Cleveland Browns Need To Move on From Deshaun Watson Era

Breaking news: the Cleveland Browns are still a highly dysfunctional organization. This offseason had been fairly positive up until this point. They beefed up their offensive line, which was the worst in the sport, and, outside of a rogue Myles Garrett speeding ticket, they had done a solid job of staying out of negative media attention.

But this is the Cleveland Browns were talking about here; they can’t help themselves from grabbing headlines. Owner Jimmy Haslam seemed ready to move on from the Deshaun Watson era after calling the trade and contract a big swing and a miss.

That statement is objectively correct. Watson has barely been healthy during his time in Cleveland, and when he has been healthy, he’s been one of the worst quarterbacks in the league. Haslam believes that Todd Monken can be the offensive-minded coach who can save Watson’s career.

“Deshaun has a great chance, fresh start, offensive-minded coach who has in his past been able to work with all kinds of different quarterbacks and make them successful.”

I know that Cleveland is stuck with Watson’s massive contract, but I’ve felt for a while that they need to move on from him. Look at a well run organization like the Broncos. They took the massive cap hit to move on Russell Wilson, and in a few short years, made the right moves and were back in an AFC Championship.

The Browns are going to drag the corpse of Watson out on the football field, and he still has a real chance to start because Cleveland doesn’t have real options at quarterback with Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders. Even if Watson wins this quarterback battle, does that even help Cleveland in 2026?

He won’t be good enough to raise this flawed team to competitor status, but he could be good enough to make sure they can’t draft a franchise-changing quarterback. Also, Sanders and Gabriel were not given a fair chance behind that pathetic offensive line in 2025. I don’t have a lot of faith in either of those guys being the answer at quarterback, but I’d rather make sure we don’t give up on a young guy who could be the missing piece.

I think I’m just over the Deshaun Watson era in Cleveland. He’s a guy who hasn’t earned as many second chances as he’s gotten during his time in the brown and orange. The Browns need to turn the page on the Watson era, but that feels impossible with Jimmy Haslam pumping up Watson to the media. I feel badly for Cleveland fans, but Watson is exactly the quarterback that Haslam deserves, and this dumpster fire of an organization is exactly what Watson deserves as well.