The Cleveland Browns find themselves at 2-1 after three weeks of the 2026 season, and a big reason why is Deshaun Watson surprisingly playing like a competent quarterback. Watson’s first four seasons in Cleveland were disastrous — either from bad play or injuries — so everyone was shocked to even see Watson be named the Week 1 starter. Safe to say, expectations were low.
To Watson’s credit, he has surpassed those expectations, remaining in the lineup longer than people expected he would. The veteran quarterback has done that by playing like a QB that the Browns can win with. To be clear, Watson still has plenty of room for improvement, but he has avoided costly mistakes, and made winning plays in the games’ biggest moments. As long as he can keep up both, he will remain in the starting lineup, and Cleveland will keep adding wins.
Obviously, that’s what the Browns want. Cleveland would love to have a winning season and be in the playoff mix, and it’d be especially nice if the team could do it with just one quarterback under center. For as great as that would be for the Browns, it would also put the team in a weird spot when the offseason arrives.
If Cleveland keeps winning with Watson under center, the franchise will be in an odd spot when it’s time to choose a starting quarterback for 2027.
Browns will face an interesting 2027 offseason if Deshaun Watson’s success continues
Watson is currently in the last year of his contract, and it would be a complete head-scratcher if Cleveland signed him to another deal. Regardless of what Watson does the rest of the season, it’s hard to imagine the Browns bypassing the first four years of the Watson era to commit to the version they saw in the fifth year.
From 2022 to 2025, Watson only played in 19 games for Cleveland, as a suspension and multiple significant injuries kept him off the field. In those 19 games, Watson wasn’t good, and the Browns were only 9-10. This was all while Watson was signed to a five-year, fully-guaranteed $230 million deal, which many analysts declare as the worst deal in sports history.
Cleveland has its fair share of bad decisions, but betting on Watson again, after just one solid season, would even be a bad look for the Browns. But also, what would be Cleveland’s other options?
The 2027 Draft, of course, is a possibility, but in this scenario where the Browns are winning games, they may not position themselves high enough to select one of the top quarterback prospects. Even with the Los Angeles Rams’ 2027 first rounder in Cleveland’s possession, there’s no guarantee the franchise will be able to trade up in the draft.
That leaves the Browns with another option, which is handing the keys over to Shedeur Sanders. Cleveland has spoken highly about Sanders, and has made it clear they have no desire to move him this season, but it’s unclear how the franchise feels about him as the future at the quarterback position. Handing things over to him could be a success, but would the Browns really be comfortable doing that without seeing him play in a regular-season game during his second season?
Also, there’s always the possibility of jumping in the veteran quarterback carousel, but that rarely leads to any type of sustained success.
Ultimately, it has only been three weeks of the season, and everything is still on the table for the Browns. However, if the rest of the season looks anything like Weeks 2 and 3, Cleveland could be headed towards a tough decision in the offseason.
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