Deshaun Watson got trampled by the Cowboys, but please don’t blame the protection

CLEVELAND — How long? How much longer do Browns fans have to wait to see the quarterback they were promised? 

We’re into Year 3 of the Deshaun Watson Experience and the first lap around the track didn’t feel any differently. Is it too late to speak to a manager and request a refund? 

It’s supposed to be different this year. He’s healthy now. The suspension is long behind him. The offense has been rebuilt to suit his strengths. The Browns have overhauled their entire operation to make him more comfortable. 

Success can still happen. It’s only one game and this offense had little time together in the preseason and training camp. That was evident during Sunday’s 33-17 embarrassment at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys.

Watson should’ve played at some point in the preseason. That’s an organizational failure. It was 300 days from his broken shoulder last season until Sunday’s opener. We’ve been through this before with Watson and long layoffs. We know how it ends by now. 

It may not have made a difference in Sunday’s outcome, but it’s impossible to watch the Browns’ first game and believe they were ready for the start of the season. They weren’t. Whether they’ll be ready for the start of the season by Week 2 is debatable at this point. 

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But the bulk of this mess belongs to the quarterback. His minus-0.36 EPA/play was tied for second-worst on Sunday. Yes, there were far too many drops by his receivers, but his expected completion percentage was still less than 64 percent. That was fourth-worst for Week 1 entering Sunday night’s game. 

If we’re being honest, this rebuilt offense had a “the orange is oranger” type of feel to it. Nothing really looked much different from what we’ve seen previously other than a deeper disdain to run the ball. There were only a handful of RPO calls and at least one of them was negated by penalty. Watson was still under center for a decent amount of time. 

Watson was hit 17 times and sacked six. The 17 hits were easily the most of any quarterback in Week 1. But the one narrative we can’t have this week, the one talking point I won’t stand for is that Watson was hit too much because his protection broke down and he didn’t have enough time to throw. It’s a lazy assumption based on the statistics and the most outrageous lie you’ll hear all week. It is categorically false. Even Browns coach Kevin Stefanski has been duped. 

“He got hit way too often,” Stefanski said. “We can’t let that happen to him. … We have to protect our quarterback better than that.” 

Or, and hear me out, the quarterback has to protect himself better than that.

Dallas’ defense blitzed on one-fourth of its snaps, which was fairly average compared to other Week 1 teams. Here are the important numbers to know, according to a deep dive on data provided by TruMedia and PFF. All of the league-wide rankings are through all Week 1 games before Monday night.

• Watson averaged 4.16 seconds to throw per pressured dropback Sunday, the eighth-best time under pressure. On sacks that resulted from pressure, he held the ball for 4.29 seconds, the sixth-best time in Week 1. 

• On the six sacks he did take, his average time to throw was 4.87 seconds — which ranked 10th. 

• Since he joined the Browns in 2022, Watson has been the slowest from snap to throw on pressured dropbacks of any quarterback across the league (4.60 seconds). Tom Brady, who coincidentally called the game for Fox, was the fastest at 3.26 seconds. 

Part of what has made Watson great throughout his career is his ability to hold the ball and extend plays. It’s disingenuous to then turn around and blame his line for protection breakdowns when they are giving him more time to throw against pressure than any other offensive line in the NFL the past two-plus seasons. 

This isn’t a protection issue. It’s a Watson issue. 

There were costly procedure and false start penalties Sunday on both of the Browns’ starting tackles. That has to get cleaned up. But there was at least one sack that occurred because Watson was standing where he wasn’t expected to be so the protection wasn’t angled that way. 

It’s rhythm and timing issues. It’s “feel” issues. It just doesn’t seem like he’s seeing the field well. Or he’s not processing what he’s seeing. 

There were receivers open down the field Sunday, Watson was just busy throwing the ball 7 yards out of bounds on sideline routes and fade routes into the end zone. 

It was awful. It was worse than awful. It was some of the worst quarterback play in the league during Week 1. 

Forty-five minutes after Sunday’s game ended, while most players had showered and long departed the locker room, Watson was still unshowered wearing stained football pants and chatting with backup quarterback Jameis Winston. 

It was an emotional few days for Watson, whose father died this week. He was estranged from his father for most of his life, according to a Houston Chronicle story in 2017. But navigating grief is never easy. 

“I’m not going to use that as an excuse for why we played bad, but it was a heavy heart these last couple of days,” Watson said. “But again, I don’t want to use that as an excuse.”

Stefanski and the Browns have done everything they can to make Watson more comfortable in this offense. As Year 3 begins, the organization is holding on tight, patiently waiting for its $230 million gamble to show a proper return on its bold investment.

How long? How much longer will they have to wait? 

GO DEEPER

NFL Week 1 takeaways: Cowboys’ talent overwhelms, Harbaugh’s formula works, Caleb Williams shaky

(Photo of Deshaun Watson getting hit by Micah Parsons: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)