Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson suffers major achilles injury in game against the Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson suffered an achilles injury during the Cincinnati Bengals game. Watson was carted off the field, he presumably tore his achilles and will be out for the season. Players from both teams crowded around Watson and wished him well before he was driven off.
Watson struggled in his first half against the Bengals. He was coming into his own near the end of the second quarter. Watson was evading pressure and making plays out of structure. He led the Browns into the Bengals’ side of the field before his injury.
Dorian Thompson-Robinson was promoted to the second string before the game. The Browns shocked fans making Jameis Winston a healthy scratch. The move has worked well so far.
Thompson-Robinson delivered a beautiful back shoulder throw to Cedric Tillman which resulted in a defensive pass interference penalty in the end zone. The ball was placed at the one-yard line, and Nick Chubb scored his first touchdown of the season, four plays later. The Browns are losing to the Bengals 6-7 at the end of the first half.
As Deshaun Watson, once accused by more than 20 women of sexual misconduct in what the NFL would later characterize as “predatory behavior,” turns in one of the worst-quarterbacked seasons in league history, talks about benching the Cleveland Brown have only started to heat up.
I think it’s safe to say that if Browns fans had a say in the Watson starter situation, he probably would’ve been on the bench a long time ago. Alas, they’ll probably have to wait a while before Stefanski (or Browns ownership) actually pulls the plug.
While it was all explosive cheers for the return of star running back Nick Chubb, it was the opposite reaction for the starting quarterback. As the PA announced Watson as the starting quarterback in offensive introductions, the crowd at Huntington Bank Field did not hold back on him and what they have thought of his play this season.
There are also reports that Watson could have a short leash in this Week 7 game against the Cincinnati Bengals with Dorian Thompson-Robinson serving as his backup. Thus far through six games, Watson ranks dead last in a plethora of statistical categories, so it is easy to see how his leash could be shrinking.
Will he make it through this game against their in-state rival?
One report indicates the Browns may be ready to see what they have in Dorian Thompson-Robinson
The Cleveland Browns are reportedly getting fed up with quarterback Deshaun Watson and will give him a short leash against the Cincinnati Bengals.
After naming Dorian Thompson-Robinson the backup quarterback for this game against their AFC North foe, the Browns have reportedly told the second-year gunslinger to be ready. The OBR’s Brad Stainbrook has reported that Watson will have a short leash against the Bengals and the Browns could turn to Thompson-Robinson with their season already effectively over.
Source: #Browns QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson was told to be extra prepared heading forward. He’ll now serve as QB2.
With two years left on his contract, it makes sense for the Browns to see if Thompson-Robinson can be a backup quarterback and spot starter for them if they have to go out and get a new quarterback. They may even need to start the second-year quarterback in 2025 before drafting the quarterback of the future in 2026 once Watson comes off the books.
Regardless, it seems like the time as the starting quarterback in Cleveland are numbered for Watson.
Super Bowl-winning and former Cleveland Browns offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz had some strong opinions on how the franchise is handling its quarterback situation.
Browns starting quarterback Deshaun Watson has struggled to return to his former Pro Bowl self and is putting the offense in a dismantling position. As a former offensive tackle of the franchise who was here through some very difficult years, Schwartz had some thoughts on the Browns sticking with Watson as their starting quarterback.
Even though Cleveland is struggling to win games, Schwartz believes that leaving Watson in is a complete insult to some of the veteran Browns players. He believes that even though they are struggling, keeping Deshaun Watson at quarterback is an acceptance of failure that is disrespectful to other players on the team.
It’s incredibly shitty to do this to the rest of the team. Joel Bitonio is out there every week playing through who knows what and has to wreck his body when they have no chance of being good b/c of the QB. Myles Garrett is playing in pain every week. Feel for everyone else there https://t.co/jswBSCNoP8
Those like Joel Bitonio, Charlie Hughlett, and others, have been on much worse rosters that have shown more heart than this talented Browns team. Schwartz’s words have volume as a former Cleveland Browns player, but we’ll see if they amount to any decisions by the organization in the long run.
