It’s a new season for the Cleveland Browns and Deshaun Watson. Why fans are already upset.
The Cleveland Browns, who open the regular season today with a road game in Jacksonville, Florida, announced DeShaun Watson as starting quarterback two days after his shrugging response to a 31-7 preseason loss against the Buffalo Bills.
Not surprisingly, the team’s announcement landed with the thud of one of Watson’s errant passes. The Browns signed the former Houston Texan more than four years ago and gave him a then-record $230 million in guaranteed money. And all Cleveland has gotten back are 19 total games and a disappointing series of seasons in which Watson has never delivered more than seven passing touchdowns.
Watson has suffered injuries — he missed all of last season — but he missed the first 11 games of his Browns career because the NFL suspended him after more than two dozen lawsuits were filed alleging he’d behaved inappropriately with massage therapists. (Watson has always denied the allegations from those massage therapists and a criminal investigation against him ended with him not being charged with any crimes.)
Watson being named the Browns’ starter over fan-favorite Shedeur Sanders this season is the latest illustration that he’s the most expensive and polarizing mistake Cleveland has ever made.
Even though there were no criminal charges, given the stink that surrounded Watson, the Browns would have been wise not to sign him. Watson being named the Browns’ starter over fan-favorite Shedeur Sanders this season is the latest illustration that he’s the most expensive and polarizing mistake Cleveland has ever made. The franchise made a decidedly amoral choice when it signed Watson. His selection was said to be all about his play on the field and his ability to get the Browns further than quarterback Baker Mayfield had. But the burning car wreck the team has been since then must strike some critics of the Watson choice — and Mayfield himself, who’s become one of the league’s top starters since landing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — as poetic justice.
Watson’s contract will hamstring the franchise way longer than anyone believes he can be useful to Cleveland. He’ll make $46 million this year whether he plays every game or doesn’t play at all. He’ll cost the team tens of millions of dollars in salary cap space if they move on after then, but if he’s on the roster after March 13 next year, the Browns will owe him another $200 million. Yes, you read that right.
Maybe things would have played out just as bad for Cleveland if they’d gone with a quarterback who hadn’t been accused of bad behavior by so many women, but there’s no way we’ll ever know.
Watson’s albatross of a contract likely had a lot to do with the boos that rained down on him during that first preseason game as he struggled against the Buffalo Bills’ defense. To not play well is one thing, but to be a veteran and play poorly in the preseason with such a huge contract?
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Keith Reed is an award-winning journalist and a past senior editor at ESPN. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Root, Vibe, Essence and elsewhere.
