BEREA, Ohio — The questions have arrived Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry from several angles. However, each of them started from the same starting point.
Deshaun Watsonthe redo of the season Browns starting quarterback. Or, like the questions asked of Berry on Wednesday during his annual speech media availability during the bye week tried to answer, will he ever be the Browns’ starting quarterback again?
“Yes, I would say this, again, our goal, organizationally, is to make sure he’s healthy,” Berry said. “The reality is, with any season-ending injury, there is some uncertainty in terms of the recovery, and so our goal is to make sure he is healthy and then we can move on from there.
THE Tear of Achillesthat Watson suffered on October 20 against the Cincinnati Bengals and had surgery to be corrected on October 25it usually takes at least nine months to fully recover. Berry said of a potential timeline for this: “It’s still very, very early, so it would be really irresponsible of me to speculate or put a timetable on it to be honest.”
When asked directly if Berry thought Watson could come back and play quarterback for the Browns again, he responded, “Yes, I think it’s still possible.”
That was the general vibe of most of Berry’s responses regarding where the Browns would go with Watson, the player the franchise has handcuffed itself to since making the ill-fated 2022 trade to acquire him from club. Houston Texans. The trade, which cost three first-round picks as well as a five-year, fully guaranteed $230 million contract, quickly rose to the level of one of, if not the worst, trades in NFL history. the league due to the lack of any major supported deal. Watson’s success.
This contract, and its fully guaranteed nature, has become the albatross hanging around the franchise’s neck. Watson had a cap hit of nearly $73 million for each of the next two seasons, then nearly $27 million in the first year after the contract expired in 2027.
The Browns sitting at 2-7 bye only makes any questions about Watson’s long-term viability more glaring because of the other questions around the roster, questions Berry has also avoided. There was also renewed dispute over who was directly responsible for making the trade happen: Berry, coach Kevin Stefanski or owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam?
“I will say this — like we always said — we all agreed,” Berry said. “Everyone was on board and, obviously, with great commitment to that, that will always be the case.”
Watson’s torn Achilles was just the latest obstacle thrown in the way of the Browns getting nearly a full season out of the quarterback. There was an 11-game suspension in 2022 for personal conduct policy violations related to more than two dozen lawsuits alleging sexual assault and sexual misconduct during massage appointments, 11 games lost last year due to shoulder injuries, including a season-ending glenoid fracture, and now the rest of this season lost due to the torn Achilles.
That leaves 19 total games for the Browns to evaluate Watson, the quarterback. That’s 19 games that run the gamut between standout performances, like the second half of last year’s Week 10 win over the Baltimore Ravens, and most of the seven games he’s played this season before the injury.
“It’s certainly far from ideal,” Berry said. “Availability is a big thing for any player but, again, it’s also the NFL. Sometimes you won’t have all your starters in every phase, and our job is still to produce despite that and at least in the first nine games of the season we didn’t do that.”
Watson and the Browns offense were linked hand in hand in struggles that made them both among the worst in the league before the injury. His own personal struggles – which included a 31st-ranked passer rating (79.0), a 26th-ranked passing yardage yield (1,148) and a 27th-ranked completion percentage (63.4%) – have coincided with an offense that was among the worst and remained there, even after backup Jameis Winston’s 334-yard performance a week after Watson’s injury.
Winston, who came back down to earth a bit in Sunday’s 27-10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers with three interceptions, provided a momentary boost to the offense with his performance against the Ravens. That only made the questions louder about why a change at the most important position on the field wasn’t made sooner while the Browns were in a five-game losing streak that defined the season.
“When you’re 2-7 going into the bye, you understand the frustration of the fans, and we haven’t played consistent on offense and that’s shared ownership,” Berry said. “It’s really a shared ownership. We’re capable of playing better, we should be playing better and, like I said, we’re going to make the necessary adjustments to improve our performance over the next eight games and then obviously make the adjustments to make sure we don’t feel that way in the first nine games of the year.
Chris Easterling can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ
This article was originally published in the Akron Beacon Journal: Cleveland Browns GM Andrew Berry avoids questions from Deshaun Watson
