Browns Camp Is Over. Maybe We Just Found Out Who the Man Is.
The Browns spent training camp looking for a quarterback. Saturday may have told Todd Monken something more important.
By Jamie Mauller | Rounder Sports
There are boos, and then there are Cleveland Browns boos.
Anyone who has spent enough Sundays along the lake knows the difference.
Cleveland fans don’t need much encouragement to voice an opinion, and after decades of quarterback carousels, rebuilds, blown draft picks and promises about next year, they’ve earned a certain amount of skepticism.
But what happened Saturday at Huntington Bank Field wasn’t complicated.
Deshaun Watson played poorly.
The fans booed.
And Watson made it personal.
After completing just 5 of 12 passes for 36 yards with an interception in Cleveland’s 31-7 preseason loss to Buffalo, Watson said the reaction from Browns fans had “nothing to do about the performance.” He described it instead as “personal” and “disrespectful.”
I disagree.
Actually, I think Watson’s response tells us more about where this relationship stands than anything we saw during training camp.
This isn’t personal. It’s ROI.
Let’s get one thing out of the way.
Cheering when a player gets injured is wrong.
Watson has every right to remember fans cheering when he tore his Achilles in 2024. He has every right to be angry about it.
But that’s a separate issue from Browns fans booing a quarterback who isn’t producing.
The Cleveland Browns didn’t make a normal investment in Deshaun Watson.
They traded three first-round draft picks to Houston and handed him a $230 million fully guaranteed contract.
Think about that.
A quarter of a billion dollars.
Three first-round picks.
And four years later, Watson has started just 19 games for Cleveland.
In return for arguably the largest gamble this franchise has ever taken, Browns fans have gotten injuries, suspension, controversy, inconsistent quarterback play and almost no return on the field.
That’s not personal.
That’s a fan base looking at the receipt.
If Cleveland had gotten elite quarterback play, division championships and playoff runs from Watson, we’re probably having a very different conversation today.
But they didn’t.
Fans aren’t shareholders, but they invest plenty: tickets, parking, jerseys, Sunday afternoons, emotional energy and decades of loyalty to a franchise that has tested every ounce of it.
When the guy attached to a $230 million guarantee goes 5-for-12 for 36 yards and throws a pick, people are going to boo.
That’s professional sports.
Then there was Shedeur.
This is where Saturday became more interesting.
The Browns spent training camp calling this an open quarterback competition.
Fine.
Then let it be one.
Shedeur Sanders started Saturday and went 9-of-11 for 74 yards, threw a touchdown and an interception, and directed Cleveland’s only touchdown drive.
Was it a Hall of Fame performance?
Of course not.
It’s preseason.
But neither guy was playing in the Super Bowl. They were playing in the same football game, trying to win the same job.
One guy helped himself.
The other didn’t.
And then came the part I can’t get past.
When Watson faced adversity, his response wasn’t to say:
I have to play better.
Instead, the conversation became about the fans.
That’s where I start wondering whether we’re watching more than frustration.
Was that an exit ramp?
I obviously don’t know what Deshaun Watson is thinking behind closed doors.
Neither does anyone outside that locker room.
But I know what Saturday sounded like.
It sounded like a quarterback beginning to explain why Cleveland isn’t the right place for him anymore.
Watson said he gets more love in road games than at home. He questioned whether he can win Browns fans back. He talked about the relationship as something personal rather than something his performance can repair.
Maybe that’s simply emotion after a bad afternoon.
But if I’m running the Browns, I’m paying very close attention.
Because there’s a convenient outcome available here.
Watson doesn’t win the job.
The relationship with the fan base becomes untenable.
Cleveland eventually moves on.
And because of the contract the Browns willingly gave him, Watson remains extraordinarily well compensated regardless of how this story ends.
If Watson genuinely wants to be Cleveland’s quarterback, there’s a remarkably simple way to change the conversation:
Win the job. Play well. Win football games.
Cleveland will forgive almost anything when the Browns are winning.
Instead, Watson turned the boos into a referendum on the fans.
I don’t buy it.
And if the strategy is eventually to make the situation uncomfortable enough that Cleveland decides everybody is better off apart, then I’d call that exactly what it is: taking the exit instead of winning the fight.
Monken wanted to know who the man was.
This is why I don’t agree with the argument that Cleveland “wasted” training camp by holding a quarterback competition.
What exactly were they supposed to do?
Hand Watson the job because of his contract?
We’ve already tried allowing the contract to dictate football decisions.
How has that worked out?
Todd Monken needed information.
He needed to see Watson healthy.
He needed to see Sanders operate the offense.
He needed to see both quarterbacks with starters, backups, pressure, mistakes and adversity.
And sometimes adversity tells a coach more than a perfect Tuesday practice in Berea ever could.
That’s why my reaction to the complaints about the competition is pretty simple:
It was an open battle.
And when you’re losing the battle, you have two choices.
Fight your way back into it.
Or find the door.
Saturday, Shedeur Sanders looked like a young quarterback trying to win a job.
Watson looked like a veteran quarterback increasingly tired of having to defend why the job should still be his.
That’s a meaningful difference.
Don’t crown Shedeur yet.
Now, before Northeast Ohio starts ordering Sanders jerseys by the truckload, let’s calm down.
Shedeur hasn’t proven he’s a franchise quarterback.
Not remotely.
There will be mistakes. There are things he still needs to process faster. NFL defenses aren’t going to resemble August preseason packages once September arrives.
Starting him could get ugly.
But here’s the question Cleveland has to answer:
What are we protecting ourselves from?
Watson’s contract is already a sunk cost.
Starting him doesn’t get the draft picks back.
It doesn’t erase the guaranteed money.
It doesn’t turn 2022 into a good decision.
And it certainly doesn’t guarantee better quarterback play.
At some point, organizations have to stop trying to justify yesterday’s decision and start making tomorrow’s.
If Sanders gives Cleveland the better chance to grow into something, play him.
Let the kid take his lumps.
Find out what you have.
Because the worst possible outcome isn’t Shedeur Sanders struggling.
The worst outcome is spending another season trying to prove the Deshaun Watson trade wasn’t a mistake when nearly everything we’ve seen tells us it was.
Northeast Ohio isn’t asking for an apology.
We’re asking for football.
That’s what I think Watson misunderstands about this town.
Cleveland doesn’t require its athletes to kiss the ring.
Play hard.
Own your mistakes.
Don’t make excuses.
And produce.
This city embraced Baker Mayfield when he gave the franchise life. It embraced Joe Flacco when he practically walked in off the street and started winning football games.
Cleveland will embrace a quarterback.
It desperately wants to.
But respect here isn’t guaranteed by a contract.
You earn it.
So no, Deshaun.
I don’t think those boos were simply personal.
I think some of them were the sound of a fan base checking the return on a $230 million investment and realizing the account is still nearly empty.
And if Saturday really was another chapter in the end of the Deshaun Watson era in Cleveland, maybe training camp wasn’t wasted after all.
Maybe Todd Monken got exactly what he needed.
He wanted to find out who would fight for the job when things got uncomfortable.
He may have found his answer.
— Rounder