Pockets of Cleveland Browns fans and other members of the NFL community have made it known that they disagree with first-year Browns head coach Todd Monken‘s decision to name Deshaun Watson the team’s Week 1 starting quarterback over Shedeur Sanders.
During the latest edition of his “Fitz & Whit” podcast, former NFL quarterback and current analyst Ryan Fitzpatrick explained why he feels Monken made the right call regarding Cleveland’s regular-season opener at the Jacksonville Jaguars
on Sept. 13.
Deshaun Watson “knows how to do an operation in the NFL” better than Shedeur Sanders
Per Arjun Bernardshaw of Pro Football Network and Paolo Mariano of ClutchPoints, Fitzpatrick said that the game film from the preseason shows that Watson is the “more ready” option of the two signal-callers.
“He knows how to do an operation in the NFL,” Fitzpatrick said about Watson. “He knows how to get the ball out. He knows how to throw on time. He knows how to throw with anticipation. Those are all things that he does and does well. On the flip side of it, when you watch Shedeur, there are things that certainly pop. He makes more plays downfield with some of the throws and scrambling outside the pocket. But rarely is he playing on time. I think this is probably why he lost the job to Deshaun.”
Fitzpatrick echoed those who have said that Sanders trails Watson “in the operational details” and “with the most basic parts of being an NFL quarterback — the operational side of calling the play in the huddle, breaking the huddle quickly, getting guys lined up, speaking a cadence loudly and clearly enough for his linemen to hear him.”
That said, the numbers from Cleveland’s first two preseason games don’t show that Watson clearly outperformed Sanders. According to Grant Gordon of the league’s website, Watson completed 16-of-27 passes (59.3%) for 162 yards with no touchdowns and an interception over those contests. Meanwhile, Sanders went 15-of-22 passing (68.2%) for 153 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.
Deshaun Watson could be “painful to watch” as Browns’ QB1
Watson was arguably the NFL’s worst starting quarterback in the fall of 2024 before he suffered the first of two Achilles injuries. Fitzpatrick seems to believe the version of Watson who earned three Pro Bowl nods while with the Houston Texans from the 2017 NFL Draft through the 2021 season may no longer exist.
“The hard part is, you put on the film, and there’s some things that Deshaun really regressed at and has not done well,” Fitzpatrick acknowledged. “One of them is the deep ball. Non-existent. Every deep ball you see is overthrown or out of bounds. Every single one of them. It was shocking to watch; it was painful to watch.”
If Watson is “painful to watch” against Jacksonville and at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sept. 20, Monken could turn to Sanders for Cleveland’s home opener versus the Carolina Panthers on Sept. 27.