Browns need a QB change to salvage what’s left of their season
LANDOVER, Md. – It’s the first week of October and the Browns’ season has ended before the Guardians’ season.
At 1-4 this is it. It feels like it’s already over, long before the leaves change color, before bye week begins, before a pumpkin is carved, before the NBA season begins and before the Guardians’ baseball fate is decided.
Even by Brown’s standards, this is very early for an obituary.
But here they were buried: a crappy team, buried 34-13 in a crappy stadium, twenty miles outside the nation’s capital.
GO DEEPER
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There are fires everywhere and not enough hoses to go around. The defense is a mess. The offense is completely broken, stripped of any identity and concept of how to move the ball effectively in this new scheme that the personnel cannot fit into.
The Browns couldn’t even line up properly on both sides of the ball, a first-degree coaching malfeasance. They were marked twice on defense for too many players on the field on the same drive, and the offense couldn’t advance on fourth and goal from the 2 because they had too many players in the huddle. They had to eat a penalty and kick a field goal instead. That is coaching.
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They couldn’t protect, especially on the right side of the offensive line. Dawand Jones has been bad at right tackle all year, and Wyatt Teller picked a bad time in the schedule due to a knee injury.
Rookie Zak Zinter could eventually be a very good guard in the NFL, but right now he’s a rookie being eaten by a rough slate of excellent defensive tackles from the NFC East: Dexter Lawrence of the Giants, Daron Payne of the Commanders, and the likes week the time has come. Jalen Carter of the Eagles.
That’s all important context. It’s not just one player.
And yet something has to change. They can’t continue like this for another three months or no one will survive.
It’s time. It’s time to put an end to the Deshaun Watson disaster. That’s the one word that describes every part of this transaction. The trade that brought him to Cleveland was a complete failure, the contract an albatross, a stranglehold around a franchise losing oxygen.
Let me be clear: Watson is not the only problem on this team. But he is certainly not the solution either. We now have enough evidence.
Watson was a mess against the Washington Commanders: 15 of 28 for 125 yards and a touchdown. He was sacked seven more times and the offense didn’t put up a third down until the fourth quarter.
Stefanksi NOT happy with Watson.
Kudos to him for covering his mouth…handled it pretty well, considering all things pic.twitter.com/1lLZJYokIX
— Chase Daniel (@ChaseDaniel) October 6, 2024
In a league of 32 quarterbacks, he ranks 33rd in pass EPA (expected points added) per dropback. He ranks 28th in passer rating. He has been sacked a league-leading 26 times, nine more than any other quarterback.
Even when he had time on Sunday, he left clean pockets. Jerry Jeudy dropped a touchdown in the end zone, even though the game was already decided at that point. I try to be reasonable and realistic at the same time.
A franchise quarterback is supposed to help an offense and a team must overcome some of these obstacles.
Watson makes it worse.
He’s not helping this offense. He’s not helping this football team.
Kevin Stefanski is obviously not ready for this conversation.
“We don’t change quarterbacks,” Stefanski said after the game.
Even if he wanted to – how could he not do that right now? – the property wouldn’t allow it. The Haslams are still pumping and paddling the SS Watson, determined to take it all the way to the bottom of the sea.
We’re almost there.
Last year showed what Stefanski’s offense can look like with a legitimate quarterback when Joe Flacco resurrected the team. Instead of using that as a blueprint to show Watson how good Stefanski’s offense can look when executed correctly, they instead ran the offense and the offensive coordinator. They broke something that didn’t need to be fixed to calm their quarterback down.
Now the offense is averaging 3.8 yards per play through five games, according to Stathead, the worst for any NFL offense since 2018. This offense is hovering near the 1999 Browns expansion (3.65). It’s worse than bad. It’s unfortunate.
GO DEEPER
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It’s not all Watson’s fault, but he’s the reason they’re stuck with a system that doesn’t suit their skill players and a guy named Stefanski is clearly uncomfortable making the call. I wrote a few weeks ago about how the Browns have some of the slowest receivers in the league who have trouble creating separation. That doesn’t mean you can’t win with them, but it clearly means you can’t win when they play like that this.
Watson has become an infection in the franchise with no known cure. They can’t cut him. They can’t trade him. They refuse to bank him and allow him to cash his checks anonymously. So they will continue to bring him there on Sundays while the rest of the body dies.
The fact that this all came against Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels was a bit ironic. Daniels is playing exactly like the quarterback the Browns thought they were acquiring in Watson. Daniels is done, he slides away from the pressure. He can roll out of the pocket and throw dimes across the field like he did on a beautiful stroke of 66 meters against Terry McLaurin in the first quarter.
Daniels has taken a desperate franchise to the next level. He has covered the sins of poor defense. The Commanders have already matched their win total from last year, largely because their quarterback is playing at an elite level. That’s what the good guys can do.
The Browns don’t have a good one. They have an infection. And the body dies slowly.
(Photo by Deshaun Watson: Timothy Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
