I’ll say it. I was in favor of the Browns moving on from Baker Mayfield for Deshaun Watson. That probably sounds worse now than it did in March 2022, but I don’t think the original idea was ridiculous.

Cleveland had a roster it believed could win right away, and the Browns had reached the point where they didn’t believe Mayfield was the quarterback who could take them any further.

Watson was 26 years old. He had already made three Pro Bowls. The last full season he played in Houston, he led the NFL with 4,823 passing yards and threw 33 touchdowns against seven interceptions.

You can understand why the Browns were interested... The mistake was how far they went.

Cleveland sent Houston a trade package built around three consecutive first-round picks and then handed Watson a five-year, $230 million contract that was fully guaranteed. The Browns had almost nothing protecting them if Watson failed, got hurt, or simply never looked like the quarterback he had been in Houston.

All of that came while Watson was facing numerous allegations of sexual misconduct. Two Texas grand juries declined to indict him, and the NFL later suspended him for 11 games and fined him $5 million for violating the league’s personal-conduct policy.

Cleveland knew there was risk everywhere and went all-in anyway. Four years later, the Browns are still dealing with the consequences.

Watson has now been named Cleveland’s starting quarterback for the 2026 season. First-year head coach Todd Monken chose Watson over Shedeur Sanders after an offseason-long competition, and Watson will start Week 1 on the road against Jacksonville.

That announcement raises a pretty obvious question and ire from the fans: Why are the Browns still doing this?

The Browns believe Watson gives them the best chance to win

Monken said Cleveland evaluated everything – offseason work, training camp, preseason games, and joint practices. Watson won the job. On the surface, that isn’t hard to understand.

He has played high-level NFL football before. Sanders, frankly, has not. Watson has seen more defenses, played in bigger games and has years of NFL experience that Sanders simply does not have yet.

That experience clearly still carries weight to the Browns coaching staff. The issue is how long Cleveland should keep giving credit for what Watson did in Houston.

Since arriving in Cleveland, he has played 19 regular-season games. He has thrown for 3,365 yards, 19 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, with an 80.7 passer rating.

That is a long way from the quarterback the Browns thought they were getting. At this point, the Houston version of Watson has very little to do with what Cleveland actually has on its roster.

Sanders didn’t earn the job

This matters, too. Sanders did not do enough to force Monken’s hand.

He was a fifth-round pick in 2025 and started seven games as a rookie. There were some encouraging moments, but there were also enough mistakes to leave Cleveland with real questions about whether he is ready to handle the job full-time.

The preseason didn’t settle much either. Nobody ran away with the competition, and that gave Cleveland room to fall back on Watson’s experience.

I still think that is the wrong call. The Browns already know what Watson has been for them; they have years of evidence now.

The issue with Sanders? He is still an unknown. And Browns fans, let me ask you: if Sanders couldn’t win the competition against  Watson, of all people, what does that say about how bad Sanders is behind center? 

What is Cleveland chasing?

Watson is entering the final year of his contract, turns 31 in September, and hasn’t started more than seven games in a season since joining Cleveland.

His 2023 season ended because of a shoulder injury. His 2024 season ended with a torn Achilles. He then re-ruptured the Achilles and underwent another surgery in January 2025, which cost him the entire 2025 season.

Now the Browns are giving him the job again.

Maybe he was a little better in camp than Sanders. Maybe Monken trusts him more with protections, checks, and the details that matter in an NFL offense. Heck, maybe he really did earn it.

I’m still not sure what Cleveland gets out of this if Watson is merely decent or even a little better than he has been.

He is in the final year of his deal. The Browns are not building a long-term plan around him. Even a solid season would leave them facing another quarterback decision almost immediately.

Playing Sanders would at least give them useful information. If he struggles, Cleveland knows it needs another answer. However, If he shows real progress, maybe the Browns finally have something to build around.

There is value in finding that out, especially in a season that the Browns will likely not reach even the five-win mark.

The Browns took their shot in 2022, and I understood the shot. Watson was more accomplished and had shown a level of quarterback play that Mayfield had never reached (and hasn’t to this day, by the way). Cleveland believed it was one quarterback away and acted like a team that wanted to win a Super Bowl.

Then the move blew up. The Browns have already paid for that decision in just about every way possible… In my estimation, they don’t need to keep paying for it with playing time.

Maybe Watson surprises everybody this season. Maybe Monken gets more out of him than Kevin Stefanski ever did. Maybe he stays healthy and plays well enough to keep Cleveland competitive.

There is still a chance,but, there just isn’t much reason left for the Browns to keep treating that chance like the most important thing in the room.

They should be figuring out what comes next and starting  Sanders would have moved them closer to an answer. Now, the Browns and their fans enter another season filled with more drama and question marks than an excitement for the season.