Even after reaching a settlement in his latest lawsuit, the Browns’ quarterback is still under league investigation
The Cleveland Browns have been in the news quite a bit today. First, it was the trade of wide receiver Amari Cooper, and now it has been reported that quarterback Deshaun Watson is still under NFL investigation.
Named in a new lawsuit in September, Watson and his legal team settled the lawsuit privately and confidentially. According to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, however, the NFL is still investigating the quarterback despite the settlement being reached.
If Watson is suspended by the NFL, it would void out the rest of the guaranteed money in his fully guaranteed contract with the Browns. This means the Browns could get out of the contract, taking on just the dead money of the base salary they have already restructured and converted into a bonus.
It is no surprise to anyone that Watson has been bad. He currently sits among the bottom of the barrel of NFL quarterbacks, ranking last in a handful of metrics through six weeks. If the Browns get an out, you can assume it will be taken quickly.
So now we wait and see what the NFL rules in this case against Watson.
The Cleveland Browns traded wide receiver Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills on Tuesday afternoon, but he may have taken a shot at quarterback Deshaun Watson on his way out.
Cooper is experiencing a career-worst start to his career, headlined by his league-leading nine drops through six games. Leading up to the trade, Cooper racked up just 250 yards and two touchdowns on 24 catches with the Browns.
A big part of that lack of production inevitably also falls onto the struggles of Watson, who has been among the league’s worst in various metrics this season. And Cooper may have been referencing that when he posted to his Instagram, “Move or rust” after the trade was finalized.
Rust, of course, has been a common phrase that has almost become ingrained into the minds of those who follow the Browns. It has been used time and time again to absolve Watson of his struggles since the blockbuster trade brought him to Cleveland. In a three-word post, that is one of the words that Cooper chose to use to sum up the trade.
The chances would appear slim that this was an unintentional use of the word in this instance.
The Cleveland Browns and head coach Kevin Stefanski are faced with some of the worst quarterback play in the NFL coming from the arm of Deshaun Watson.
Watson is dead last in Expected Points Added per game, dead last in success rate, 27th in completion percentage, dead last in sacks taken by a country mile, and dead last in QBR.
Yet when asked about the possibility of turning the football over to Jameis Winston, Stefanski reiterated his commitment to Watson:
“I think Deshaun (Watson) gives us the best chance to win, continues to give us the best chance to win, and we need to play really good offensive football at his position and really at every position to be successful on Sunday.”
Stefanski also made a point to reiterate that any football decision made is his to make after being asked if the ownership group was forcing him to play their $230 million quarterback. Could Stefanski be bonded to secrecy? Perhaps.
But if he’s not, and he is truly deciding to play Watson week in and week out despite bottom-three quarterback play, then the two-time NFL Coach of the Year has tied his anchor to a sinking ship.
The Browns cannot keep playing Deshaun Watson and acting like it’s a good idea.
The Cleveland Browns seem perfectly content with torpedoing the 2024 season if sticking with quarterback Deshaun Watson is really the team’s plan.
That might seem dramatic, but Cleveland refusing to bench Watson even after his generationally bad play on the football field feels like an act of defiance against football logic and reason.
Sure, the team is going to take a punch to the stomach whenever it does decide to cut ties with the quarterback. That much is certain. However, that shouldn’t dictate how the Browns go about trying to field a winning product.
Cleveland coach Kevin Stefanski’s Monday argument that Watson “gives us the best chance to win” (per CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones) feels like jaw-dropping defiance to the glaring truths facing this team.
It feels like Stefanski is stuck giving the company line from team ownership, a group horrified at publicly admitting that trading the farm for such a morally compromised, injury-prone player like Watson and giving said player a once-in-a-lifetime contract was a really, really, really bad idea.
There are tons of football reasons you could use to justify why benching Watson is the right move for Cleveland. He is playing like one of the worst quarterbacks, if not the worst quarterback, in the NFL right now. The Browns are slipping further and further into the basement of the AFC North, too.
