CLEVELAND, OHIO (TheOBR.com) - Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
I have reached the point in the Browns' offseason where every quarterback story feels like somebody set the blender to "liquefy" and walked away. Deshaun Watson. Shedeur Sanders. Todd Monken. Taylen Green. A dash of Dillon Gabriel. Road games. Rookie timelines. Contract gravity. Fan trauma. All of it spinning around in there, making a smoothie nobody asked for, but all of us are apparently going to drink.
That's May football, friends. It's not always nutritious, but it is what's on the table. Hey, there were like two stories that were available this morning. Even my somewhat smelly Crap Pile of aggregated feeds is relatively empty. Beggars, choosers, and all that.
The latest little morsel comes from NFL Trade Rumors' AFC notes, which relayed James Palmer's view that the Browns owe it to themselves to take a hard look at Watson as a possible starting quarterback, given the historic investment Cleveland made in him and the way injuries have interrupted the entire miserable experiment. Telling me this instantly removes James Palmer from my Christmas card list, if I had one. Which I don't.
Palmer's logic, as summarized there, is pretty straightforward: the worst-case scenario for the Browns would be Watson getting healthy, playing good football somewhere else, and Cleveland never seriously finding out whether there was anything left. He also noted the injuries — the shoulder, the Achilles tear, and then the second Achilles tear — as part of why the club's "chances" to evaluate him were never clean.
Wait. What? I swear I've seen a "healthy" Watson in the past and wasn't impressed (other than maybe one half throwing short passes in Baltimore a bunch of years ago), but that's neither here nor there. In some people's view of the problem, Watson has never been truly healthy. So, in their mind, there's a tantalizing possibility out there.
And, look, I get the argument. I hate that I get the argument, because the Watson era has been one of those Browns chapters you would rather seal in concrete and drop into Lake Erie. I'm on record saying the sight of Watson on the field during a game makes me expel whatever I've foolishly ingested. But from a cold front-office standpoint - the kind of standpoint that makes normal humans twitch - the money and sunk cost and the injury excuse are still sitting there like a gorilla in the middle of the living room.
Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders
Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders (Photo: Getty)
That does not mean Watson should be handed anything. But it does mean the Browns' quarterback competition may be less emotionally tidy than some folks (raises hand) want it to be.
In addition to the revisionist history on injuries, Mary Kay Cabot over at Cleveland.com also has a practical schedule piece, asking how Todd Monken's quarterback decision could be affected by the Browns having six road games in the first nine games. That's not a small detail. If you're trying to break in a young quarterback — or protect one from being turned into decorative lawn mulch — opening with that much travel and noise matters. In some minds. Not mine, but some.
But I can't help but think: Would it be easier mid-stream to dump Watson and switch to Shedeur than the opposite? You bet it would.
So maybe Monken leans veteran early.
I suspect we're going to see Watson for all these reasons, and I hate it.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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Positive news from the world of sports and beyond...
Today's Lift comes from the Good News Network, where 18 rescue workers spent six hours saving a Staffordshire bull terrier trapped underground in North Yorkshire. The dog had fallen into a narrow crevice and was stuck 21 feet down before the Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team got her out. For all that doggos do for us, it's good to see the favor returned.
I am a sucker for dog-rescue stories, because they prove something useful about humans: occasionally, when faced with a terrified animal in a terrible spot, we stop being ridiculous and become exactly the species we like to claim we are. Eighteen people, six hours, one dog. That's a pretty good scoreboard.
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When not wondering if "quarterback clarity" is one of those phrases the league invented to torment Cleveland, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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