Are Browns 'Playing to Deshaun Watson's Strengths?'

The Cleveland Browns have a guaranteed pile of reasons to keep rolling Deshaun Watson out as their starting quarterback. Even after the beating he took on Sunday in a 32-17 loss to the Cowboys, he is still the starter.

Bleacher Report released an article that suggests that to get the most out of Watson, the Browns should play to his strengths.

"Watson's ability to throw deep appears to be compromised because of a string of injuries in recent years,” B/R writes. “The quarterback failed to complete a single throw beyond 10 yards in the first half and finished the game with just 169 yards and one touchdown with two interceptions on a 53.3 percent completion rate.”

Definitely not a good recipe for winning football. The offensive line was absolutely horrible. There is no way around it; they simply couldn’t give Watson enough time to get past his first progression before being sacked, or having to scramble.

“The Browns won't have an easy time winning without the deep ball in their arsenal,” B/R continued, “but adjusting the offense to focus on runs and the passes Watson can still make should at least move the chains a bit more reliably while avoiding costly turnovers."

Related: 'Unsalvageable?' Is Browns QB Deshaun Watson Broken?

We went back and watched the game a second time, and we believe that Watson’s poor play was a combination of Watson being rusty from not playing in the preseason at all and the offensive line just being horrible.

Watson could get progressively better, be he certainly looked like a player who needed reps in the preseason to get comfortable in the offense. That falls at the feet of coach Kevin Stefanski.

It doesn’t matter what Watson does; if the offensive line is that horrible again, he won’t stand of chance.