RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. The Cleveland Browns continue to be the NFL ’s most dysfunctional team.
Following Cleveland’s 31-7 preseason loss to the Buffalo Bills on Saturday — a game in which quarterback Deshaun Watson completed just 5 of 12 passes for 36 yards and an interception — the 30-year-old signal-caller called out Browns fans for cheering when he tore his Achilles during the 2024 season.
His behavior didn’t set well with just about everyone except for the team’s brain trust, who named Watson the Week 1 starting QB on Monday despite seemingly everyone urging the team to go with Shedeur Sanders.
“Good Morning Football’s” Kyle Brandt took things a step further. He encouraged the Browns to cut Watson, absorb his $40.9 million dead-cap charge since they’d be paying him anyway if he was on the roster, and put an end to one of the worst periods in the franchise’s history.
“Was that a career-ending press conference? I think it might have been,” Brandt stated. “I would cut him. I would maybe deactivate him — take your pick. You don’t want him as a backup, and I don’t think anybody on the team wants Deshaun Watson as a starter, including Deshaun. You don’t openly engage and antagonize the fan base after another crap performance a couple weeks before the opener if you actually want the starting job.”
Brandt also pointed out that the turmoil currently surrounding the team — some fans have stated on social media they won’t publicly support the Browns any more as long as Watson is their starter — is of its own doing.
“The origin of all of this — Deshaun Watson and the Browns — goes back to them trading for him, them saying, ‘Screw it, let’s trade everything for the pariah,’” Brandt continued. “’We have a quarterback problem going back decades, let’s fix it with the nuclear option and let’s take the PR hit and say to hell with it, because we think we have a top-five quarterback, and the fans are just going to have to forgive us for that.’”
It’s been speculated that Watson was named the starter because the Browns open the season with back-to-back road games against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 1 and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 2, giving him two games to prove he gives them the best chance to win.
Should he struggle in those two games, Cleveland could then switch to Sanders in Week 3 when the team plays the Carolina Panthers in the first home game of the season.
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