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What Should the Cleveland Browns Do With Deshaun Watson?

Can Anybody Tell the Cleveland Browns the Time to Give Up on the Deshaun Watson Experience Is Here?

The Browns Shouldn’t Count On Watson for 2025

If you were offered a contract with $230 million guaranteed to go into your pocket, even if without knowing it, your future would be ridden with half-ass performances and no credibility whatsoever, managing to piss off an entire fanbase along the way, would you take it?

If you’re Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, the answer is yes, please, and thank you!

What Should the Cleveland Browns Do With Deshaun Watson?
Deshaun Watson #4 of the Cleveland Browns | Nick Cammett/Getty Images/AFP

After three seasons with only 19 appearances and 17 full games played due to injuries to account for, on January 10th, senior NFL news reporter Ian Rapoport put the apparent final nail in the Browns/Watson relationship coffin, announcing that Watson would most likely be missing out the 2025 season after rupturing his Achilles once again, the same one he had ruptured three months earlier.


So, is it even worth it to act surprised? Were we, and when I say we, I mean every single NFL fan, expert, player, coach, manager, and stadium beer seller, the only ones to notice that Cleveland has continued to shoot itself in the feet constantly for not understanding that their best road is to dump Watson and start over?

Or should we all just roll out gigantic “I told you so!” signs to plaster all over the Browns’ executive offices?

 

 


Seriously Cleveland, this is low, even for you. And you guys had Johnny Manziel at one point.

 

Watson Is Out of Supporters in Cleveland

Imagine I give you $10 to go out around Cleveland and ask Browns fans what they think of Watson and the 2022 trade that brought him to Ohio from the Houston Texans. If you had to place betting odds on how long it would take people to flip out and start cursing the life out of Watson and the Browns?

Furthermore, how long would it take them to tell you Deshaun Watson’s contract and trade is one of the worst trades in NFL history?

A minute? Thirty seconds?


But only for the Browns though. As far as the Texans are concerned, they should send Watson a gift basket or something for everything his departure has meant for the team.


What initially seemed like another piece for NFL rumors fans to maul over has started taking more and more shape following the latest Watson injury news. Practically nobody within the Browns’ inner circle, including executives, players, and coaches, has any support left to give Watson.

In short terms, nobody wants him in Cleveland anymore, and are counting down the minutes until the plug is finally pulled and the once successful passer gets a well-deserved kick out of Ohio.


Can you blame them though? This is a player who was supposed to turn the Browns from a joke into an NFL picks and predictions favorite. Talks about title contention even started floating around Cleveland, all based on the hopes that Watson was bound to be the team’s new messiah on offense.

Instead of finding a way to have him fit in and create a culture and program where his talents could be used to the greatest extent, the Browns laid over and gave in to every single one of Watson’s desires. He didn’t like former offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt. So what did the Browns do? They fired him and hired Ken Dorsey, who is also not with the team anymore.

While other players were called out for in-game mistakes by coach Kevin Stefanski, Watson never got that treatment. Why? Who knows. But if I’m a part of a team in which certain players get preferential treatment like that, especially when it comes to being held accountable for not just underperforming but sucking in general throughout the team’s NFL schedule, week in and week out, I would also be one of the first people to turn my back against the coach’s pet. Watson, in Cleveland’s case.

 

Drafting a QB Should Be Atop Cleveland’s Priorities

Holding the 2nd pick in the upcoming 2025 NFL draft, the stakes are as high as ever to see what Cleveland does with said pick. It’s evident that targeting a passer needs to be the main priority. In my first NFL mock draft of the season, I even went as far as to take the Browns going for Shedeur Sanders.

Why? Because even if Sanders ends up struggling to find his initial pace in the league with a team like the Browns, his upside is much more promising than anything Watson can offer the team.


And if it’s not Sanders? Going after Jalen Milroe, a QB known and loved by current OC Tommy Rees, with whom Milroe spent some time back in Alabama, could make a lot of sense.


Until then though, I guess there’s nothing more to do than wait and see if the Browns can manage to get their heads out of their asses and finally do the two most important things to try and save face next season. One, get rid of Watson once and for all, and two draft a new QB.

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