PHOENIX \u2014 The Cleveland Browns have spent their time at the luxurious Arizona Biltmore this week working diligently to make two things abundantly clear: They aren\u2019t interested in trading Myles Garrett, and Deshaun Watson is absolutely a viable contender to win back the starting quarterback job from Shedeur Sanders.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t believe those conversations should be mutually exclusive. There is, or at least should be, a through line between the quarterback conversation and Garrett\u2019s fate in Cleveland.<\/p>\n
To be clear, I wrote after Garrett\u2019s historic extension last year that the Browns should\u2019ve traded him and nothing that has transpired in the year since has changed my mind. It would\u2019ve been complicated cap gymnastics, but depending on the timing, a deal was doable. Their recent restructuring of Garrett\u2019s contract makes it even more feasible to deal him despite their protests the last few days that they aren\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the exhaustive search to fix the quarterback position yet again has to be the most important priority for this organization until it actually occurs. Nothing else, not even retaining Garrett, comes close.<\/p>\n
Owner Jimmy Haslam said Monday at the league meetings that he could build the case for Garrett being the best player in the NFL. He\u2019s not wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuys like Myles Garrett do not come along very much,\u201d Haslam said. \u201cHe is a unicorn. And Myles is an integral part of what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet despite Garrett playing the best football of his career, the Browns have won eight games the last two years with him on the roster. His dominance just hasn\u2019t impacted winning to the level of a franchise quarterback \u2014 he had five sacks at New England last season and the Browns lost by 19.<\/p>\n
Put another way, the Dallas Cowboys moved Micah Parsons for a veteran defensive tackle and two first-round picks. The Cowboys went 7-10 in Parsons\u2019 last season in Dallas. They were 7-9-1 this year without him.<\/p>\n
No example better illustrates an elite edge rusher\u2019s lack of impact on winning with little around him than Parsons\u2019 and Garrett\u2019s presence on bad teams.<\/p>\n
Elite edge rushers like those two are an incredible piece to drop into a team ready to contend, such as the Packers did in acquiring Parsons. The Packers believed they could win a Super Bowl with him, and indeed, their winning percentage increased from .647 in 2024 to .731 with him last season before Parsons tore an ACL in December. The guts of their team were already established.<\/p>\n
That isn\u2019t where the Browns are, which is illustrated by how Haslam and general manager Andrew Berry lavished praise on Watson in recent days after Haslam at these meetings last year called the trade to acquire him a \u201cbig swing and miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watson has appeared in just 19 games over the first four years of the contract. He needed shoulder surgery, tore an Achilles twice and was suspended 11 games for sexual misconduct when he first arrived. The trade has been a debacle but the Browns refuse to give up and believe new coach Todd Monken might be able to get more out of him. Whether that\u2019s belief in magic beans or reality remains to be seen considering Watson\u2019s inability to stay healthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeshaun has a great chance, fresh start, offensive-minded coach who has, in his past, been able to work with all kinds of different quarterbacks and make them successful,\u201d Haslam said. \u201cSo Deshaun has a great chance to do that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
If it sounds to you like the Browns want Watson to win the starting job, you\u2019re not alone. That\u2019s the impression I was left with following a few days in the desert.<\/p>\n
The Browns seem to invent new ways to infuriate their fan base every year. Trotting Watson back onto the field might be their magnum opus, unless he miraculously finds a way to play well again. The odds are certainly against him.<\/p>\n
The question is whether playing Watson reflects a belief in him returning to MVP-caliber form \u2014 something he hasn\u2019t been in six years \u2014 or is it an indictment of the lack of belief in Sanders?<\/p>\n
Berry has long maintained the head coach needs to be able to pick his quarterback and reiterated this weekend that Monken will have final say on who starts with no interference from the organization. Haslam, meanwhile, dismissed the idea that Sanders\u2019 rabid fan base and marketability will play a role in the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI assure you (Monken) is going to go on who can win the most games,\u201d Haslam said.<\/p>\n
If the Browns believed they found their franchise quarterback in Sanders, retaining Garrett makes perfect sense. They have given no indication, either publicly or privately, that\u2019s the case. Berry even floated the idea this weekend of signing Watson to another contract should he play well this year, an idea so outrageous that it can only be surpassed by the Browns\u2019 brief flirtation with trying to convince the NFL\u2019s competition committee to change the rules allowing teams to trade draft picks up to five years out. The Browns quickly pulled the item from discussion Monday morning when they realized they had little support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s zero chance it gets through,\u201d Rams coach Sean McVay, a member of the competition committee, said Monday about an hour before the proposal was pulled.<\/p>\n
The Browns, of all teams, orchestrating the idea to expand tradable draft picks following the Watson debacle is akin to watching a gambler take out a second mortgage after exhausting his full line of credit.<\/p>\n
Garrett or not, the Browns aren\u2019t contending for anything significant in the NFL without a reliable quarterback. Neither Watson nor Sanders appear to be the path to get there. Trading Garrett now, in advance of a quarterback-rich 2027 draft, could provide the capital necessary to take yet another swing.<\/p>\n
Garrett won\u2019t turn 31 until December and Haslam believes the defender\u2019s training and work ethic will allow him to maintain this level of play for at least another five years. He very well might be right. Some of the best edge rushers in history were productive well into their late 30s.<\/p>\n
Will the Browns have found a quarterback before then?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 The Cleveland Browns have spent their time at the luxurious Arizona Biltmore this week working diligently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,85,54,2337,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-844674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-browns","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-browns","11":"tag-clevelandbrowns","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116323422947438281","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}