CLEVELAND — How long? How long will Browns fans have to wait to see the quarterback they were promised?
We’re in the third year of the Deshaun Watson Experience and the first lap around the track felt no different. Is it too late to talk to a manager and ask for a refund?
This year is supposed to be different. He’s healthy now. The suspension is long behind him. The offense has been rebuilt to play to his strengths. The Browns have rebuilt their entire operation to make him more comfortable.
It’s still possible to be successful. It’s just one game, and this offense has had little time together in the preseason and training camp. That was evident in Sunday’s 33-17 embarrassment against the Dallas Cowboys.
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Watson should have played sometime in the preseason. This is an organizational failure. It was 300 days between his shoulder fracture last season and Sunday’s opening game. We’ve been through this before with Watson and long layoffs. We know how it ends now.
Sunday’s result may not have changed it, but you can’t look at the Browns’ first game and think they were ready to start the season. They weren’t. Whether they’ll be ready to start the season by Week 2 is currently in question.
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But the bulk of this mess can be attributed to the quarterback. His EPA/game of minus-0.36 was the second-worst figure on Sunday. Yes, his receivers had way too many drops, but his expected pass completion percentage was still below 64 percent. That was the fourth-worst figure for Week 1 heading into Sunday night’s game.
If we’re being honest, this rebuilt offense had a sort of “orange is oranger” feel to it. Other than a deeper disdain for the run game, nothing really looked different than what we’d seen before. There were only a handful of RPO calls and at least one of those was nullified by a penalty. Watson was still under center for quite a while.
Watson was hit 17 times and sacked six times. The 17 hits were by far the most of any quarterback in Week 1. But the one story we can’t hear this week, the one debate theory I won’t tolerate, is that Watson was hit too often because his defense failed and he didn’t have enough time to throw. That’s a superficial assumption based on the statistics and the most outrageous lie you’ll hear all week. It’s categorically false. Even Browns coach Kevin Stefanski fell for it.
“He’s been hit way too many times,” Stefanski said. “We can’t let that happen to him. … We have to protect our quarterback better.”
Or, and hear me out, the quarterback needs to protect himself better.
Dallas’ defense blitzed on a quarter of its snaps, which was pretty average compared to other teams in Week 1. Here are the important numbers to know, based on an in-depth analysis of data provided by TruMedia and PFF. All league-wide rankings are for all Week 1 games prior to Monday night.
• Watson averaged 4.16 seconds per dropback under pressure on Sunday, the eighth-best time under pressure. He held onto the ball for 4.29 seconds on pressure-induced sacks, the sixth-best time in Week 1.
• His average sack time for the six sacks he took was 4.87 seconds, which ranks 10th.
• Since joining the Browns in 2022, Watson has been the slowest of any quarterback in the league from snap to throw on pressured dropbacks (4.60 seconds). Tom Brady, who happened to be commentating the game for Fox, was the fastest at 3.26 seconds.
Part of what has made Watson great throughout his career is his ability to hold onto the ball and extend plays. It’s disingenuous to then blame his line for deficiencies on defense when it has given him more time to throw against pressure than any other offensive line in the NFL over the past two or more seasons.
This is not a protection problem. It is a Watson problem.
There were costly misconduct and false start penalties for both of the Browns’ starting tackles on Sunday. That needs to be resolved. But there was at least one sack because Watson was standing where he wasn’t expected and the defense wasn’t aligned that way.
There are rhythm and timing problems. There are “feeling” problems. It just seems like he doesn’t have a good overview of the field. Or he doesn’t process what he sees.
On Sunday, there were several receivers free all over the field, and Watson was only busy throwing the ball 7 yards out of the field into the end zone on sideline routes and fade routes.
Here’s the best shot Deshaun Watson made yesterday. Hits CeeDee on the run.
Ballers.#Brownpic.twitter.com/ifwtAlyzio
— Ed Greenberger (@EdGreenberger) 9 September 2024
It was awful. It was worse than awful. It was one of the worst quarterback games in the league in Week 1.
Forty-five minutes after the end of Sunday’s game, most of the players had already showered and left the locker room, but Watson was still unshowered, wearing stained football pants and chatting with backup quarterback Jameis Winston.
It’s been an emotional few days for Watson, whose father died this week. According to a 2017 Houston Chronicle article, he was estranged from his father for most of his life. But dealing with grief is never easy.
“I’m not going to use that as an excuse for why we played poorly, but the last couple of days have been a heavy heart,” Watson said. “But I don’t want to use that as an excuse either.”
Stefanski and the Browns have done everything they can to better control Watson in this offense, and as they enter year three, the organization is sticking to its plan and patiently waiting for its $230 million gamble to pay off as it should.
How long? How long do they have to wait?
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(Photo of Deshaun Watson getting punched by Micah Parsons: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
