Did Deshaun Watson give up on Browns on 4th and goal play vs Commanders?

Let me paint the scene for you, Browns fans.

Cleveland is down 24-3 against the Washington Commanders. It's the third quarter, and there's 12 minutes left in the period. Not exactly plenty of time to comeback, but the Browns could score here and maybe put pressure on the Commanders to score again for a bigger cushion.

It's 4th and goal, and the offense is on the field. QB Deshaun Watson is in a loose huddle, and then suddenly, he leaves it. For the sideline. What?

At first glance, it looked like Watson straight up did not want to run another play and wanted to send out the field goal unit. It would've been fair to just for for three if you're Cleveland - you're down 21, so anything helps. But for Watson to just abruptly head for the sideline was absurd from a viewer's point of view.

HC Kevin Stefanski looked distraught seeing Watson walking towards him instead of setting his players up. And, those in the huddle with Watson were just standing there in the middle of the field confused. So what happened?

Well, a great angle from Jake Burns of Browns Film Breakdown shows what went down. Watson realized there were too many men on the field.

Not the coaching staff. Not those stragglers. Watson. So, he called an audible on the entire set up and just left the field to avoid another penalty, which also led to a burnt timeout by the Browns.

Lack of communication just one of many issues Week 5

There were several examples of a lack of communication between the Browns offense and coaching staff, and just between the Browns players on offense. This play was one, but another that stands out is one where Watson was sacked by a Cleveland player - Jerome Ford - who was backed into him on a failed block attempt.

The O-line in general was shoddy in the second half after providing a fairly clean few pockets for Watson to work out of - not that that mattered much. They were providing nothing for their runners to break through, and it led to an abysmal 104 total rushing yards. That's below the 140 yards allowed per game on averaged by the Commanders headed into this contest, a number sure to go down after placing clamps on Cleveland's runners.

The saying goes, communication is key. If Cleveland's trying to unlock anything good from this season, it is clearly using the wrong set of keys.