You ever wonder why some teams are perpetually bad? If you pay close enough attention, you’ll be able to figure out why. In sports, and especially the NFL, bad franchises make terrible decisions a habit, and then act surprised when the results are the same each year.
The Cleveland Browns are putting that process on full display right now with their reported decision to name Deshaun Watson the Week 1 starter over Shedeur Sanders. This is a move that many fans have been expecting all offseason, but the anticipation doesn’t make the foolishness of the decision land any softer.
Based on what Browns fans have witnessed all offseason, and everything that’s been reported about the quarterback competition, it’s clear that Cleveland’s plan to start Watson is the latest link in a multi-decade chain of bad decisions that made the Browns the laughingstock of the NFL.
Browns deserve whatever misery that comes their way after making Deshaun Watson the starter
Cleveland’s bad decisions with regard to Watson goes back to the start, when the franchise traded three first-round picks to acquire the quarterback, and signed him to a five-year, fully-guaranteed $230 million deal, in the face of a very concerning legal situation.
However, even if you threw all that out and only focused on the quarterback battle between Watson and Shedeur Sanders that unfolded this offseason, it’s still clear that going with Watson is a mind-boggling decision.
By all accounts, the competition was close. From the perspective of the reporters who attended practice every day, Sanders was the more consistent quarterback, and the better player post-snap. Watson, on the other hand, reportedly had the edge in pre-snap operation, but was a bit of a roller coaster once he got the ball in his hands.
Additionally, the entire NFL world got to watch both quarterbacks in two preseason games, and it’s fair to say Sanders outplayed Watson. The younger Sanders had the best moments, and the older Watson had the most disastrous moments. Watson even followed up his on-field lows with an even lower postgame press conference where he went at Browns fans, and questioned his ability to navigate the negative feelings hurled his way.
Cleveland taking this decision through two preseason games, and splitting reps how they did, supports the idea that the two quarterbacks were pretty even. Once you take into account that Sanders is a second-year player, who’s ascending, and Watson is a 10-year veteran, whose career has been riddled with injuries and poor play the last few years, it seems like it would obviously serve the franchise best to go with the younger option.
Unfortunately for Browns fans, Cleveland doesn’t really make decisions with the best interest of the franchise in mind. While history supports that argument, so does everything that has since come out on why the Browns are going with Watson as the starter.
It has been reported that Cleveland opening the season with two road games was a factor, because he could prove himself away from Browns fans, whose relationship with him has soured. It has also been reported that Watson’s experience played a role in the decision, but he isn’t necessarily on steady ground as the team’s starter.
Those all sound like a bunch of silly reasons for a team trying to justify a silly decision, and that’s exactly what it is. Cleveland spending the majority of the last two decades as one of the worst teams in the league isn’t by happenstance; it’s because the franchise repeatedly makes bad decisions, even when they don’t have to.
If this one blows up in the Browns’ face, like many of the others have, Cleveland will have no one to blame but itself.
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