Remember: this Cleveland team made the playoffs last season with Joe Flacco playing quarterback. To argue that the Browns should throw this season on the wood stack and let it burn just to keep from admitting the Watson move was an all-time failure feels absolutely ridiculous. It risks losing the locker room, and it risks an empty Huntington Bank Field on Sundays. It’s a selfish move by a team whose historically losing ways are only predestined to the decisions made by those in charge.
The team has two quarterbacks, Jameis Winston and Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who would probably play better than Watson right now. Heck, even a free agent like Ryan Tannehill would probably do a much better job than what Watson is capable of putting on the field. Why should this Browns team pay the price of an unworkable quarterback tanking any chance Cleveland has at making anything from this season matter?
The only thing Watson give Cleveland the best chance of doing is picking first overall in the 2025 NFL Draft. At that point, we’re guessing team ownership has swallowed a very large pill by cutting its losses with Watson and is preparing to watch the team draft the quarterback of the future.
It’s only a matter of time before Cleveland is forced to hit the reset button as the chickens finally come to roost on the disaster that was the Watson trade. Whether the team decides to press that button now or in the offseason is up to debate. If the team refuses to cut Watson even by next offseason, buying a season ticket package for this football team should come with a surgeon general’s warning.
Whether Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry will be there to see any of this through is another question for another day. For now, Stefanski is trapped in giving unbelievable answers to obvious questions.
Until the Browns take Watson off the field for good, that’s life in Cleveland, a rudderless vessel hit by a cannonball, led by unconvincing captains ignoring the rush of water at their feet. Don’t blame the crew when they jump ship.
The Browns can’t trade Watson. They probably can’t cut him until 2026 — and even then, it’s a rough scene.
The Cleveland Browns thought they knew what they were getting into when they traded for Deshaun Watson. They knew about more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct and what the NFL would later describe as “predatory behavior.” They also knew Houston officials declined to press charges in the matter and Watson was one of 2020’s best quarterbacks.
So, off-field exploits be damned, the Browns outbid most of the NFC South and shipped three first round picks, a third round selection and two fourth-rounders for a player team owner Jimmy Haslam deemed a franchise savior. They then handed him a fully guaranteed $230 million contract extension — an unprecedented amount that remains the largest fully guaranteed deal in league history. In that extension was language that chopped his 2022 base salary down to just $1 million, mitigating the fines related to the 11-game suspension the NFL levied before Watson could play a snap in Cleveland.
Watson is 9-9 as the Browns’ starting quarterback, which isn’t too bad against the backdrop of general Cleveland quarterbacking. That number looks a lot worse when you consider the team has played 40 games since acquiring him. And it looks absolutely wretched when you consider the defense he’s wasted en route to the least efficient start to any season this millennium.
Jamarcus Russell lost -63.8 total EPA on dropbacks in Weeks 1-6 in 2009.
It was the record low since at least 2000 before Deshaun Watson (-66.2) this season. https://t.co/nAMsZdfxRe
It’s impossible to truly illustrate how ineffective Watson has been. But if you need to see it in action, just understand Sunday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles marked the second straight week the quarterback escaped a clear interception because the two defenders he failed to clock on a badly thrown pass mashed into each other.
There are mitigating factors at play. Cleveland’s offense has been without Nick Chubb, but Jerome Ford is averaging better than five yards per carry as the team’s fill-in lead back. Its offensive line play has been regrettable, but Watson’s 40 percent pressure rate is five points lower than his 2018 pressure rate as a Houston Texan — a season in which he threw 26 touchdowns to nine interceptions, led his team to 11 wins and was named a Pro Bowler. The circumstances aren’t great, but he’s been much better despite worse.
This is all tremendous for schadenfreude but terrible for the Cleveland Browns. The team is 1-5 and refuses to bench the high paid quarterback who keeps leading his team to new cliffs from which to plummet. Each post-loss press conference suggests the only way out is through, only for Watson to spelunk deeper and deeper into an abyss light hardly penetrates.
The simplest solution would be to bench a player who’s been worse than Jamarcus by-god Russell. The Browns signed Jameis Winston for this very reason. But Winston remains relegated to garbage time for the foreseeable future because Cleveland is trying to save a face it no longer has. Thanks to that — and the hasty decision making that led Watson to Ohio — it’s nearly impossible to offload the NFL’s least valuable player.
