Rejected By Deshaun Watson, It’s Back To The Drawing Board For The Cleveland Browns

Now what?

The Cleveland Browns swung for the fences, but struck out. Deshaun Watson said “thanks, but no thanks” to the Browns’ sales pitch to come to Cleveland and do what no Browns quarterback in history has done: lead the team to a Super Bowl.

Today, the Browns were told that they had finished fourth in the four-team field of teams vying to convince Watson that the resurrection of his career should happen in their city.

That fourth-place finish was even worse than the Browns’ tied-for-third-place finish in the AFC North this past NFL season. An argument could be made that in spurning Cleveland, Watson has to some degree saved the Browns from themselves.

When the Browns’ pursuit of Watson became known, a large percentage of the team’s rabid fan base immediately, and loudly, produced a two-pronged protest of that quest. One objection centered on the 22 civil suits filed against Watson by massage therapists accusing him of sexual misconduct. A grand jury chose not to indict him on criminal charges.

The other objection came from the rabid fans of Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield, whose feisty, ultra-competitive, blue-collar persona immediately endeared him to a large percentage of Browns fans from the day the team selected Mayfield with the first pick in the 2018 draft.

However, in finishing fourth in the four-team Watson Sweepstakes, the Browns now find themselves between a rock and an overcooked Baker. The 26-year-old quarterback, who had a disastrous, injury-riddled 2021 season, greeted the news that his bosses were pursuing Watson by tweeting what felt like a not-so-subtle “Goodbye Cleveland” message to his fans. It was exactly the type of message that a quarterback of a certain temperament would tweet under such circumstances.

Whatever parts of the bridge that weren’t burned in the deteriorating Mayfield-Browns relationship probably collapsed under its own weight on Wednesday when ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported that the Browns wanted “an adult” at that position.

Thursday’s “thanks, but no thanks” response from the Watson camp leaves the Browns with the worst-possible outcome to its daring swing for the fences attempt at a major quarterback upgrade.

The Browns got rejected by Watson. The Browns’ relationship with Mayfield, following their pursuit of Watson, has seemingly hit rock bottom. And, most troubling of all, the quarterback market in general doesn’t offer much hope for a team whose roster, in every other way but quarterback, is arguably not just playoff-worthy, but Super Bowl-contention worthy.

Technically, Mayfield is still a member of the Browns, and under contract for one more year. Realistically, this can’t possibly work, can it? At his best, the chippy, emotional, ultra-competitive Mayfield uses those qualities to his advantage. At his worst, all of that sometimes gets in his way.

Exhibit A: in the Browns’ second-game of the 2021 season, ironically against Houston, Mayfield became so furious over an interception that he rushed over to make the tackle, and in the process tore the labrum in his left shoulder. The injury plagued him for the rest of the season, and resulted in postseason surgery.

Mayfield’s tart response to the Browns’ ultimately failed attempt to acquire Watson was in keeping with his personality. The Browns’ decision to pursue Watson was an indication that the organization feels Mayfield’s shelf life in Cleveland – his legion of vociferous fans to the contrary – has expired.

Yet now, in still another Browns-like moment, the two estranged parties are, for the time being, in a forced marriage following a failed divorce.

There are not, in the known current quarterback market, any obvious Plan B’s for the fourth-place finisher in the Watson Sweepstakes. Matt Ryan (assuming the Falcons land Watson)? Marcus Mariota? Jimmy Garoppolo?

Are any of them, or any of their ilk, demonstrable upgrades from Baker Mayfield?

Whiter, in fact, Baker Mayfield?

If it walks like a burned bridge, if it quacks like a burned bridge, is not, indeed, that bridge between Mayfield and the Browns effectively burned?

Should the Browns trade Mayfield just to relieve both parties of each other?

Should they keep him and try to make it work?

Or should they use the 13^th pick in the NFL draft not on a receiver they, in their dreams, envisioned Deshaun Watson whistling bullseyes to in the red zone, but rather their view of the best of a rather uninspiring group of college quarterbacks, and hope for the best?

Rather than solving the organization’s endless search for an elite quarterback to get the job done, getting the bum’s rush out of the Watson Scrum leaves the Browns with even more questions than they had when it began.

Now what?