The Cleveland Browns did the most ridiculous thing any NFL franchise has ever done, maybe ever. They named Deshaun Watson the starting quarterback after he played the worst football imaginable; he has questionable character based on what we have seen from the NFL’s punishment related to the personal conduct policy, and he separated himself from the fanbase pretty directly.
However, what Monken did in his meeting with Watson was exactly right. No matter what you think of the situation or who was behind it, the one way to end all of the conversation is to play good football.
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Monken was asked on Monday, in a series of questions, what he told Deshaun. He said, “I’ll keep most of what Deshaun and I talked about private, but the conversation was the way we make this go away is to play good football. ‘Let’s move forward, work our rear end off, and play winning football.'”
Regardless of Watson saying on Saturday night that he believes all of the angst towards him is personal, which it is, it is personal for several reasons. First, many Browns fans have had to justify cheering for him despite his questionable past and the baggage he brought with him.
Second, he played objectively bad football throughout his Browns tenure, if you can even call it that.
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Four seasons, 19 games played, a 9-10 record, and 3,365 yards, 19 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He has never thrown for over 300 yards as a Brown and has, without question, made the Browns’ organization worse. Not only that, when he got there, the Browns’ Super Bowl window was closing, and all of the best players from the end of the 20-teens and the early 2020s are now all gone and off the team.
So, yes, it is incredibly personal. It’s personal because Browns fans now have to hear how embarrassing their team is, how awful the situation is, how much it sucks to root for this team, and how this is the worst franchise in sports history.
You know what, it is.
The one way to prove it all differently is to play good football. I’m not convinced there is good football left in Deshaun Watson, but I’ve been wrong before.
This article originally appeared on Browns Wire: Browns’ HC Todd Monken challenges Deshaun Watson after naming him QB1
