Deshaun Watson is emerging as the No. 1 storyline of the Browns’ seasonIt’s been 579 days since Deshaun Watson received a shotgun snap, dropped back two short steps and buckled to the ground without contact.
Turning over on his knees, Watson pressed face-down on the ground with his hands wrapped on each side of his helmet, anguished by the numbing pain of a ruptured right Achilles tendon and another giant obstacle to a once-promising career thrown in front of him.
As Watson was carted off Huntington Bank Field, he cried into a towel covering his face. Some Browns fans who never accepted him as their team’s quarterback shamefully cheered his exit. Not the entire audience, but enough to be heard by players on the Browns’ sideline.
“We need to do better as fans for having some empathy for a man who’s doing the best he can, and did the best he can up to this point,” Myles Garrett said after the game. “No one deserves that. He plays the game as hard as anyone I’ve seen. Puts everything on the line, willing to throw his body out there and be there and he plays the game at 100 mph. There’s a risk that you can be injured, and he took that risk.”
Many believed that was the last Watson would be seen in a Browns uniform, that the team would eat the remaining two years on his fully-guaranteed $230 million contract and turn the page on a franchise-altering acquisition gone awry.
But after two surgeries on the Achilles tendon, after owner Jimmy Haslam attested the March, 2022 mega-trade for Watson was “a swing and a miss,” and after four quarterbacks were drafted by the Browns and two other veteran passers were acquired, Watson is on a path to reclaiming the starting job.
A comeback story in the making?
It is premature to say that Watson will be the Browns’ starting QB when they open the season on September 13 in Jacksonville, FL. It is only May.
The team has seven OTA practices, three in a mandatory minicamp, and then a full training camp, two joint practices with the Buffalo Bills, and three preseason games before Todd Monken presents his first official depth chart as Browns coach.
But Watson clearly is winning the confidence and respect of those who have seen him work his way back during 15 months of solitary physical – and mental – rehab. He’s been unseen, mostly, behind closed doors as the Browns plundered onward without him.
“I think it’s really cool,” Monken said after the team’s OTA practice on Wednesday. “Here’s a guy that at this point has made plenty of money – I think we all know that. He’s had plenty of success and has had disappointment in his career, a number of things he couldn’t control from an injury standpoint. But to come back and want to battle, want to further his career and change the narrative, I think it’s really cool.”
Changing the narrative
The narrative is that Watson should never have been acquired in the first place, after civil lawsuits filed by more than two dozen licensed massage therapists alleged sexual misconduct. The complaints resulted in an 11-game NFL suspension to start Watson’s career with the Browns. (All civil suits have been dismissed or settled.)
The narrative is that after playing only 19 of a possible 68 games for the Browns, Watson will never justify the trade and the unprecedented contract given him.
The narrative is that the trade cost of six overall draft picks, including first-rounders in three consecutive years – and the salary cap consequences of his contract — set back the franchise’s development for five-plus years.
The narrative is that playing Watson now, in the final year of his contract, will only stall the development of, and commitment to, Shedeur Sanders – arguably the team’s most popular player and Watson’s No. 1 competitor for the starting job.
But Monken’s arrival as new Browns coach might have been the best thing to happen to Watson in his five seasons in Cleveland. Monken doesn’t have the pre-conceived notions that blind fans from seeing the possibilities of a supremely athletic quarterback rediscovering a game that deserted him for six long years.
In March, Haslam said, “Deshaun has a great chance, [a] fresh start [with an] offensive-minded coach, who has, in his past, been able to work with all kinds of different quarterbacks and make him successful. So Deshaun has a great chance to do that now.”
Five weeks later, in an appearance on 850 ESPN Cleveland’s Really Big Show, J.W. Johnson, Browns managing partner, said, unprompted, “Deshaun looks great, by the way. He’s done a great job. He looks healthy. He’s in a great headspace. We’ll see how it all shakes out. There is an ongoing competition, but, you know, he’s got nothing to lose and if he’s our starting quarterback, I know there are people that probably won’t be supportive, but they need to be supportive as much as they can.”
During the offseason workouts which are now culminating in OTA practices, Monken, who was two-time MVP Lamar Jackson’s offensive coordinator the past three seasons in Baltimore, has marveled at Watson’s athletic ability.
“Deshaun’s athleticism shows up,” Monken said. “Obviously he’s had that, but he’s had injuries that have set him back. I wouldn’t say it’s a surprise, but it’s exciting to see. It’s a weapon for him. It’s one of his superpowers, his athleticism.”
It’s impossible to say whether Watson can pull off what may be one of the NFL’s most improbable comebacks. His last good season was 2020, when he led the NFL with 4,823 passing yards and tossed 33 touchdowns vs. 7 interceptions in his final season with the Houston Texans.
“The year before we signed him, he was the second-best quarterback in NFL,” Haslam said. “And then the suspension and the injuries and all that piled up. Can he come back from that? He certainly had the ability at one point in time, and we’re cautiously optimistic.”
Watson has not been heard from since the day of his career-altering injury on October 20, 2024.
The Browns top public relations executive has been sensitive to the potentially polarizing prospect of playing one of the franchise’s most despised – for lack of a better word – players ahead of one of its most popular players.
At some point soon, Watson will be exposed to media questions about his mindset, his feelings towards Browns fans who cheered his demise, his determination to reclaim his career.
There is always quarterback drama with the Browns. Right now, Deshaun Watson has become the No. 1 storyline of the 2026 season.
https://thelandondemand.com/grossi/...the-no-1-storyline-of-the-browns-season/ 
