Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry acquiring Deshaun Watson from the Houston Texans in March 2022 and handing him a fully guaranteed five-year, $230M contract will likely go down as an all-time NFL blunder.
With Watson recovering from the ruptured Achilles tendon he suffered on Oct. 20, Berry was asked during his bye week news conference on Wednesday if there is a world where the 29-year-old plays for the Browns next season. Berry seemingly said plenty by saying little at all via his answer.
“Yeah, I think that’s always possible,” Berry responded, as shared by Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk.
“Really our focus with Deshaun, I would say for any player with a season-ending injury and a major injury, is first and foremost to make sure that he gets healthy from the Achilles injury,” Berry added, per Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN. “Everything else, we’ll deal with at a later moment.”
During his Cleveland tenure, Watson has served an 11-game suspension related to allegations of sexual misconduct during massage sessions and has made just 19 regular-season starts. He required shoulder surgery last fall, and he more recently was arguably the league’s worst starting quarterback of the ongoing campaign before his latest setback.
According to Pro Football Reference, Watson began Wednesday ranked last in the league with a 22.4 adjusted QBR and 30th with a 79.0 passer rating on the season.
Last offseason, the Browns replaced offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt with Ken Dorsey in an attempt to resurrect Watson’s career. Berry acknowledged on Wednesday that “we haven’t played well as a team and we haven’t played well as a unit on offense” this season. Thus far, backup Jameis Winston has gone 1-1 as Cleveland’s temporary starter.
Berry insisted on Wednesday that “all of us were on board” with the decision to land and pay Watson following the 2021 campaign. It remains to be seen if Browns owner Jimmy Haslam will show Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski the door in January, as 2-7 Cleveland became a seller ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline and may now have some players who are already checked out regarding the rest of this season.
