However Bad You Think DeShaun Watson Has Been, He's Actually Been Worse

There are a lot of ugly (and expensive) reasons the Browns are sticking with Watson, and I think there’s now little doubt that Cleveland’s 2022 trade for him will go down as the worst NFL deal of all time—an abject failure in every sense.

But we’re going to talk about Watson the quarterback. The Browns are 1-5 and dead last in the AFC North after losing to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, 20-16. The Browns didn’t score an offensive touchdown in that game, and it took them about 55 minutes to even get into the red zone. Watson’s stat line wasn’t horrendous because he didn’t throw an interception, but box scores don’t account for how truly awful Watson was on Sunday and has been for the entirety of this season.

The Browns are averaging 240 yards per game, the lowest of any team in the NFL by 13 yards. They’ve scored 80 points on offense in six games, which ranks second lowest—ahead of only the putrid Miami Dolphins (who have played one fewer game and have started three different quarterbacks). Let’s not forget that we saw Joe Flacco throw for 250-plus yards in each of his six starts for the Browns last season while Watson was injured. Flacco threw multiple touchdowns in five games for Cleveland. Watson hasn’t thrown for more than 250 yards in a game since Week 3 of last season, and he’s thrown for multiple touchdowns just once in 2024. OK, I’m getting carried away with the honorable mention bad stats.

It’s not just that Watson has been bad. It’s that he’s been one of the worst starting quarterbacks we’ve ever seen.

Let’s get to the list of 12 worst stats that describe Watson’s historically horrendous start to this season:

I never thought I'd see a trade match the Hershcel Walker trade in lopsidedness simply because teams have wised up about draft capital and getting taken for a ride. Though in terms of bad trades, the Walker and Watson trades feel like ying-yang relationship. While the Vikes ultimately paid a ton of picks for Walker (part of the stupidity/genius of that trade is the Vikes assumed the Cowboys wouldn't want the conditional picks which is exactly what Johnson wanted), the Cowboys still needed to hit on those picks to make it work. For a comparison, look at the RGIII trade; the Rams secured a number of picks and did nothing with them. In contrast the Watson trade just feels like the Browns are constantly shooting themselves in the foot with a double barrel shotgun with pushing Mayfield out, the draft picks, bad PR from Watsons off the field problems, Watsons suspension etc. It's the train crash that keeps on crashing. The Texans using the picks received to good effect feels like an afterthought.