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.
https://twitter.com/jjones9/status/1845880375429529731
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.
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