JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — How much longer? How much longer will the Browns ask everyone else to pay the price for their Deshaun Watson debacle?
Jimmy Haslam’s name might be on the checks, but the list of people stuck paying the bill for the worst trade in franchise history continues to grow.
Watson was terrible again Sunday in the Browns’ 34-10 opening loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars because he’s been terrible for most of the last four years. Expecting that to magically transform now after two Achilles surgeries stacked on top of his already deep medical history and nearly 700 days away from the field was always naive at best and far closer to foolish for a franchise that knows a thing or six about foolish behavior.
Watson is no longer a good quarterback. Hasn’t been for years. He couldn’t get to the proper pocket depth when we last saw him on the field two years ago, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that he couldn’t do it again Sunday.
The interception on the opening drive was abysmal. The constant delay-of-game calls, false starts and inability to get lined up are a special level of alarming for a quarterback who entered the NFL 10 years ago. This isn’t a rookie or even a second-year guy. Watson is a decade into this league — and quickly playing his way out of it — making the same clumsy mistakes that plagued Shedeur Sanders as a late-round rookie last year.
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The list of people forced to carry Watson’s burden in Cleveland is long and distinguished: Joe Flacco (the first time), Alex Van Pelt, Bill Callahan, Ken Dorsey, Kevin Stefanski and now Todd Monken.
All of them were saddled or scarred (sometimes both) while trying to make it work with the unworkable. Flacco couldn’t be brought back after too much success because the city actually liked him, and what would that mean for Deshaun?
Van Pelt was fired as offensive coordinator coming off a playoff appearance in a season the team cycled through five different starting quarterbacks. That firing was enough for Bill Callahan to see where everything was headed, and he slipped out the door to go coach with his son in Tennessee before this thing completely derailed. Which it now has.
Monken said throughout training camp this wasn’t a week-to-week audition for Watson, yet he wouldn’t commit to him for next week after just one game because how could he after watching that mess?
“It’s not just him,” Monken said. “We’re putting this on Deshaun, which is unfair.”
That’s what the head coach is expected to say, but anyone who watched the game and watched Watson’s previous 19 games in Cleveland knows it’s completely fair. He is where the bulk of the problems lie. His final numbers, 16 of 22, 205 yards, a touchdown and an interception, were heavily skewed by a late deep ball to Denzel Boston for a touchdown. Watson didn’t play nearly as well as the numbers indicated, and everyone with the Browns knows it.
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Nobody can change what Watson has already cost them, regardless of how many times they keep trotting him back out there. But they can decide what he costs them next.
There’s legitimate reason for optimism with K.C. Concepcion, Denzel Boston and Harold Fannin, but it’s impossible to get a fair evaluation on them when the quarterback is dropping to 13 yards behind the line of scrimmage, holding onto the ball too long and consistently settling for check downs. The linemen can’t possibly set a proper pocket when they don’t know where the quarterback is setting up. These are the quarterbacking basics that were somehow erased from Watson’s factory settings before he arrived in Cleveland. He struggled with it two years ago when the Browns started 1-4, and he looked broken and disinterested before getting hurt.
The time away didn’t seem to make anything better.
A sunk cost drains budgets and rewires judgment. It convinces smart people that the money they’ve already spent is a reason to spend more rather than serving as the clearest argument to stop and walk away.
The money is gone, and it’s not coming back. The currency the Browns are dealing with now is time. Replacing the starter after one game would be outrageous for most franchises, but in this instance, the fact that Watson won the job at all is the outrageous part. The Browns once traded their starting quarterback, Charlie Frye, two days after a season opener, so what constitutes outrageous here is usually a bit different than everywhere else.
Monken is in this now. He had no ties to Watson and still chose to hook his reputation as a terrific offensive coach to the quarterback who has wrecked everything he has touched since landing here. Monken even sounded like Stefanski by the time the day was through, repeating things about it not being good enough and it being on all of them to fix it. Stefanski was skewered for similar coachspeak, but the part he couldn’t say out loud is the part you’re seeing now.
A lot of this isn’t fixable. At least not with Watson, and probably not with Sanders, either.
Running Watson out at quarterback next week at Tampa could be particularly embarrassing for Haslam after Baker Mayfield signed his mammoth extension with the Buccaneers last week. Mayfield isn’t elite, but he’s obviously been far better than what Watson has produced in Cleveland.
The meal is over at least for this week. The chicken was served raw and the vegetables were burned. Dessert was curdled and the drinks were flat. The whole thing was a bit of a mess, and Monken nevertheless is holding the check. He’s 60 years old, in his first year running an NFL operation, and spent the offseason talking about the identity he wanted his players to have. They showed none of it in their first opportunity.
It might be time to speak with a manager. The most important thing Monken can realize is this isn’t his mess. It’s not his bill to pay. Stop pretending like it is.