DeShaun Watson Out for Year

   Just as DeShaun Watson seemed to be showing signs of the player that the Cleveland Browns traded for, word from the team today stated that Watson had suffered a broken bone in his shoulder and would miss the remainder of the season.

Andrew Berry said that Watson should fully recover from his eventual surgery and be prepared to start the 2024 regular season.

Watson completed all fourteen of his passes in the second half in rallying the Browns to a 33-31 win in Baltimore over the Ravens to improve the team to 6-3 and only a half-game behind Baltimore for first place in the AFC North

Watson exits the season with 1,115 passing yards, seven touchdowns, and four interceptions in six games. While Watson seemed to be turning the corner just as his year concluded, it's not unfair to say that the Browns still will have questions about the quarterback position entering next season.

Kevin Stefanski announced that rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson will be the starter for Sunday's game against Pittsburgh.

Thompson-Robinson was overmatched in his only start of the year, getting less than an hour's notice of the start with no first-team preparation before throwing three interceptions in a 28-3 defeat against Baltimore.

The hope is that with a week of practice and work with the first team, Thompson-Robinson will be able to improve his performance and help the Browns get by against Pittsburgh, if not the remainder of the season.

The Browns are 6-3 with eight games to go and the schedule isn't overwhelmingly difficult.

Home games against Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Chicago, and the New York Jets and road games against the Los Angeles Rams, Denver, Houston, and Cincinnati.

4-4 against that schedule would make the Browns 10-7 which might get them into the playoffs, 5-3 and 11-6 is highly likely to get them into the postseason.

However, even against the weakest of teams, the Browns can't assume that they will receive even average play at the quarterback position, so none of these games can be guaranteed wins.

While DeShaun Watson has been disappointing, Andrew Berry didn't want to spend money for Jacoby Brissett, thought Dorian Thompson-Robinson could do the job better than Joshua Dobbs (the jury is still out there) before the season, and didn't trade (we don't really know if Berry tried to re-acquire one or both) for Brissett or Dobbs at the trade deadline to have insurance against a Watson injury.

This is the situation that faces the Browns- either an untested day-three rookie QB will have to succeed in an unexpected situation or a veteran quarterback that hasn't proven himself as a starter must come through as an average starter.

Thompson-Robinson can surprise, just last season San Francisco received play from seventh-round rookie Brock Purdy that was good enough to help the 49ers reach the NFC title game but one certainly cannot count on that happening.

No matter what, I can't blame Kevin Stefanski for whatever happens in the final nine games without Watson but I do have blame for Andrew Berry.

It was Berry that was all-in on Dorian Thompson-Robinson's impressive pre-season and he may eventually be right.

For the sake of the Cleveland Browns, he better be.