CLEVELAND — Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson made his debut Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys after suffering a shoulder injury last season that forced him to miss 11 regular-season games and ended his year early.

Despite not playing in every game during the preseason, the Browns were confident Watson would make a strong comeback, but that wasn’t the case in Cleveland’s 33-17 loss to the Cowboys on Sunday.

The Browns began the season with an offensive debacle. After hiring a new offensive coordinator, Ken Dorsey, to overhaul the system and bringing in new weapons, including wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, there was hope that things would pick up.

However, with starting tackles Jedrick Wills Jr. and Jack Conklin both out of the game and neither of them able to return to action following knee injuries sustained last season, the game began under less than ideal circumstances.

Cleveland opened the game with a strong defense and forced the Cowboys to punt on their first drive.

The Browns opened their offense with a run by Jerome Ford and a pass to Amari Cooper. A few short passes got the Browns down the field, but penalties ended the attack and forced them to punt. Kicker Dustin Hopkins scored the first points with a successful 51-yard field goal.

That was all that accounted for the Browns’ offensive success in this half.

In the first two quarters, Watson completed 7 of 15 passes for just 36 yards and one interception that resulted from a pass being intercepted. Watson was also sacked once in the first half. The longest pass Watson was able to complete was eight yards.

Cleveland trailed Dallas 20-3 at halftime. The defense had 49 tackles and three sacks at halftime, thanks to Za’Darius Smith, Dalvin Tomlinson and Myles Garrett.

In a time of adjustment, the Browns didn’t come out of halftime much better. Cleveland was forced to punt, but had Cowboys returner KaVontae Turpin return the punt for a touchdown.

On their next possession, Cleveland ran into the end zone for the first time of the day with a 12-play, 75-yard drive. Watson threw a short but well-executed pass to Jeudy in the end zone. This play marked the Browns’ best drive and the end of their offensive success.

Watson finished the day with 24 of 45 passes, just 169 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.

For the Browns, the most concerning aspect of the day was how often Watson was hit. Cleveland suffered six sacks and the offensive line was unable to hold its own against the Cowboys’ defensive front all game.

They were anything but satisfied with the performance.

“I hate to see him get hit like that. We don’t want to see him get hit like that, but he kept getting back up and continuing. I’m sure he’s completely wasted right now, and we don’t want to see that,” guard Joel Bitonio said. “We just didn’t show up.”

Tackle James Hudson III, who started as left tackle because Wills and Conklin were both out, called the deployment “unacceptable.”

“How many sacks did they have? Six? Five? That’s unacceptable. We have to be better, period,” Hudson said.

Even wide receiver Amari Cooper knew Watson had taken too many hits on Sunday.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s frustrating. You always want to protect your quarterback, especially, like you just mentioned, after the surgery. Obviously, he’s recovered well, but you don’t want the quarterback to get hit too often. I think he’s been hit a little too often. So we just have to get better, and that goes for everybody on the team. Us as receivers, being able to find our routes quicker and things like that,” said wide receiver Amari Cooper.

While Watson is full of adrenaline and will wait and see how he feels on Monday morning after all the physical contact on Sunday, the quarterback said he is determined to play every snap of the game, no matter how it goes.

“Yeah, I’m definitely going to finish the game no matter what the result is. So, yeah, that’s just my mindset, just wanting to compete. You know, I didn’t work that hard to come back even though it didn’t go the way we wanted today. You know, I just wanted to play a little bit no matter how it went. So, yeah, I wanted to stay in there and compete until the final whistle,” Watson said.

Although a lot went wrong and these problems can be traced back to many different causes, Watson says it is not the team’s habit to look for excuses.

“Yeah, we’re not the kind of people who make excuses. Some people say my injury and the guys’ absences contributed a lot to it. But at the end of the day, once you’re on the field, you just have to perform, you have to perform. And overall, we didn’t do that. And yeah, it showed,” Watson said.

Among the things Watson didn’t want to attribute to the game, but which may have affected the quarterback personally, was the death of his father and a former teammate this week. General manager Andrew Berry spoke to Watson about it at his locker after the game and made sure he was OK.

“He said, ‘Cheer up, on to the next game.’ And again, it’s been a long week. At the end of the day, football is definitely something you have to take very, very seriously, and it’s our job, it’s our career, but there are other things that are more important than this,” Watson said. “I lost my dad on Friday. I lost my brother yesterday, my teammate, Diondre Overton, who was only 26 years old. So, yeah, I mean, it’s been a long week, and they gave me the opportunity to go home, but I told them I wanted to be here with my guys. So it wasn’t even really about football. It was actually just the first time he saw me over the weekend, and he kind of showed me that he’s here with me.

“I try my best, at least for at least three hours, to separate the two. But I’m not going to use that as an excuse for why we played poorly. But yeah, the last couple of days have definitely been very depressing. But I don’t want to use that as an excuse for why we lost,” Watson continued.

It was the first game, and there are many more, but the Browns offense looked listless and boring. The lack of any motivation is concerning early in the season, but the team is confident they will look at the tape, fix any mistakes and be ready for their Week 2 road game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“We have 16 more chances. It’s the NFL, anything can happen. I started 2018 0-4. We won 11 games in a row, so it’s one game at a time. Take it week by week. You get ready, whether you win or lose, you have to put that one game behind you and get ready for the next week. So anything can happen. Anything is possible,” Watson said. “We have to look at this tape. It wasn’t a pretty day for us, we have to take ownership of it as a whole. Especially me as the leader of this team and the leader of this offense. Correct those mistakes, get back on the same page and get ready for Jacksonville.”