This week, the Indianapolis Colts benched their struggling second-year quarterback Anthony Richardson, a player they have major investment in as the fourth pick of last year’s draft. At 4-4 they owed it to everyone in the organization and also the fans to play Joe Flacco, the best option right now.
So it can be done, Cleveland Browns.
After watching the Browns beat the Baltimore Ravens last week in Jameis Winston’s first start, there had to be some celebration for a reborn team with Winston at quarterback and some anger over why the team absolutely bungled the decision to stick with Deshaun Watson when the season was spinning away. Since late last season, the Browns are 5-1 in games started by Flacco or Winston. In that span, they’re 1-6 with Watson starting. Flacco threw for 300 yards in four straight games to finish last season for the Browns, while Winston threw for 334 yards Sunday. Watson hasn’t thrown for 300 yards since the 2020 season and didn’t even break 200 yards in a game this season. And yet, it took a season-ending Achilles injury to Watson to finally make the change.
Everyone could see the Browns needed to make a move. They didn’t. And now they can see what life might have been like all season with competent quarterback play.
“I’m not really thinking that way,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said Monday when asked about sticking with Watson, via the AP. “I thought Jameis did a nice job yesterday. I know he feels like he can play better, but I’m not thinking about it that way.”
He might not be thinking about it, but the fans shelling out a lot of money on tickets or the players in the locker room who don’t have endless chances to be a part of a playoff team should be. Winston isn’t great. But he’s way better than Watson, as was Flacco. He provides hope. And he could have provided hope weeks ago.
Why didn’t the Browns do this earlier?
There has not been a definitive answer as to who made the final call to stick with Watson, though Stefanski was stubbornly dismissive of the idea all season. Stefanski is the one speaking to the media every week so he’s the one who had to answer the question. But the lack of action with Watson was so egregious, everyone wonders if owner Jimmy Haslam had a say it in. He’s the one paying a $230 million guaranteed deal to Watson, which the team signed him to after one of the truly disastrous trades in NFL history.
On top of it, the Browns lost their sixth game this season with Dorian Thompson-Robinson and not Winston coming off the bench for an injured Watson in Week 7. Thompson-Robinson, who had a 51.1 passer rating last season, went a putrid 11 of 24 for 82 yards and two interceptions in the loss. Another terrible coaching decision, another week wasted.
What we’ve seen out of the 2024 Browns is organizational malpractice. The Browns punted the season and for what? To hopelessly chase a return on investment of a sunk cost at quarterback? To appease the feelings of Watson, whose off-field past probably shouldn’t offer him that kind of care?
The Browns’ newfound hope is just masking the failure of the franchise to put it in this hole.
“A win like this is required to change the season around,” Winston said, via AP. “We have a long way to go.”
It didn’t have to be that way.
Browns face a huge challenge to make playoffs
Are you a Browns season ticket holder? Are you a Browns veteran player who doesn’t have too many shots left at a deep playoff run? Are you a Browns coach or executive whose job security depends on winning seasons? You may be entitled to complain forever about what happened for nearly half of this season.
The NFL moves fast, for players and coaches too. You don’t get that many shots at being a playoff team, which Cleveland knows well. The Browns could have been a playoff team with someone else starting this season. We saw that last season with Flacco and again Sunday when the Browns beat one of the NFL’s best teams. Again, it’s a team that is 5-1 in games started by a professional-level quarterback going back to last season when Flacco took over. Would the Browns be 4-4 (or better) if they had pulled the plug on Watson when it was obvious in early September that he was beyond fixing? Probably.
There’s a world in which the Browns still make the playoffs. You have to really squint to see it. They’re 2-6 after Winston started and the Browns beat the Baltimore Ravens last week. If we assume 10 wins will be required for a wild card in the tough AFC, that means Cleveland has to go 8-1 the rest of he way. It’s 7-2 at an absolute minimum. That’s a big ask.
Winston will have games in which he makes horrendous mistakes and throws the Browns out of games. (He nearly did so against the Ravens only for Kyle Hamilton to drop a game-clinching interception.) That’s who he has always been as an NFL quarterback. But the Browns will be a good team the rest of the way. They’ll play at a playoff level. They did with Flacco, who was on his couch until November last year. They will with Winston, like they did Sunday.
And that will make it all the more frustrating. There needs to be some accountability for a franchise that decided to throw away its season before being forced into making the right move at quarterback.