By Ben Jenkins, Podcast Manager  

The Cleveland Browns have been the laughing stock of sports as a whole for the last two and a half decades and yet they continue to find ways to become even more of a joke every single year. 

The Browns have made countless awful decisions over the years, but the decision to start Deshaun Watson may somehow be the worst. Trading for Watson in the first place was mind-boggling. Baker Mayfield, who won the Browns their first playoff game since 1994, was written off after one bad season. 

What Baker did for the city of Cleveland was unquantifiable. He was drafted into a team who had won four games over the last three years, and were coming off the second 0-16 season in NFL history. 

The team had the worst supporting cast, the worst coaching staff, the worst ownership, the worst management and the worst culture in the NFL and yet Mayfield won seven games and set the rookie passing touchdown record. 

He then went on to lead Cleveland to a 11-5 season and playoff berth in 2020. Not only did he take the Browns to the playoffs, which seemed like an impossible task, he blew out the Steelers in Pittsburgh. 

As a lifelong Browns fan, I can attest to how magical that season was. My entire childhood they were far and away the worst team in pro sports, but Baker Mayfield came into the city, changed the culture and won football games. 

This feat should have been enough to earn Baker a lifetime contract with the Browns, but after one lackluster season in 2021, a year in which he played the entirety of with a torn labrum, the Browns shipped him off to Carolina for essentially nothing. 

Not only did they trade the savior of the franchise, they traded three first round picks for Watson, who was just charged with 27 counts of sexual assault. 

The fact that the Haslams, the owners of the Browns, and Andrew Berry, the Browns’ general manager, even considered bringing in a person who should be in jail for the rest of his life is truly disgusting. To add insult to injury they gave him the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history: $230 million over five years. 

After all of this, one would hope Watson was at least a serviceable quarterback. Not only was he not worth his $230 million price tag, he has not even been worth a roster spot. 

He has yet to throw for over 300 yards in a Browns jersey, yet to play a full season, yet to show any flashes of his former self and is, by the analytics, one of the worst quarterbacks to play in the NFL over the course of the last four seasons. 

Watson tore his Achilles in 2024, putting him out for an extended period of time but his time table had him slotted to return at some point in the 2025 season.  

His return did not happen because he re-tore his Achilles due to not wearing the boot prescribed to him by doctors, a clear insight into how seriously he takes his job. 

After all of this, Watson still has a job in Cleveland. He took the field against the Bills in the preseason a few weeks ago and was booed heavily, rightfully so. 

“I think the whole world knows it has nothing to do with the performance. It’s a little bit more personal than that. So, I think it’s a disrespectful thing.” Watson said at the postgame conference.  

Calling out the most loyal fanbases in sports, after all we have been through as Browns fans, should have been the nail in the coffin for Watson’s time in Cleveland. 

Still, he was named the week one starter. The biggest slap in the face to a fanbase in the history of sports. The magnitude in which Watson and the Haslams have destroyed the Cleveland Browns is unprecedented in sports.  

We as Browns fans deserve better, and the day Watson and the Haslams leave the organization will be the most joyous day in the city’s history.