I have the utmost of sympathy for Cleveland Browns fans. They’ve got even fewer Super Bowl wins and appearances and an even longer drought for a title of any kind than even my once-cherished Jets. Their next trip will be their first, and their last NFL title occurred during the early days of the Johnson administration. Lyndon, not Andrew, though to Clevelanders it sure feels like the latter.
And the overwhelming odds are it ain’t gonna end in their lifetimes. Not only are they predicted for yet another last-place finish in the hugely competitive AFC North they appear determined to cement that status based on the confounding decision they reached on Monday which HEAVY’s Owen Crisafulli reported:
The Cleveland Browns have officially concluded their quarterback battle ahead of the 2026 campaign, with Deshaun Watson being named the starter over Shedeur Sanders. While Sanders made a late push for the job, Watson’s experience helped him earn the job to begin the new season.
But the majority of Watson’s experience occurred when he was a recent Clemson graduate and a promising rookie with the Houston Texans who led them to a surprising playoff appearance before regressing into a statistical performer for what devolved into a cellear dweller. Before it was revealed that he was making even more plays and gaining more yardage at the expense of others in massage parlors than he was on the gridiron. Before Browns management decided to dust all of that under the rug and aggressively trade for him, handing him nearly a quarter of a billion dollars where to date he has played in no more than seven games in four seasons (zero in 2025), lost the majority of them and exactly one playoff appearance, where they were destroyed by those very same Texans by three touchdowns. Averaging exactly one touchdown per game and throwing 12 interceptions in the process. And it’s not like he’s coming into 2026 with a head of steam that would indicate a likelihood for a rebound, as the aptly-named GUARDIAN bots reported on Saturday:
Watson, who has a complicated relationship with Cleveland fans because of injuries, off-field issues – including an NFL suspension in 2022 – and a massive, $230m contract, was booed repeatedly during the second half of the 31-7 loss to the Bills. Watson was just 5 of 12 passing for 36 yards and threw an interception during the preseason defeat.
But as Crisafulli added, the call may already have been made even before last Saturday:
(A)ll summer long, it seemed like Watson had the inside track to be the starter over Sanders. With his entire $46 million salary for the 2026 campaign being guaranteed, the front office can’t really move on from Watson, so if he’s going to stick around in town, it makes sense to give him one last shot under center.
So yet another new Browns coach (in this case, Todd Monken) is handcuffed to staying the course due to ownership hell bent on squeezing every last penny out of what is inescapably a sunk-cost scenario. And for a fan base that’s conditioned both with performance and climate to start booing once the first wisps of autumn blow across Lake Erie, they are getting an atypically early start while the temperatures hover around triple digits, as those bots added:
Saturday’s game was his first at home since he tore his achilles tendon in October 2024, when some Browns fans cheered him sustaining a potential career-ending injury…Watson hasn’t forgotten the cheers that greeted his injury in 2024.
“Last time I played on this field, I tore my achilles and that same fanbase, they cheered when I got hurt,” Watson said. “So what does that have to do with anything about performance? When a person gets hurt, especially for your own city and they cheer.”…“It has nothing to do about the performance,” Watson said of the boos. “It’s a little bit personal. I think that’s a disrespectful thing. I’m going to keep whatever I feel with me and my family internally on how I feel about that. Just move on.”
Sanders is clearly the people’s choice in Cleveland, though his meteroric rise from fourth-stringer to eventual starter in the wake of injuries to Watson and others revealed him to be not ready for, well, Primetime–despite his Hall of Fame lineage. He still sells more jerseys than any other Clevelander and ranks right up with established stars like Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffery and Pat Mahomes. You know, folks who actually have played in a Super Bowl.
The good news, at least according to Crisafulli’s sources, is that Watson’s annointing may be ephemeral:
According to NFL insider Jordan Schultz, though, tabbing Watson as the starter isn’t something Cleveland did lightly, as he’s going to have to consistently prove he is worthy of leading the team’s offense.
“Sources say that the decision between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders truly came down to the end,” Schultz reported in a post on X. “Both showed flashes of what a QB1 in Todd Monken’s offense could look like. In the end, the decision leaned toward Watson’s experience. But it’s my understanding that he will have to continue earning it once the season starts and the games are for real.
Expectations aren’t high for the Browns in 2026, so there’s really no harm in rolling with Watson to begin the year. His deal is already a lost cause…Cleveland has made it abundantly clear, though, that just because Watson is the Week 1 starter, it doesn’t mean he will be the Week 2 starter.
All Watson has to do to prevent that is go on the road to Jacksonville and try to take down the defending AFC South champion Jaguars and their own much more productive Clemson alum Trevor Lawrence. Ya wanna give odds on that happening? Didn’t think so.
Well, it’s at least a road game. This time he might hear cheers for something other than injury.
Have fun, Dawg Pound et al. I feel your pain.
Courage…