Quarterback Situation Goes From Hazy to Cloudy for Browns

Inclement weather sent the Cleveland Browns and the visiting Buffalo Bills into the locker room for a delay of more than an hour on Saturday.

Once the teams got the OK to resume play, Cleveland’s quarterback situation seemed even cloudier after the Bills blasted the Browns 31–7 in Week 2 of the preseason.

The Deshaun Watson-Shedeur Sanders QB-1 battle is a problem no first-year coach should have to endure. Yet, coach Todd Monken is spitting out verbal pretzels to talk around myriad questions about who will be Cleveland’s main man under center when the team’s season kicks off in a few weeks.

Sanders, a fifth-round pick in the NFL draft last year, started Saturday and finished 9-for-11 for just 74 yards with a touchdown and one interception. But he opened up 8-for-8 and looked like starter material.

Watson, who joined the team on a $230 million deal to play for the team before the 2024 season, came on after intermission and had numbers that seemed to match the weather—5-for-12 for 36 yards and a pick. And the Cleveland fans in attendance voiced their displeasure with his play by booing.

When asked how he would evaluate Sanders’s performance, Monken said: “There’s a lot there to like. I mean, he plays with a certain amount of confidence. He has gotten a lot better at getting rid of the ball.

“Certainly, he wants to make a play, and I’ll give you an example, like the one third-and 13, 14 we converted, he holds onto the ball and lets the receiver clear. There’s going to be other times where that sweet spot is where he’s going to have to check it down.”

But Monken made sure to praise his second-year quarterback.

“I thought he did a lot of really good things,” he said of Sanders, the son of football Hall of Famer Deion. “I’m really proud of him and where he’s come from the moment I got here till now. (It’s) very impressive.”

During his media availability, Watson pushed back against the jeering.

“Man, I didn’t have no reaction,” the 2017 first-round pick shot back in response to a question about hearing boos.

“I think the biggest thing is—and I think you guys know, too, and I think the whole world know—it has nothing to do about the performance. It’s a little bit (more) personal than that. So, I think that it’s a disrespectful thing. So, I’m going to keep whatever I feel with me and my family internally on how I feel about that and just move on,” Watson said.

Watson noted that the last time he played at home for the Browns, the fan base cheered when he suffered a season-ending Achilles tear.

When asked whether he thought he had performed well enough to win the job, Watson said, “I don’t know. I think that’s just going to be coach Monken’s decision. So, I continue to just try to win the day each and every day.”

When prodded, Watson eventually said, “Yeah. I think I’ve done a good job to be able to lead this team and be a starter in this league. But again, I don’t know how other people’s feelings (are) internally. I haven’t talked to coach Monk about that or anybody else.”

Sanders spent much of his media session deflecting questions and urging support for Watson.

The Browns wrap up their preseason schedule by playing host to the New England Patriots on Thursday.

Monken said his staff is close to making a decision on QB-1.

“Well, at some point I’m going to have to decide, right? I mean—I’m saying it kind of jokingly—like at some point, we’ve got to get that guy the reps. So, I’m not going to paint myself into a corner,” he said.

“You guys know, optimally you’d like to have given a player all of the reps, right? And you know who the one is—and we’ve done it as best we could as a staff trying to work through this, like at any position.

“This is just one part of it just like Thursday was and we’ll watch the tape tomorrow because all I got a chance to do is watch it like you guys did and I was looking at the surfaces, and everybody had a hand in it,”

He pinned responsibility on the entire offense for its collective mistakes, not just the quarterbacks.

“And I already know, looking at it and watching at it, we had too many issues with us that had nothing to do with them,” he said, later adding it was “Browns hurting Browns, really.”

The Browns open their season on Sept. 14 at the Jacksonville Jaguars.