Well, well, well...who could have predicted this: Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson is still pretty bad at playing NFL football. The team's decision to name him the starter in the first place was odd when you consider that Watson has no future with the team beyond 2026. Watson actually looked solid against the Buccaneers on Sunday, but it's going to take more than one good game to save his job, and expecting multiple good games out of Watson is asking for a lot.
The question at this point isn't if the Browns will bench Watson, but when they'll do it and how far down the depth chart he'll drop when they do.
Projected Browns depth chart once Deshaun Watson is benched
Even with Watson showing improvement in Week 2, the Browns still have to know that sticking with him for the full 17 games this season is just a complete waste of time. Sunday showed us that he might help the team play competitive football more than Shedeur Sanders might, but that's actually bad: the goal for 2026 should be losing your way into the No. 1 pick. That, and finding out if Sanders can be the backup quarterback behind whoever is picked in 2027.
Position | Player |
|---|---|
QB1 | Deshaun Watson |
QB2 | Shedeur Sanders |
QB3 | Dillon Gabriel |
QB4 | Taylen Green |
So it's fairly obvious that Sanders would slide into the QB1 job when Watson is inevitably benched, but that doesn't mean that Watson just becomes the backup. It's clear that when the Browns move on from Watson as the starter, they're also moving on from Watson in general. Dillon Gabriel will more than likely move into that backup role and would be the first man up if Sanders goes down.
The bigger question is if Watson drops below rookie Taylen Green, and for that I think the answer is a big, tentative "probably not." If a scenario presented itself where injuries to Sanders and Gabriel led to someone else having to step in, the Browns probably would have to tuck their tail between their legs and go back to Watson, just because Green is such a project at this point that putting him out there likely does a disservice to the young pass-catchers that you're trying to develop.
Maybe Watson takes being benched so poorly that the relationship there becomes unsalvageable and Green is forced to play, but that's also just such a niche outcome that requires so many things to happen that it's probably not really worth spending too many mental faculties on. The important thing to know is that when the Browns do bench Watson, it won't just be a swap with Sanders. He's not going to sniff the field again unless the Browns are forced into that outcome.
When will this happen? Good question. More games like the one Watson played against the Buccaneers will push this decision down the road a bit, but it's going to happen at some point. Maybe after Week 6, if we assume that the Ravens destroy Watson in that one? There's also a Week 11 bye if he survives as the starter that long; it'd be a shock, IMO, to see someone other than Sanders starting Week 12 against the Raiders.
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