LANDOVER, Md. — It’s the primary week of October and the Browns’ season has ended earlier than the Guardians season.
At 1-4, that is it. It feels prefer it’s already over, lengthy earlier than the leaves change, earlier than the bye week, earlier than a pumpkin is carved, earlier than the NBA season begins and earlier than the Guardians’ baseball destiny has been decided.
Even by Browns requirements, that is awfully early for an obituary.
But right here is the place they had been laid to relaxation, a awful staff buried 34-13 in a awful stadium 12 miles exterior of the nation’s capital.
GO DEEPER
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There are fires all over the place and never sufficient hoses to go round. The protection is a large number. The offense is totally damaged, void of any identification and any idea of the right way to transfer the ball successfully on this new scheme that the personnel doesn’t match.
The Browns couldn’t even get lined up correctly on both facet of the ball, a first-degree teaching felony. They had been flagged twice on protection for too many gamers on the sphere on the identical drive, and the offense couldn’t go for it on fourth-and-goal from the two as a result of they’d too many gamers within the huddle. They needed to eat a penalty and as a substitute kick a area aim. That’s teaching.
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They couldn’t shield, significantly on the appropriate facet of the offensive line. Dawand Jones has been unhealthy all 12 months at proper deal with, and Wyatt Teller picked a nasty time on the schedule for a knee damage.
Rookie Zak Zinter would possibly finally be an excellent guard within the NFL, however proper now he’s a rookie getting chewed up by a tough stretch of wonderful NFC East defensive tackles: the Giants’ Dexter Lawrence, the Commanders’ Daron Payne, and subsequent week is the Eagles’ Jalen Carter.
All of that’s essential context. It isn’t only one participant.
And but one thing has to vary. They’ll’t go one other three months like this or nobody will survive.
It’s time. It’s time to finish the Deshaun Watson catastrophe. That’s the one phrase to explain each a part of this transaction. The commerce that introduced him to Cleveland was a whole failure, the contract an albatross, a choke maintain round a franchise that’s dropping oxygen.
Let me be clear: Watson isn’t the one downside on this staff. However he’s positively not the answer, both. We’ve got sufficient proof now.
Watson was a large number in opposition to the Washington Commanders: 15-of-28 for 125 yards and a landing. He was sacked seven extra instances and the offense didn’t convert a 3rd down till the fourth quarter.
Stefanksi NOT proud of Watson.
Kudus to him for protecting his mouth…dealt with it fairly nicely contemplating all issues pic.twitter.com/1lLZJYokIX
— Chase Daniel (@ChaseDaniel) October 6, 2024
In a league of 32 quarterbacks, he’s thirty third in move EPA (anticipated factors added) per dropback. He’s twenty eighth in passer ranking. He has been sacked a league-leading 26 instances, 9 greater than some other quarterback.
Even when he had time on Sunday, he left clear pockets. Jerry Jeudy dropped a landing in the long run zone, though the sport was already determined at that time. I’m attempting to be cheap whereas additionally being sensible.
A franchise quarterback is meant to assist an offense and a staff overcome a few of these obstacles.
Watson is making it worse.
He isn’t serving to this offense. He isn’t serving to this soccer staff.
Kevin Stefanski, in fact, isn’t able to have this dialog.
“We’re not altering quarterbacks,” Stefanski mentioned after the sport.
Even when he wished to — how may he not at this level? — possession wouldn’t enable it. The Haslams are nonetheless bailing water and paddling furiously on the S.S. Watson, hell-bent on taking all of it the way in which to the underside of the ocean.
We’re practically there.
Final 12 months confirmed what Stefanski’s offense can seem like with a authentic quarterback when Joe Flacco resurrected the staff. Moderately than utilizing that as a blueprint to indicate Watson how good Stefanski’s offense can look when executed appropriately, they as a substitute executed the offense and the offensive coordinator. They broke one thing that didn’t want fixing to placate their quarterback.
Now the offense is averaging 3.8 yards per play via 5 video games, in response to Stathead, the worst for any NFL offense since 2018. This offense is hovering within the neighborhood of the 1999 growth Browns (3.65). It’s worse than unhealthy. It’s deplorable.
GO DEEPER
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It isn’t all Watson’s fault, however he’s the rationale they’re caught operating a system that doesn’t match any of their talent gamers and one Stefanski is clearly uncomfortable calling. I wrote a few weeks in the past about how the Browns have a number of the slowest receivers within the league who wrestle at creating separation. That doesn’t imply you possibly can’t win with them, but it surely clearly means you possibly can’t win with them enjoying like this.
Watson has turn into an an infection within the franchise with no recognized treatment. They’ll’t reduce him. They’ll’t commerce him. They refuse to bench him and let him money his checks in anonymity. So that they’ll proceed operating him on the market on Sundays whereas the remainder of the physique dies.
The actual fact this all got here in opposition to Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels was a bit ironic. Daniels performs precisely just like the quarterback the Browns thought they had been buying in Watson. Daniels is poised, he glides away from stress. He can roll out of the pocket and throw dimes down the sphere, as he did on a fantastic 66-yard strike to Terry McLaurin within the first quarter.
Daniels has uplifted a determined franchise. He has coated the sins of a flawed protection. The Commanders have already matched their win complete from final 12 months primarily as a result of their quarterback is enjoying at an elite degree. That’s what the great ones can do.
The Browns don’t have one. They’ve an an infection. And the physique is slowly dying.
(Photograph of Deshaun Watson: Timothy Nwachukwu / Getty Photos)