1 big reason Deshaun Watson situation isn’t going to get better for Browns

Everyone wants to sugarcoat it, but nobody wants to call it as it is. Why are Cleveland Browns front office and coaching staff members reluctant to be critical of Deshaun Watson? We criticize professional athletes when they don’t play up to their expectations. 

Watson has certainly earned himself more than enough criticism. So shouldn’t the front office and coach Kevin Stefanski want to hold him accountable? Watson isn’t some delicate player that walked into an impossible situation. 

He’s an underperforming NFL quarterback that has the Browns looking increasingly ignorant for having to pay him $45 million over the next two-and-a-half seasons. And when you put up astronomically bad numbers like Watson has, you deserve to get called out for it. Not treated like a fragile player that shouldn’t be held accountable. 

The Cleveland Browns have to remedy their impossible situation

I don’t know how the Browns do better than this and I’m not confident they don’t know either. Cleveland is in an impossible situation. For whatever reason they can’t be super critical of Watson and are forced to pay him for miserable play on the field. 

“My understanding is it’s not real easy to be super critical of Deshaun in the building,” The Athletic’s Mike Sando said on The Athletic’s podcast “Scoop City”. “... I would love to know that, just how honest is everybody, internally, in their evaluation.”

For that to happen, they’d have to first admit they were wrong and the Browns organization is doing everything they can to say everything but that. The Browns have to quit treating Watson like he’s bulletproof just because they’re handcuffed to his lucrative contract. 

The Browns feel forced to play Watson because they’re paying him a ridiculous amount of money. To bench Watson and still lose would only make you look like an inadequate franchise. That’s probably why they let Joe Flacco go because someone would be out of a job if Watson continued to play with Flacco as his backup. 

To cover up his depressing gameplay by saying “he’s our best chance to win” doesn’t give fans any confidence either. Clearly as statistically the worst quarterback this season by a longshot, he does everything but give you a chance to win. 

It’s a delicate subject. But the Browns will never be able to move on from the trainwreck that is the Deshaun Watson era in Cleveland if they can’t first admit they were wrong. Only then, can the Browns quarterback woes that have haunted this franchise for decades finally disappear in the abyss.