loss to the Buffalo Bills in a preseason game against the at Huntington Bank Field on August 22, 2026 in Cleveland, Ohio. | Getty Images Nobody is more gifted at making Browns fans unhappy than the Cleveland Browns. The team announced Deshaun Watson as their starting quarterback on Monday, less than 48 hours after he was booed off the field in preseason and subsequently went on a “poor me” rant to the media about how the fans are unfair to him. In any normal organization an adult would step in and say “we can’t start Deshaun,” but we know the Browns aren’t normal. #Browns QB Deshaun Watson on being booed by fans today. "It has nothing to do about the performance. It's a little bit [more] personal than that. It's a disrespectful thing." "Last time I played on this field, I tore my Achilles. And that same fan base cheered when I got hurt." pic.twitter.com/yB1g0OznZf — Camryn Justice (@camijustice) August 22, 2026 Watson went 5-for-12 for 36 yards and an interception in Cleveland’s 31-7 loss to the Bills, and while it’s only preseason, the performance was a continuation of the mediocrity fans had seen from Watson in training camp. Not only had the veteran done nothing to separate himself from the pack, but starting him made very little football sense in a functionally dead season like this one, where the Browns aren’t expected to contend for anything in the AFC North or beyond. Had the team picked Shedeur Sanders or even Dillon Gabriel, at least that would be an acknowledgement that the franchise wanted to move forward and see what they could achieve in a new direction. The two second-year quarterbacks are still unknown quantities when it comes to their NFL experience, and getting reps out of them would be infinitely better than trotting out Watson and losing 12+ games anyway. Instead this reeks of an admission that the front office botched the 2025 NFL Draft when it came to quarterback evaluation, and are now course-correcting back to the proven (albeit awful) option they already know. What makes the Watson announcement so weird is that it came just a day after head coach Todd Monken took a thinly-veiled shot at Watson whining about being booed. Todd Monken Absolutely COOKED Deshaun Watson In His Press Conference Yesterday: “How does it feel to get boo’ed? It sucks, I don’t want to get boo’ed. But it comes with the territory, you don’t want to get boo’ed, let’s play good football. Let’s play good at quarterback.” pic.twitter.com/NrICfAob3W — SM Highlights (@SMHighlights1) August 23, 2026 The Browns will justify the move by saying what every single coach says when they name a starting quarterback: “___ gives us the best chance to win.” The issue for the Browns is that their focus, their future, is about so much more than winning football games in 2026. That’s an issue is isolation, but it comes from pervasive organizational issues the franchise hasn’t been able to fix, really since they re-debuted in 1999. On a consistent basis the Browns have looked for the unsatisying win, the moral victory — without ever really having an eye on developing for the future. Sure, in the strictest terms Watson very well could give the Browns “the best chance to win,” but it’s cold comfort going from 3-14 to 5-12 when it means the football team as a whole can’t get any better. What we’ve seen from Watson in recent years is a quarterback who plays scared. He’s routinely nervous in the pocket when it comes to pushing the ball downfield, and he only seems comfortable making throws with fewer than 10 air yards. When he does throw deep there’s dramatic inaccuracy. This football team can’t develop K.C. Concepcion or Denzel Boston with Watson at quarterback, they can’t adequately leverage the phenomenal promise of Quinshon Judkins. Throwing Watson under center is tantamount to pressing pause in the middle of a movie, and waiting six months before letting it play again. This could be an intelligent plan if the long-term goal for Cleveland is to punt on 2026, set their sights on Dante Moore or Arch Manning in the 2027 NFL Draft, and accept that this is going to be a lost season — but they’re not really doing that. Instead, they’re going to make the legendary mistake of winning enough absolutely pointless games with Watson under center that they’ll end up drafting outside the Top 3, not be able to get the QB they need, and then be forced to throw draft capital at a team to move up and get their guy. A move like this isn’t made out of what’s good for the franchise, it’s made out of desperation. It’s made by a first-year head coach desperate not to be a one-and-done guy, by a GM in Andrew Berry terrified that this is his last rodeo, by an owner who still wants to be proven right when he stumped for Watson to earn the most ridiculous contract in NFL history. Three bad actors who don’t want what’s best for the Cleveland Browns, but themselves — and that’s a damn shame. The Browns have one of the NFL’s best fanbases, and they deserve better.

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