The Cleveland Browns are in a pickle. And it's not a sweet one, either. At 2-7 and last place in their division, the Browns became sellers at the NFL's trade deadline and shipped star pass rusher Za'Darius Smith to the Detroit Lions.
That's an admission from general manager Andrew Berry that the season is done, and it's time to gain some draft capital for the future.
After signing contract extensions over the summer, the futures of Berry and coach Kevin Stefanski seem secure, and Berry has even said that as a two-time coach of the year, he thinks Stefanski is essential to fix what's wrong with the team.
“Kevin’s an outstanding coach and he’s absolutely a part of the solution,” Berry said.
But what about the expensive and underperforming quarterback Deshaun Watson? Berry said in his press conference on Wednesday that he sees a world where Watson comes back to play for the Browns again.
“Yeah, I think that’s always possible,” Berry said.
Watson has not been the player Cleveland thought they were getting when they made the deal to bring former Texans' Pro Bowl quarterback to town and gave up a ton to do it.
Since 2022, Watson has played in just 19 games, completed 61.2 percent of his passes and thrown 19 touchdowns to 12 interceptions. By most statistical metrics, he's been on the short list of the worst quarterbacks in the league this year.
“I would say more broadly, we haven’t played well as a team and we haven’t played well as a unit on offense,” Berry said.
“And I think oftentimes when you don’t play well on offense, obviously your starting quarterback and your play-caller will get the most criticism. But the reality of it is, offense comes down to organization and synchronization. There’s just a lot of shared ownership across the different position groups in terms of why we didn’t perform.”
It's obvious to everyone - including Berry - that the trade was a mistake. But Berry says he's not dwelling on the past.
“[I]t’s really more not really my focus at this point in the year,” Berry said. “Our focus is really on finishing out the 2024 season, having the team play at a higher level, and we’ll get to maybe those longer-term, or big-picture reflections at a later point in time.”
