National Football League

Will Browns' Deshaun Watson rediscover his past form?

Published Sep. 19, 2023 7:48 p.m. ET

After a summer filled with high expectations, Deshaun Watson's start to the 2023 season has been disappointing.

Watson signed a five-year, $230 million dollar contract with the Cleveland Browns in 2022, this coming after the team traded three first-round picks to get him. The team thought it was getting a franchise quarterback. But that's not what has happened so far. Not even close.

Two games into his first full season with the Browns, there remain major questions about whether Watson can be the same player who led the NFL in passing three years ago for Houston, or at least make Cleveland a Super Bowl contender.

When he returned from an 11-game suspension last season for violating the league’s personal conduct policy after being accused by women of sexual assault and harassment during massage therapy sessions, Watson blamed a long layoff — he also sat out 2021 — for his rust.

A full training camp was supposed to fix that. It hasn’t.

He was indecisive and off-target in Week 1 against Cincinnati (16 of 29 for 154 yards), and Browns coach Kevin Stefanski cited wet weather as the main culprit. But it was bone dry in Pittsburgh, and he wasn’t much better.

So far this season, he has only completed 55% of his passes, has the same number of interceptions as touchdowns (two), and ranks near the bottom in most major statistical categories.

With some challenging future opponents on the schedule, including the Ravens, Rams, and 49ers, questions are beginning to arise over just how good Watson is at this point in his career.

"Last night he didn't look like Deshaun to me. I didn't see the poise [or command], I used to see," Skip Bayless said on "Undisputed." "I didn’t see the total control of the football game the way I used to see.

"He was misfiring last night. He was 22-for-40 that's barely above 50%," Bayless stated.

Examining the struggles of Deshaun Watson

Former NFL receiver Keyshawn Johnson, though, warned not to give up on Watson just two weeks into the season.

"I think he will become better, I think this is a good situation for him," Johnson said, "They got 14, 15 more games to go, you got plenty of time to turn it around."

Colin Cowherd, though, found himself more in Bayless' camp. On "The Herd" on Tuesday, he said that the Browns simply aren't getting the same player he was earlier in his career.

"He is not the old Deshaun Watson," Cowherd stated, "He's slower, when he runs he is not running to throw, he is not running to buy time."

Cowherd believes the Browns are living in the past and not looking to the future: "Bad organizations, they find themselves in holes, and they grab a shovel and keep on digging."

Nick Wright went even further than that on his podcast, "What's Wright?", questioning whether the Browns' acquisition of Watson was a trade of historically bad proportions.

Browns may have made the worst trade in NFL history

"He is uncuttable," Wright said, referring to the fact that Watson's contract is fully guaranteed. "One of the only uncuttable players in the entire league. … If the Browns were to be like, ‘eh, after this year we want to cut him,’ the dead cap would be $200 million. The whole salary cap is like $240 [million]. Not possible."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.