On Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson made his debut following the shoulder injury that saw him miss 11 regular season games last season, ending his year early.
While the Browns were confident that Watson would be able to come back strong despite not taking any preseason reps, that was not the case on Sunday in Cleveland's 33-17 loss to the Cowboys.
The Browns opened the season with an offensive dud. Having added a new offensive coordinator in Ken Dorsey to revamp the system and new weapons, including wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, there was hope that things would be sparked.
But with starting tackles Jedrick Wills Jr. and Jack Conklin, both ruled out of the game—neither ready to return from their knee injuries sustained last season—the game began under less-than-ideal circumstances.
Cleveland opened up the game with a strong defensive stand, forcing the Cowboys to punt on their opening drive.
The Browns opened their offense up with a Jerome Ford rush and a pass to Amari Cooper. Some short passes moved the Browns down the field, but penalties killed the drive and forced them to punt. Kicker Dustin Hopkins put the first points on the board with a successful 51-yard field goal.
That was the extent of the Browns' offensive success in that half.
In the first two quarters, Watson was 7-for-15 passing with just 36 yards and an interception, which came off a batted pass. Watson was sacked once in the first half as well. The longest pass Watson was able to complete was eight yards.
Cleveland entered the half trailing Dallas 20-3. The defense had 49 tackles and three sacks at the half, courtesy of Za'Darius Smith, Dalvin Tomlinson and Myles Garrett.
In a time for adjustments, the Browns came out of the half not looking much better. Forced to punt, Cleveland allowed Cowboys' returner KaVontae Turpin to bring the punt back for a touchdown.
A 12-play, 75-yard play drive by the Browns on their next possession saw Cleveland in the end zone for the first time all day, a short but well-executed pass from Watson to Jeudy in the end zone. That play marked the best drive for the Browns and the end of their offensive success.
Watson ended the day 24-for-45 with just 169 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.
For the Browns, the most concerning part of the day was how many times Watson was hit. Cleveland gave up six sacks, and the offensive line was unable to hold up against the Cowboys' defensive front all game long.
It was a performance they were less than satisfied with.
"I hate seeing him get hit like that. We don't want him to get hit like that but he kept getting up and he kept going. I'm sure he's beat to crap right now, which we don't want to see," said guard Joel Bitonio said. "Just a no-show by us."
Tackle James Hudson III, who was starting at left tackle with Wills and Conklin both out, called the outing "unacceptable."
"How many sacks did they have? Six? Five? That's unacceptable. We have to be better, period," Hudson said.
Even wide receiver Amari Cooper knew Watson took too many hits Sunday.
"Yeah, I mean it's frustrating. You always want to protect your quarterback, especially like you just mentioned, coming off of the surgery. Obviously he's been rehabbing well but don't want the quarterback to get hit too much. I think he got hit a little bit too much. So we just got to be better, and that goes for everybody on the team. Us as receivers, we can get into our routes faster and things of that nature," said wide receiver Amari Cooper.
While Watson is running on adrenaline and will wait to see how he feels Monday morning after all the contact he took Sunday, the quarterback said he was determined to play every snap of the game, regardless of how it was going.
“Yeah, I’m going to finish the game for sure, regardless of what the score is. So, yeah, that’s just my mentality, just to compete. You know, I didn’t work this hard to come back even though it didn’t go our way today. You know, just to play only a little bit of it, regardless of how it was going. So, yeah, I wanted to stay in and compete to the final whistle,” Watson said.
While plenty of things went wrong, and those issues could be attributed to a number of things, Watson said the team is not in the habit of making excuses.
“Yeah, we’re not the type of people that make excuses. So some people can say that can contribute a lot, my injury, guys missing time. But at the end of the day, once you’re on the field, you just got to perform, you got to execute. And we didn’t do that overall. And yeah, it showed," Watson said.
Among the things, Watson did not want to attribute to the game, but that may have had an impact on the quarterback personally was the passing of his father and a former teammate this week. It was something general manager Andrew Berry stopped to talk about with Watson after the game at his locker, checking in to make sure he was holding up.
“He said, ‘Keep your head up, on to the next one’. And again, it’s been a long week. At the end of the day, football is definitely something that you got to take very, very seriously, and it’s our job, it’s our career, but there are other things that are bigger than this," Watson said. "I lost my dad Friday. I lost my brother, my teammate yesterday, Diondre Overton, only 26 years old. So, yeah, I mean, it’s been a long week, and they gave me the opportunity to go back home, but I told them I wanted to be here with my guys. So it wasn’t even really about football. It was really just kind of his first time seeing me over the weekend, kind of let me know he’s here with me.
"I try my best to, at least for at least three hours, to separate the two. But again, I’m not going to use that as an excuse for why we played bad. But, yeah, it was definitely a lot of a heavy heart these last couple of days. But again I don’t want to use that as an excuse of why we lost," Watson said.
It was the first game, and there are plenty more, but the Browns offense came out flat and dull. The lack of any kind of spark is worrisome at the start of the season, but the team is confident they will be able to watch the tape, fix mistakes, and be ready for their Week 2 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars on the road.
"We got 16 more opportunities. It’s the NFL, anything can happen. I started 0-4 in 2018. We won 11 straight, so it’s one game at a time. Take it one week at a time. You get ready, regardless if you win or you lose, you got to scratch that one and get ready for the next week. So anything can happen. Anything is possible," Watson said. "We got to watch this tape. It wasn’t a pretty day for us, we got to own it as a whole. Especially me as the leader of this team and leader of this offense. Correct those mistakes, get back on the same page and get ready for Jacksonville."
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