Even with Deshaun Watson, Myles Garrett and Nick Chubb are still Browns MVPs

Managing expectations for the next Browns quarterback

As of the second week of August, we don’t know who the next quarterback of the Browns is going to be. Like so many times before, fans have their heart set on a (trumpets, please) “franchise quarterback” who will right all the wrongs of the previous two decades of mostly wretched football, save for the glorious year when the Browns were truly contenders.

They won 12 games, and they beat up the Steelers in Pittsburgh. They very nearly beat the Chiefs in Kansas City.

We do know that the Browns will not be led by Baker Mayfield. The front office and ownership got tired of waiting for Mayfield to solve his team chemistry problems and poor cooperation with management. They attempt to solve this problem with a new quarterback.

Wait, didn’t this quarterback have a problem with team chemistry, like he was so critical of management that he refused to play at all last season? That’s the guy who will solve the team chemistry problem, we are certain. He’s much more stable than the immature Mayfield.

It might very well be that Jacoby Brissett will be the next quarterback of the Browns. He was brought up by Bill Belichick and doesn’t seem to have the behavioral issues that Mayfield and Watson have had in their careers. However, he hasn’t had the spectacular success that those two have had, either.

Playing mainly for poor Colts and Dolphins teams, he is 14-23 lifetime. He went 7-8 for the 2019 Colts with an 18-to-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He should be good enough to get the ball to Nick Chubb via handing it off or throwing it.

However, the Browns are hopeful of getting a quarterback in Watson who has been on sabbatical for a year. If it were fantasy football, he might be expected to immediately perform for a new team. However, Watson has spent his entire career with Bill O’Brien.

O’Brien has a demonstrated track record of success with the New England Patriots, although he wasn’t a fantastic general manager, trading away the Houston Texans’ draft picks and not holding onto star wide receivers.

How will Watson adjust to a new offense with coach Kevin Stefanski and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt? He learned the Texans system very quickly as a rookie, although he certainly was better after a year or two than he was in his first year. It’s expecting a lot if the Dawg Pound believes he will perform he will be just as good in year one in Cleveland as he was in year four in Houston, with the same coaching staff and same teammates.

In Watson’s career spanning four active seasons, he threw for 14,539 yards. That’s fantastic, right? But Mayfield threw for 14,125 yards, also in four seasons. So Watson threw for 414 more yards in four seasons. He averaged 26 TDs per season; Mayfield averaged 23 TDs. Watson was better, at least on paper. To be precise, Watson’s TD passes resulted in 2.7 points per game more than Mayfield’s.

There were three seasons in which the two quarterbacks were both starters in the NFL. The 2018 Browns outpointed the Texans, 353 to 345, and so did the 2020 team, 408 to 384. In the 2019 season, Watson’s Texans outscored Freddie Kitchen’s Browns team, 378 to 335. It’s not like Watson made the Texans an automatic points machine even though he

However, the Browns had Chubb to take it into the end zone on the ground, and Watson did not. Bernie Kosar never threw for a pile of touchdowns when he had Earnest Byner and Kevin Mack, either.

Watson did have wide receivers including D’Andre Hopkins (three-time All-Pro while playing with Watson), Will Fuller, Brandin Cooks, and Randall Cobb, and O’Brien calling plays for him. Those names are rather impressive.

Mayfield had Odell Beckham (but usually not on the same page), Jarvis Landry (who made the Pro Bowl in 2018 and 2019), Rashard Higgins, Breshad Perriman, and Donovan Peoples-Jones as his wideouts. Todd Haley, Freddie Kitchens, Todd Monken, and Kevin Stefanski took turns calling plays for him. The advantage in wide receivers clearly was with Watson. It’s a matter of opinion, but O’Brien would probably have been a superior coach to work with in terms of generating quarterback stats.

Where Watson truly excelled was throwing under pressure. Being able to throw for 4,165 yards while getting sacked 62 times as he did in 2018 was truly impressive. Almost no one has a good year while getting sacked over 50 times a season.

Watson also threw fewer interceptions, though in the past two years, they were closer; 21 for Mayfield including only eight in his best year of 2020; 19 for Watson’s last two seasons with a career-best of seven. The belief in this corner is that the ability to minimize interceptions occurs after a huge number of reps with the same coaching staff and same key teammates for more than one season. It should not be expected that Watson is going to be among the league leaders in the lowest interception percentage at the beginning of his Browns tenure.

There has indeed been talk that the Browns will try to air it out 40 times a game. Translated, this means that they will put aside the “run first” concept, relying more on three and four wide receiver sets and taking away carries from the running game. Taking away carries from Chubb and the other running backs might not be the smartest idea that the Browns have ever had.

Brissett would probably throw the ball deep fewer times and get the ball to Chubb and the other members of the backfield more often. That might not be such a bad game plan, especially in the early going. They do not necessarily need wide receivers to go over 1,000 yards this season. If the offensive line stays healthy and they do a good job of feeding Chubb and the rest of the backfield via handoffs and short passes, they will score enough points to win games.

If they keep Chubb and Garrett healthy and build the offensive and defensive units, respectively, around those two studs, that is a blueprint for contention in the AFC North. Nothing is guaranteed, but it’s a mistake to believe that their season desperately depends on their ability to play airball.

Just because they gave up a pile of draft picks and committed a record amount of money doesn’t prove that they have a league MVP quarterback or that they will win the Super Bowl with him, or conversely, that they cannot win without him. That’s why they play the games, folks.

Nobody actually knows what is going to happen on any given Sunday or in any given season. To borrow an admonition from broadcaster Mike Lange, “Fasten your seat belts, and get ready to move into the fast lane, Grandma! The bingo game is about to start!”