Here’s what the Browns have to contend with when it comes to their albatross quarterback.
Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
Watson has unmovable dead salary cap hits of $172 million and $99.7 million the next two seasons
Watson’s massive extension, restructured this offseason to free up 2024 cap space that has so far gone untouched — Cleveland is $45 million under this year’s $255.4 million spending limit, second-most in the league per Over the Cap — shuffled some of his obligations around. The fact remains, however; this is a deal the Browns cannot escape in 2024. Or 2025. And 2026 is a very difficult sell.
Here’s how much Watson would take up in dead salary cap commitments if released any of the next three offseasons before June 1.
2025: $172,734,000
2026: $99,799,000
2027: $26,864,000
Cutting Watson next spring would eat up 63 percent of 2025’s estimated salary cap for a player who wouldn’t play a snap for the team. It would leave an average of $1.88 million in salary for the 53 players who remained. The league’s minimum is currently a shade under $800,000. Designating him a post-June 1 release knocks that number down to $119.9 million, which is better but still very, very bad.
2026 may be the exit year for Cleveland. The current record for largest dead cap hit is the $85 million the Denver Broncos ate to get rid of Russell Wilson. Watson’s near $100 million in commitments would top that, but might be acceptable for a team in dire need of moving forward. Per Over the Cap, things don’t get sunnier after June 1 — his dead cap number actually jumps to $118.9 million if he’s pegged for a summer release in 2026.
Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
A trade is technically an option. It’s extremely unlikely
Seven years ago, the Browns net a second round pick by taking Brock Osweiler’s onerous contract off the Texans’ hands. But Osweiler had three years remaining on his contract at an average cost of $18 million annually — roughly 10.7 percent of the league’s $167 million salary cap in 2017. Only $37 million of his $72 million contract was guaranteed. Cleveland released him in the preseason and ate $16 million in the process, but it was a palatable decision.
Watson, on the other hand, is set to take up nearly 23 percent of his team’s salary cap space in 2025. An acquiring team wouldn’t take that full hit, but would still have to dedicate $46 million in space to the league’s worst quarterback in a deal. Unless the Browns are willing to ship out more first round picks just to get rid of Watson — and they really, truly, should not — the man is untradable.
Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
The hidden cost is losing a two-time NFL Coach of the Year because his quarterback is garbage to the core and cannot be benched
Kevin Stefanski was the NFL’s coach of the year in 2020 when he pushed Baker Mayfield to the franchise’s first postseason win since 1994. He earned a second trophy in 2023 when his Browns rallied around Joe Flacco in an 11-win season after Watson was injured in Week 6.
Stefanski is 38-35 in the regular season as Cleveland’s head coach. He is the first Browns coach since Marty Schottenheimer to have a winning record. He is unlikely to remain that way if Watson remains his starting quarterback.
Given his ability to win with other passers, you’d think Stefanski would be open to a change. One of the league’s more respected head coaches wouldn’t purposefully handicap himself each week, which suggests the edict to keep Watson in the lineup comes from higher up. If Haslam wants his prized quarterback as the starter no matter what and there’s no easy way to escape Watson’s financial commitments, the easier decision here would be to fire his fifth-year head coach and install someone he thinks can fix a broken quarterback.
Of course, the most likely savior is probably the guy who guided Baker Mayfield to a postseason win one season after he threw 21 interceptions and made it back to the playoffs with a 38-year-old Joe Flacco signed off the street in November. Unfortunately, the Browns do not operate on sensibility or logic. They are an engine powered by stubbornness, frustration and a lack of foresight.
This is all to say some lucky team could wind up interviewing Stefanski for a job next January, where he’d be given a chance to make Trevor Lawrence a franchise quarterback once more or guide Aaron Rodgers to one last Super Bowl run. Watson is dragging down everything about Cleveland, from failing to create a cohesive offense to overtaxing a tired defense to teaching his head coach the definition of insanity.
That’s the on-field cost of keeping Deshaun Watson. Now the Browns have to weigh it against the actual, very real financial cost of getting rid of the league’s worst starting quarterback.
