On Monday, the Cleveland Browns wrapped up their highly-publicized quarterback battle, naming Deshaun Watson as the team’s Week 1 starter. The decision to start Watson over Shedeur Sanders was immediately met with a ton of pushback from fans and media members, for various reasons.
Among those reasons is the reality that Watson hasn’t been a good quarterback since the 2020 season. While he has been healthy this offseason, his on-field play has looked a lot like it always has since he’s been in Cleveland: inconsistent and uninspiring. It’s hard to see that changing when the season starts, and that’s why the decision is facing so much criticism.
One natural reaction is that the Browns' decision to go with Watson says a lot about where Sanders is and how far he has to go. That’s a reasonable assumption if you believe the NFL is a true meritocracy, and that coaches and organizations never make the wrong decisions. However, fans know that neither of those things are true.
While quarterback competitions are supposed to reflect the quality of the quarterbacks involved, NFL history proves that isn’t always the case.
Quarterback battles don’t always mean bad news for the loser
Fans don’t have to look deep into the history books to see that Week 1 depth charts aren’t always reflective of players’ abilities; they can just turn the page back to last year. Entering the 2025 season, there were a few quarterback battles throughout the league where the winner of the competition wasn’t ultimately the better quarterback.
One example of that was the New York Giants. New York entered training camp with Russell Wilson and Jaxson Dart as their top two options at quarterback, and decided to roll with the veteran Wilson as their starter. However, after just three weeks, Wilson was benched and Dart was named the starter. The younger QB quickly proved to be the better option for the Giants, despite starting the year on the bench.
A similar situation happened with the New Orleans Saints. They held a quarterback competition between Spencer Rattler and Tyler Shough, and Rattler emerged as the Week 1 starter. He went on to start the first eight games, with New Orleans going 1-7 in those starts.
Shough then got his chance in the final nine games, and led the Saints to a 5-4 record. He’s now viewed as the man in New Orleans, and Saints fans are laughing at the fact that Rattler was once deemed the better quarterback.
Even in Cleveland last season, Dillon Gabriel started the year over Shedeur Sanders. However, it didn’t take long during the QBs’ time on the field to see that Sanders was clearly the better quarterback. For whatever reason, the Browns’ depth chart at the beginning of the year didn’t reflect that.
All of these examples serve as a reminder that people shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on other people’s decisions. Ultimately, players’ abilities should only be judged by what they do on the field. Time will tell if the Browns made the right or wrong decision by naming Deshaun Watson as their starter over Shedeur Sanders.
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