The Cleveland Browns can create a whole new world
Who’s playing quarterback for the Browns this season and beyond? It’s a long story. By all metrics, the air is fresher in Ohio these days.
BEREA, Ohio — Optimism echoed off Lake Erie, right into the ears of anyone who’d listen last season. The rest of the football world might’ve given up on Deshaun Watson but — publicly? — those Cleveland Browns were dug in.
Players, en masse, expressed their belief in the embattled quarterback. Coaches, too.
These Browns had every financial reason to say nice things. But there appeared to be real football belief that Watson could recapture his old magic. Pair a rehabilitated rising star with the No. 1 defense? Special things, they insisted, could happen. Wyatt Teller even hinted at Mahomesian qualities. The 2024 season then died upon arrival. Cleveland was far too mangled on the offensive line off the jump. Watson, far too broken. The defense sharply regressed. The result was a 3-14 season. The team manufactured more viral Jameis Winston quotes than wins.
This fall marks the Browns’ 27th season back from its 1999 resurrection. They’ve finished last in the division 17 of those seasons, good for 63 percent of the time. Over these three grim decades, they’ve gone 127-258-1 while starting 40 different starting quarterbacks. Taking it back even further, these Browns haven’t won the division since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Somehow, the Watson Trade signified a new low. Owner Jimmy Haslam is still on the hook for the $230 million guaranteed. The Browns cannot realistically cut the broken quarterback until after this ‘25 season and Watson is recovering from a second Achilles’ tear.
However, these Browns have quite obviously moved on.
Back in March at the owners meetings, Haslam admitted the team “took a big swing and miss with Deshaun,” adding that the Browns needed to now get themselves out of a hole. That’s not possible overnight and they just might’ve missed out on a special talent in Colorado’s Travis Hunter at No. 2 overall. But good on Haslam — and all parties involved — acknowledging the nuke dropped in their backyard. Visit a Browns OTA practice today and nobody’s trying to trick themselves into seeing a quarterback that frankly does not exist.
Instead, this looks more like a town reconstructing society in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event.
There’s an offensive line, eager to get back to plowing defenses downhill.
There’s a pair of rookie backs — Quinshon Judkins and Dylan Sampson — eager to follow those blocks.
Jerry Jeudy dazzles downfield.
Jim Schwartz barks orders at the defense.
Myles Garrett is in Japan, not OTAs, but the Browns re-signing the best pass rusher in the sport might’ve been the shock of the NFL offseason.
And dispersed across adjacent fields are four quarterbacks competing to be the next in line. There’s the competition for QB1 between the 41-year-old Joe Flacco and 27-year-old Kenny Pickett. Then, there’s competition between rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders to see which young arm gets dibs if a vet falters. I know, I know. It’s easy to laugh at the Browns and decry this as the worst quarterback room in the league.
But this all feels like the deep breath Cleveland desperately needs.
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On Substack Live last week, I enjoyed revisiting 2018 and 2019 Steelers What-If’s with Brian Batko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Both are instructive for all teams losing sleep in the era of Mahomes/Allen/Burrow/Lamar. In ‘18, the Steelers were one of many teams that passed on Lamar Jackson. In ‘19, they showed an absurd amount of fight 1 through 53. After one assistant coach died, after losing their Hall of Fame QB for the season, after more injuries, more adversity, Mike Tomlin’s group somehow won seven of eight games with rookie Mason Rudolph and Devlin “Duck” Hodges.
I love Mike Tomlin. You love Mike Tomlin. In a world going soft, his ecosystem is a breath of fresh air. Yet in retrospect? Another team in this predicament — one perhaps led by a GM thinking of tomorrow more than today — would’ve positioned that specific team for a historic 2020 quarterback draft class. Instead, the Steelers rolled with Ben Roethlisberger for two more seasons and let this class of Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Tua Tagovailoa, Jordan Love and Jalen Hurts pass on by.
Green Bay and Philly both selected QBs, knowing full well it’d piss off their current starters.
In an effort to squeeze more of out Big Ben, the Steelers instead drafted wideout Chase Claypool four selections before Hurts in that second round.
Nailing the quarterback position is all about timing.
News Alert: the Cleveland Browns entered this offseason in dire need of a QB. But when it became clear the Tennessee Titans were in love with Miami’s Cam Ward No. 1 overall, there was no use forcing the issue. The more I think about this pivot, the more it makes sense from an organization in major need of it. As you wait for a better shot at finding The Guy in ‘26 (with a pair of firsts), you might as well place four very different bets at the poker table in ‘25.
Up close, it’s clear that Flacco still has a big arm. He’s old, but he also hasn’t started 10+ games in seven years. For $4.25 million, it’s worth seeing if the 2023 Comeback Player of the Year has one more magic trick. The Browns liked Gabriel enough to select him 94th overall. He’s small — a half-inch shorter and 10 pounds lighter than Tagovailoa — but he did account for the most touchdowns (189) in college football history. By many accounts, Sanders’ pre-draft decorum was not #legendary. Sounds like he did everything but pass gas like Dale Doback. We’ve also heard from smart quarterback minds, such as David Yost, who believe in the Colorado QB. In the fifth round, it’s worth seeing if Sanders will engulf a daily slice of humble pie.
And the quarterback with the most intrigue of the bunch was the one acquired first: Pickett.
We’ve seen Geno Smith, Sam Darnold and (uh) Baker Mayfield resurrect their lost careers.
