Deshaun Watson got trampled by the Cowboys, but please don’t blame the protection
CLEVELAND — How long? How long will Browns fans have to wait to see the quarterback they were promised?
We are in year 3 of the Deshaun Watson Experience and the first lap around the track felt no different. Is it too late to talk to a manager and ask for a refund?
This year should be different. He’s healthy now. The suspension is long behind him. The offense has been rebuilt to play to his strengths. The Browns have rebuilt their entire operation to make him more comfortable.
Success can still happen. It’s only one game, and this offense has had limited time together in preseason and training camp. That was evident during Sunday’s 33-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
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Watson should have played sometime in the preseason. That’s an organizational failure. It took 300 days from his broken shoulder last season to Sunday’s season opener. We’ve been through this before with Watson and long layoffs. We know how it ends.
It may not have made a difference in Sunday’s outcome, but it’s impossible to watch the Browns’ first game and believe they were ready to start the season. They weren’t. Whether they’ll be ready to start the season in Week 2 is debatable at this point.
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But the biggest part of this mess comes from the quarterback. His -0.36 EPA/play was tied for second-worst on Sunday. Yes, there were far too many drops by his receivers, but his expected completion percentage was still less than 64 percent. That was fourth-worst for Week 1 prior to Sunday night’s game.
If we’re being honest, this rebuilt attack could have been a “the orange is angry” kind of feeling. Nothing really looked different from what we’ve seen before, except a deeper disdain for running the ball. There were only a handful of RPO calls, and at least one of them was overturned by a penalty. Watson was still in the middle for a good amount of time.
Watson was hit 17 times and sacked six times. The 17 hits were easily the most of any quarterback in Week 1. But the one story we can’t have this week, the one topic of conversation I won’t tolerate, is that Watson was hit too many times because his guard failed and he didn’t have enough time to throw. It’s a lazy assumption based on the statistics, and the most outrageous lie you’ll hear all week. It’s categorically false. Even Browns coach Kevin Stefanski was fooled.
“He’s been hit way too many times,” Stefanski said. “We can’t let that happen to him. … We’ve got to protect our quarterback better than that.”
Or, and listen, the quarterback has to protect himself better than that.
Dallas’ defense blitzed on a quarter of its snaps, which was about average compared to other teams in Week 1. Here are the key numbers to know, according to a deep dive into data from TruMedia and PFF. All league-wide rankings are from every game in Week 1, through Monday night.
• Watson averaged 4.16 seconds per pressured dropback on Sunday, the eighth-best time under pressure. On sacks that came from pressure, he held the ball for 4.29 seconds, the sixth-best time in Week 1.
• On the six sacks he did record, his average throwing time was 4.87 seconds, which ranked him 10th.
• Since joining the Browns in 2022, Watson has the slowest snap-to-throw on pressured dropbacks of any quarterback in the league (4.60 seconds). Tom Brady, who happened to be calling the game for Fox, was the fastest at 3.26 seconds.
Part of what has made Watson great in his career is his ability to hold on to the ball and extend plays. It’s unfair to then turn around and blame his line for protection breakdowns when they’ve given him more time to throw against pressure than any other offensive line in the NFL over the past two seasons.
This is not a protection problem. It is a Watson problem.
There were expensive procedures and false start penalties Sunday for both of the Browns’ starting tackles. That needs to be cleaned up. But there was at least one sack that happened because Watson was where he wasn’t supposed to be, so the protection wasn’t targeted that way.
It’s rhythm and timing issues. It’s “feel” issues. It just seems like he’s not seeing the field well. Or he’s not processing what he’s seeing.
On Sunday, receivers were open on the field, Watson was busy throwing the ball 7 yards out from the sideline via routes and fade routes into the end zone.
This is the best throw Deshaun Watson made yesterday. Hit CeeDee in a walk.
Ball player.#Brownphoto.twitter.com/ifwtAlyzio
— Ed Greenberger (@EdGreenberger) September 9, 2024
It was terrible. It was worse than terrible. It was one of the worst quarterback plays in the league in Week 1.
Forty-five minutes into Sunday’s game, while most players had long since showered and left the locker room, Watson still hadn’t showered. He was wearing dirty football pants and chatting with backup quarterback Jameis Winston.
It’s been an emotional few days for Watson, whose father died this week. He was estranged from his father for most of his life, according to a 2017 article in the Houston Chronicle. But dealing with grief is never easy.
“I’m not going to use that as an excuse for why we played poorly, but it’s been a heavy heart the last couple of days,” Watson said. “But again, I don’t want to use that as an excuse.”
Stefanski and the Browns have done everything they can to make Watson more comfortable in this offense. As Year 3 begins, the organization is holding on tight and patiently waiting for the $230 million gamble to yield a decent return on the bold investment.
How long? How long do they have to wait?
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(Photo of Deshaun Watson getting punched by Micah Parsons: Nick Cammett/Getty Images)
