The Cleveland Browns are entering Week 7 of the NFL season with a 4-2 record, and are currently sitting atop the competitive AFC North. While not many people saw that coming, there’s a belief that Cleveland could keep things rolling with the 1-5 Tennessee Titans next on the schedule.
However, the Browns haven’t really been clicking on all cylinders.
Despite the team’s early success, things have still been pretty rough on the offensive side of the ball. Cleveland is averaging 267.5 yards per game (29th in the NFL) and 17.7 points per game (28th). The Browns haven’t been able to run the ball, averaging 94 rushing yards a game (24th), and their passing game is just as bad at 173.5 passing yards per game (25th).
In many ways, the Browns are an anomaly, winning as much as they have despite their offensive struggles. Cleveland has a great defense to thank for that, which has allowed the Browns to hang around in games before the offense miraculously pulls off some late-game heroics.
After every game, win or lose, head coach Todd Monken is starting to sound like a broken record. He praises the team for fighting, applauds the offense for figuring things out late, and continues to emphasize that the offense has to be better.
Eventually, if things don’t improve, Monken will have to ask himself if changes need to be made.
More specifically, the head coach will have to determine if a quarterback change could help improve things — and if he’s willing to actually make that change while the team is still winning.
Could Browns make a quarterback change while winning games?
It’s worth acknowledging that Cleveland’s offense has problems that extend beyond the quarterback position. The biggest of all those problems is the team’s inability to run the football. When an offense doesn’t have a run game, everything gets harder.
With that understood, there’s no ignoring that Deshaun Watson has still had his fair share of problems through the first six weeks.
While Watson has been clutch in the fourth quarter, he has been pretty bad through the first three quarters of Cleveland’s games. ESPN reporter Daniel Oyefusi recently highlighted this, noting that Watson has a 22.6 QBR in the first three quarters, which is 32nd out of 33 qualifying quarterbacks, and a 70.4 QBR in fourth quarters, which ranks ninth.
The veteran quarterback’s struggles early in games have been clear, as he has held onto the ball, run into sacks, and flat out missed throws. At halftime of the Week 6 game against the Baltimore Ravens, Watson was just 3-of-9 for 24 yards, and Monken told the sideline reporter that the veteran quarterback needs to work through his progressions instead of taking a quick look at the first two reads before pulling the ball down to run.
Watson responded in the second half, going 13-of-17 for 140 yards, and the Browns were able to escape with another close victory. If Watson can’t figure out how to put together complete games, though, it’s worth asking if winning will continue to save his job.
The answer to that question is determined by a few factors. First, how does Monken feel about Shedeur Sanders, Cleveland’s QB2?
Sanders pushed Watson to the brink in a training camp competition, and Monken argued that Cleveland has two starting quarterbacks. After seeing Watson in action, does the head coach believe that the offense’s ceiling could be higher with Sanders? Some would argue yes, because of Sanders’ aggressive mindset as a passer, but only Monken knows what he thinks.
Even if the head coach did think things would look better with Sanders under center, it would be extremely gutsy to make a quarterback change while the team is winning games. Monken has shown a willingness to commit to his process despite pushback, but benching a struggling quarterback with a winning record might be even too much dip for his chip.
NFL rarely benches winning quarterbacks even if they are struggling
NFL history isn’t filled with teams benching the starting quarterback with a winning record, for obvious reasons, but there are a couple of examples.
The most infamous instance came during the 1999 season with the Buffalo Bills. Doug Flutie started the first 15 games for Buffalo, leading the team to a 10-5 record. With a playoff spot already secured, Bills head coach Wade Phillips decided to sit Flutie for the regular-season finale and start backup Rob Johnson, who led the team to a 31-6 win.
There was nothing strange about that, though, as teams often rest their starters ahead of the postseason. However, when the playoffs actually arrived, the Bills decided to stick with Johnson over Flutie. Many people believe the decision came from team owner Ralph Wilson, but either way, it was controversial.
The Bills went on to lose in the wild-card round of the playoffs, 22-16, to the Tennessee Titans, and Johnson struggled, completing just 10-of-22 passes for 131 yards while being sacked six times. Needless to say, the decision to make a QB change was heavily criticized.
Fittingly, one of the other examples happened with the Cleveland Browns back in 2014. Veteran quarterback Brian Hoyer opened the year as the starter, and Cleveland got off to a 6-3 start. However, the Browns only won one of their next four games and decided to turn to rookie quarterback Johnny Manziel despite Hoyer being 7-6 on the season.
As Browns fans know, Manziel started the next two games, losing the first and leaving the second with a hamstring injury. Cleveland ultimately lost the final three games after the quarterback change, and finished the year 7-9 after starting 7-4.
So coming back to the 2026 Browns and Monken possibly considering going from Watson to Sanders while Cleveland is winning, it would be a gamble either way. Monken would either be gambling on an offense that hasn’t been consistently working and just hoping the team can continue to scrape by and win, or he’d be betting on shaking things up with the hope that a spark could make the team even better.
Unless Todd Monken is just the gutsiest coach of all time and is willing to roll the dice like Nick Saban did when he benched Jalen Hurts in a National Championship game for Tua Tagovailoa, Watson will likely remain the starter until he loses enough games that a quarterback change is easy to make.
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