Uncertainty abounds a year later in Browns deal for Deshaun Watson
The Browns shocked the NFL world a year ago. A year later, their highly controversial trade for quarterback Deshaun Watson still generates as many questions as it does answers.
There’s only one thing that does seem certain on the one-year anniversary of the deal: If Watson doesn’t look closer to the quarterback he was with the Houston Texans in 2020 this season, a lot of the individuals in the Browns organization who were in on the deal won’t be around Berea for the two-year anniversary.
Those individuals, specifically general manager Andrew Berry and coach Kevin Stefanski, may talk around that fact. However, both are very intelligent men, which means they’re smart enough to know every organization’s brain trust lives and, at some point, dies because of the quarterback position.
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“We are excited about Deshaun,” Berry said a day after the Browns’ 2022 season ended. “We feel good about where he is going to be as we get into the offseason, work through training camp and ultimately start in September next year. We are looking forward to that. We are looking forward to working with him.”
It’s just that few organizations in the NFL sacrificed as much as the Browns did on March 18, 2022, when they swung the deal to bring the former Pro Bowler Watson to Northeast Ohio. Draft capital, financial capital, even public-relations capital were all given up in one large swing to finally provide an answer to the eternal question of the quarterback position in Cleveland.
The deal drew immediate visceral reactions not just in the region, but across the country when it happened. That reaction centered on the number of allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct during massage appointments — a number that has grown to more than two dozen — that followed Watson from Houston to Cleveland.
After a series of tone-deaf media availabilities in March, June and August in which he essentially seemed to apologize to everyone except for the women directly impacted, Watson has been silent on that subject since he returned from his 11-game NFL suspension. He’s cited the advice of his clinical therapy and legal teams for keeping the conversation from him centered on the football field.
“I’m approaching it every day just with a smile on my face and just being able to let my attorneys and my lawyers deal with that situation,” Watson said the day after the season ended. “I gotta focus on moving forward with my career and my life and just let my attorneys handle that situation. So right now I can’t really speak on, I don’t know how that’s going to go.”
The truth, whether one finds it justifiably reprehensible or not, is it’s not going to be those legal issues that ultimately determine the framework around which this deal is judged long-term. It’s going to be, like Watson’s comments, focused on the football.
The Browns sent three first-round draft picks, as well as other later-round picks, to the Texans. Then, in a move that may have disturbed more around NFL ownership and front-office groups than Watson’s off-the-field issues, the Browns gave him a fully guaranteed five-year, $230-million contract.
Those two moves have essentially mortgaged the Browns’ future on the hopes Watson is the answer to a question that has hung over two iterations of the franchise since Bernie Kosar was released 30 years ago. The lack of first-round picks has kept them from adding young starters on rookie deals, while the massive contract has already created a salary cap issue that, for all the kicking the can down the road that is done, eventually can’t be avoided.
All of that for a quarterback who remains a question mark in terms of what he is at this point in his career. Nothing Watson showed when he finally got back on the field last December indicated a quarterback who was still among the elite: 58.2 completion percentage, 6.5 yards per attempt, a 7-to-5 touchdown-to-interception ratio and a 79.1 quarterback rating.
Stefanski, though, is insistent that top-five quarterback still is there. It’s why the Browns are essentially turning their offense over to Watson the same way they turned so much of their future draft and salary cap capital.
“I think my confidence comes from seeing him do it, seeing him do it in practice, in games,” Stefanski said earlier this month at the NFL Combine. “I think I know that he wants to be better. I know we’re going to try to be better around him, those type of things, but he’s played at a really high level in this league going back to college days. He’s a winner so I’m excited for him.”
Stefanski and Berry certainly need Watson to get back to that “winner” status. Otherwise, it could mean another losing season for the Browns, and a completely different regime running the show when the deal’s two-year anniversary arrives.
Contact Chris at [email protected].
On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ
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