As Training Camp Nears, The Cleveland Browns Still Waiting For Quarterback Clarity

Is this the week the Cleveland Browns find out who will be their Week 1 starting quarterback?

Definitely maybe.

However, it’s also possible the Browns this week might find out only who their Week 1 starting quarterback won’t be. Not who it WILL be. Only who it won’t be.

Confused?

Don’t be too hard on yourself. These are the Cleveland Browns, where confusion has reigned for most of this century. As usual with the Browns, this is self-inflicted confusion. We know this because it centers on the quarterback position, where confusion has reigned for most of this century.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave the last few months, or aren’t a fan of the National Football League, chances are you’ve probably heard that the Browns’ endless, desperate search for a franchise quarterback capable of leading the team to its first NFL championship since 1964 resulted in them trading for Deshaun Watson.

The Browns immediately signed Watson to a five-year $230 million contract, despite knowing that there was a very good chance Watson would be suspended by the NFL for an undetermined number of games at the start of the 2022 season, after being accused by over two dozen women of sexual misconduct during massage therapy sessions.

The Browns’ training camp begins on Wednesday of this week, and in fairness to the team, it seems reasonable to assume that arbitrator Sue Robinson will announce whether Watson violated the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy, which could lead to the suspension of Watson. For how many games? The most popular guesses seem to be between 1 and 17.

If Watson is suspended, the Browns would be forced to revert to Plan B, C, or perhaps even D at the quarterback position. That, in turn, would result in another “only-the-Browns” moment in which, by trying to solve their quarterback quandary, they actually made it worse – initially, anyway.

Within the organization, the hope is that Watson’s expected suspension would be fewer than eight games. That would be relatively manageable, given the team’s otherwise loaded roster, and rather-soft (at least on paper) early-season schedule.

Preparing for the unknown, Browns general manager Andrew Berry has rounded up three safety nets at the quarterback position, in anticipation of a Watson suspension of some length.

They are, with their number of career starts in the NFL in parenthesis: Jacoby Brissett (37), Josh Rosen (16), and Joshua Dobbs (0).

Brissett, 29, a third-round pick by New England in the 2016 NFL draft, is by far the most experienced of the group. Prior to signing with Cleveland, he spent four years with the Colts, and one each with the Patriots and Dolphins. In his 37 starts Brissett had a record of 14-23, with 36 touchdown passes, 17 interceptions, and a passer rating of 83.

Rosen, 25, the 10^th overall pick, by Arizona, in the first round of the 2018 draft, has played for three teams in his three years in the league: Arizona, Miami and Atlanta, where he compiled a combined record of 3-13, with 12 touchdown passes, 21 interceptions, and a passer rating of 61.1. In 2020 he was a member of the 49ers, but did not appear in a game.

Dobbs, 27, was a fourth-round pick by the Steelers in the 2017 draft. He appeared in five games in 2018 and one in 2020, throwing no touchdown passes or interceptions, in generating a passer rating of 39.1.

As it stands now, assuming that the length of Watson’s suspension will be announced sometime this week, Brissett would clearly be the expected Browns starter at quarterback in their Week 1 game at Carolina, whose starting quarterback, in all likelihood, would be discarded Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield.

You can’t make this stuff up.

The one caveat in the upcoming drama, is that if Watson’s suspension is longer than expected, to the point that it might put the Browns’ season in jeopardy, Cleveland might be forced to pursue a trade for another veteran quarterback, for example 49ers veteran Jimmy Garoppolo.

That, in turn, would leave the Browns’ off-season quarterback scorecard looking like this: traded for one (Watson), traded one (Mayfield), signed three (Brissett, Rosen, Dobbs), and traded for another one (Garoppolo).

In the meantime, the many veterans on that loaded Browns roster have to be feeling some degree of frustration in that Berry has assembled a roster loaded with talent everywhere, including (finally!) at quarterback, but only after Watson is cleared to play, and nobody yet knows when that will be.

In other words, the harder the Browns try to straighten everything out, the more jumbled everything gets.