Jameis Winston Gave More Proof Browns Should Move on From Deshaun Watson for Good

When Kevin Stefanski has capable quarterback play, he is one of the best designers of an offense in the NFL. An upset over the Ravens was more proof the team should move on to the next chapter.

Stefanski and Winston led the Browns to a win over the Ravens in the first game after Deshaun Watson’s season-ending injury. / Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

Since Deshaun Watson became the Cleveland Browns’ full-time starter on Dec. 4, 2022—and went 12-of-22 for 133 yards and an interception—the team has utilized four different starting quarterbacks. During the 2023 season, PJ Walker started two games and Dorian Thompson-Robinson started three before the team pivoted to Joe Flacco for a late-season run to the playoffs. 

Here is what that stretch looked like from DTR and Walker:  

Dorian Thompson-Robinson:

• 19-of-36, 121 yards, 3 INTs.
• 24-of-43, 165 yards, 1 INT.
• 14-of-29, 134 yards 1 TD.

PJ Walker: 

• 18-of-34, 192 yards, 2 INTs.
• 15-of-31, 248 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs.

But after the Browns handed the ball off to a veteran quarterback, this is what the offense looked like under Flacco, including a wild-card loss to the Houston Texans.

• 23-of-44, 254 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT.
• 26-of-45, 311 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT.
• 28-of-44, 374 yards, 2 TDs, 3 INTs.
• 27-of-42, 368 yards, 3 TDs, 2 INT.
• 19-of-29, 309 yards, 3 TDs 1 INT.
• 34-of-46, 307 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs.

On Sunday, we got yet another look at what a Browns offense looked like with a non-Watson veteran starter under center, with Jameis Winston making his first start of the season. This came against the Baltimore Ravens, a defense with a strong recent history that has fallen off a bit against the pass but is one of the better run-defending teams in the NFL. 

Winson’s stat line in the 29–24 victory: 27-of-41, 334 yards, 3 TDs and no interceptions.

Winston’s game marked the fourth time in a seven-game stretch with a veteran QB in this offense throwing for at least 300 yards and three touchdowns. The last time Watson did this was in a loss to the Tennessee Titans … back in January 2021, his final game as a member of the Houston Texans. 

If you’re a Browns fan preparing to complain this is overkill, or beating a dead horse, that is not my point. The Watson trade, along with the subsequent contract the Browns handed him, is absolutely and unequivocally the worst move in NFL history. And while it may be important to keep ringing that bell for the sake of history, so that no one forgets the team mortgaged its entire future for a player facing dozens of allegations of sexual assault and misconduct, and twisted itself into miniature yes-man pretzels defending him at every turn, the fact that this offense has been awesome without him can also be true. 

Patrick Mahomes does not have a single game of 300-plus yards and three touchdowns this year or last year. Tua Tagovailoa, piloting arguably the most explosive offense in the NFL a year ago, had three of those games in 2023. Josh Allen has 13 of those games … in his entire 101-game career. And a combination of Winston and Flacco have done it four times in about the span of time it takes someone to obtain a passport. 

Winston did it after the Browns had traded their best wide receiver (Amari Cooper) before the deadline. 

A few weeks ago, we dared Kevin Stefanski to bench Watson and force the Browns to pick a side. His patience with Watson, while confounding, seems to have only underlined the central point: When he has capable quarterback play, he is one of the best designers of an offense in the NFL. Last year, the team was white-hot when Stefanski was working alongside OC and quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt. Now that Ken Dorsey has taken over play-calling duty, the Browns have again become one of the best passing offenses in the league.

While I am not as steeped in analytics as Cleveland’s front office claims to be, and the Browns’ front office may consider this an incomplete sample size or largely meaningless based on their own calculations as they venture deeper into the sunken cost fallacy, this week would seem to me another glaring example of why the team should simply sprint in the other direction. Allow Stefanski to pick his own quarterback while Watson stays home and collects a paycheck. Allow the team and the city a chance to take what was actually lovable about this franchise during a three-season stretch in which its Q rating rivaled that of an election-time telemarketer and step into the sunlight. Allow them to take the brutal dead cap hits while putting up 1990s Texas Tech numbers and get some of those exhausted, fed-up, disgusted, bleary-eyed fans back in their seats as they lobby to build a new stadium. Allow them to win, like the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers have won while sucking up the remnants of pricy contracts for quarterbacks no longer in the lineup. 

This has to sound better than the alternative. Stefanski and his offensive staff are now mounting a bulletproof case for a new direction by leaving the people above them who orchestrated the Watson trade with no choice.