Pickett sprayed the field with his share of bad throws as a starter in Pittsburgh but the set of circumstances, as explored, was not ideal in Pittsburgh.
Similar to Darnold working as a No. 2 in San Francisco, he took a gap year in Philly, learned plenty with a Super Bowl champion and — now — unites with a two-time Coach of the Year. Similar to Minnesota’s Kevin O’Connell, Cleveland’s Stefanski was originally hired for his work with quarterbacks. This is a defining moment for the coach, too.
Cleveland’s O-Line (in theory) is much better than anything in front of Pickett his two Steelers seasons.
“I think every player,” Stefanski said, “their career has different twists and turns to it. Certainly, I’ve seen that in my time, just with different players at every position and you need the right people around you to have some success. So, Kenny is a young football player. This is Year 4 for him. He just won the Super Bowl last season, watching and playing, but certainly seeing how it’s done at an extremely high level in a different way, different system. But still a young player that I think has a lot left to go in his career.”
The future seemed so bright for Pickett merely two years ago. Fresh off four game-winning drives as a rookie, his confidence was soaring. The QB was not shy in a 1 on 1 with Go Long.
“Ever since I’ve picked up a ball, I want the ball,” Pickett told us. “I want to be The Guy in those moments. And I feel like my demeanor demonstrates that.”
Pickett then cited a quote from one of his strength coaches in college. DeVaughn Gordon used to tell guys at Pitt that you’re either a “street dog” or a “show dog” — and only one breed wins in this violent sport.
“It’s walking that line between ‘cocky’ and ‘confident,’” Pickett said, “but I’d rather be the one way than the other. I’d rather have the extreme confidence than be a guy who’s not believing in myself and not having swag when I’m on the field.”
Pickett now has every opportunity to prove he’s a “street dog.”
He’s loaded with the same self-belief that sustained Geno Smith through dark days. When his NFL career was on life support back in 2016, Geno was as bold, as brash as any backup in the league. Long forgotten inside a crammed visitor’s locker room, he promised: “Eventually everybody will see. You’ve got to roll with the punches.” Literally. A teammate’s punch to the jaw is what sent his career spiraling.
Eventually, Smith landed in Seattle and rewrote the narrative of his career.
I detect the same level of chutzpah in Pickett. We’ll see if his talent can match.
Even if he’s got a 25 percent chance of being the Next Geno, this is a gamble worth taking. It’s on Stefanski to bring the best out of him.
True, the Browns could’ve throttled into a full-bore rebuild by trading Garrett. In February, the four-time All Pro, 2023 DPOY with 102.5 sacks and 20 forced fumbles to his name morphed himself into the official daydream of every contender. On Radio Row, Garrett trashed his employer on a media blitz. He wanted out. It made perfect business sense for a team reeling from one of the worst trades in NFL history to turn its greatest asset into a bounty of draft picks.
Instead, the Browns showed Garrett the money. He’ll make $40 mill a year.
Nobody saw this one coming.
Even then, this doesn’t strike me as a team operating on two warped timelines. By the time Cleveland gets around to securing its next quarterback — easy enough, right? — it’s not crazy to think Garrett will still be in his prime. He’s 29. His game is more Julius Peppers than J.J. Watt, and the former lasted until age 38. He’s a true weapon on defense who gives you a fighting chance vs. those elite QBs in the AFC. As a rule of thumb, it’s smart to keep players who have a chance to don a gold jacket.
We could exhaust barrels of ink trying to make sense of the on- and off-field decisions that went into trading for Watson. Fact is, Watson never came remotely close to resembling the virtuoso hypnotizing the Buffalo Bills in the 2019 wild card, before then throwing for 4,823 yards and 33 touchdowns in 2020.
His right-hand man since high school, Quincy Avery, did his part. Last offseason, the private QB coach spliced up a cutup of every single throw Watson completed over 18 yards that final year in Houston. “I reminded him who he is,” Avery told us. “Like, ‘You’re fucking Deshaun Watson buddy. You’re one of the best people to ever throw a football. Think about how many people have been walking the face of earth. You’re one of the best people to ever do it.’ And I showed him on film: ‘This is what that looks like. This is who you are. So, let’s get back to that.”
Together, over Zoom, they watched every single throw. Confidence is a “muscle,” Avery explained, so it was crucial for Watson to start fast against the Dallas Cowboys. He needed to prove to himself he’s still got it.
Instead, the Cowboys stomped Cleveland.
The Browns thought everything happening off the field — Watson universally vilified — wouldn’t zap his game. They were wrong.
Watson could never get right mentally.
All of which could’ve been avoided by giving Baker Mayfield an extension back in 2021. Nobody’s thrown more touchdowns the last two seasons than the one flexing and dancing and loving life in Tampa, Fla. Who doesn’t love Baker? He’s the Great American Quarterback story. Yet even here, there’s more to the plot. One player in Cleveland once told me he didn’t blame the Browns at all for moving on because it was obvious Mayfield didn’t want be in Cleveland. He said the quarterback didn’t even speak to Stefanski or Haslam for roughly four months.
Whoever’s to blame, the relationship turned sour and Cleveland’s next move just so happened to be utter disaster.
It’s taken three full years for the organization to dust itself off.
But if you squint your eyes in Berea, there’s a distinctive light at the end of the tunnel. For this team, at this time? That’s winning the offseason.