The Cleveland Browns are again assessing their future at quarterback with Deshaun Watson out with a season-ending injury for the second year in a row. Watson ruptured his right Achilles tendon in the first half of Sunday’s loss to Cincinnati. The Browns said Watson will have surgery and that he is expected to make a full recovery.
Watson suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in November 2023. He’s in the third year of a five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract.
Ideastream Public Media’s sports commentator Terry Pluto, who was at the game on Sunday, said he didn’t hear the fans who were cheering when Watson laid on the ground writhing in pain.
“It's easy to indict everyone," Pluto said. "But nonetheless, there was way too many people, even if it's 10% doing that. What you really saw is the human connection players have to each other in this situation."
Pluto said when a player sees another go down with a serious injury, they react as if it could have been them.
“One of the strongest spokesman after the game and one of the most eloquent was Myles Garrett, the Browns star defensive end, who talked about how he was hurt by the reaction from the crowd and that those people who were doing that, cheering that Watson was hurt to get him out of the game and get in DTR (Dorian Thompson-Robinson), the backup quarterback, ought to be ashamed of themselves and every word he said is correct,” Pluto said.
Pluto said Garrett, who has been listed with foot and lower body injuries this season, is battling an Achilles problem himself.
"Those type of injuries where a player is say, running down the field, the knee buckles, nobody hits them -- he just goes down -- are some of the scariest for players,” Pluto said.
Pluto said Browns fans who reached out to him had compassion.
“Most of the emails started with, ‘I don't like Watson at all. I hated the trade. But that's no way to treat a person,’" Pluto said. "I'm like, amen to that. And so, the fact that a lot of fans felt that Watson by now should have been benched, they didn't like the trade to begin with (and) they felt he was only playing because he had a contract that was so rich, doesn't negate the fact that he's still a human being and he got hurt."
Pluto said Watson’s injury made him think back to 2002, when then-quarterback Tim Couch was sidelined with a serious concussion.
“After the game, Couch insisted in talking to us in the media and he began to talk about, ‘I've been just giving my all for this team,'" Pluto said. "If you remember, in many ways, like Deshaun Watson was sacked a lot, so was Tim Couch early in his career, and he began to cry in the middle of his discussion with a few of us. And he said, ‘Why are they cheering for the backup and booing me?’ And, ‘I'm doing the best I can.’ And, you know, you could just see the human element there. Now, Deshaun didn’t talk to us after, but that's probably how he was feeling.”
As for the quarterback situation in Cleveland, Pluto believes the team is back to square one.
“How you can look at a guy who had major shoulder surgery in ‘23 and now Achilles surgery in ‘24 and the games that he did play for the most part were mediocre, to be kind, and say, ‘Oh, he's my quarterback going forward?’ That's just poor judgment," Pluto said.
Pluto also reiterates the point that the Browns signed up for this uncertainty when they traded for Watson.
“The football judgment and everything around that Watson trade was flawed and wrong," Pluto said. "They were asking for trouble in one way or another, and now they have it. In my mind, the Browns are nowhere with quarterback in their future, regardless of the fact that he has two years remaining on his contract. They got to go find one.”
As for the rest of the season, Pluto said the team will likely play Jameis Winston and Dorian Thompson-Robinson.
“But the Deshaun Watson chapter here, I'm not saying the book is entirely closed, but I sense they're getting towards the end here regardless of what his contract runs, because he can't stay healthy and these are major, major injuries,” Pluto said.
Pluto added that the team will be looking forward to next spring’s NFL Draft.
“Just be glad they have their first-round draft pick this year, because they haven't had it the previous three seasons because of that Watson trade, because they're going to need that first round pick to go shop for a quarterback,” Pluto said.
The Browns announced on Tuesday they’re signing quarterback Bailey Zappe off the Kansas City Chiefs practice squad. Zappe started eight games for New England over the past two seasons.
