Rich: Deshaun Watson Won the Browns’ QB Competition but Still Faces a Big Battle in Cleveland

Deshaun Watson won the job. That was never really the question, and Rich said so.

Todd Monken named Watson the Week 1 starter, and Rich's reaction was less surprise than confirmation. Everything he had heard since the combine pointed the same direction: there was a competition, sure, but there was also a thumb on the scale.

"The Browns want to see if he has anything from 2019 left in him," Rich said.

That is the honest framing of this decision. Cleveland spent money, draft capital, blood and sweat to acquire Watson in the middle of a scandal that was tearing his life apart. They are not walking away from that investment without an answer. And it did not matter how professionally Shedeur Sanders showed up and showed out in practices and preseason games.

Rich laid out three certainties about Watson's 2026 season. One, he is the starting quarterback. Two, his relationship with Browns fans is in shambles. Three, whatever pages Watson says he has turned, there is one he has not.

That third one is the fault line, and Watson put it on a microphone himself.

Asked how it felt to be booed, Watson did not soften it. "I think the whole world knows it has nothing to do about the performance," he said. "It's a little bit personal than that, so I think that's a disrespectful thing." He went back to the Achilles. "Last time I played on this field I tore my Achilles. And that same fan base, they cheered when I got hurt."

Rich did not dismiss that. "First things first, he's not wrong," he said. Cheering an injured player is indefensible, whatever you think of him.

But Rich would not let the second half of the claim stand. The idea that none of this is performance-based does not survive the numbers. Nineteen starts in Cleveland. 3,365 yards, 19 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, three rushing touchdowns. In 2019 alone Watson threw for 3,852 yards, and he cleared 4,000 in the seasons on either side of it. His entire Cleveland output adds up to less than any single one of those years.

"It absolutely is performance based, and that's part of the problem as well," Rich said.

The subtext is what worries him. If Watson genuinely believes this is only personal, then the accountability piece is still missing, and Rich called that another bright, shiny red light.

Then came the line that made it worse. Watson mused that if he is the starter, maybe the year is 17 away games.

"It's not great for him to just come out and say it like that," Rich said. "I would have counseled against him saying something like that into a microphone."

Monken, to his credit, handed Watson the answer key at the podium. Nobody wants to get booed, the coach said. It comes with the territory. Play good football and it turns just like that.

Rich's read on Monken was sympathetic. The coach put Watson on the road for start one and gave him the softest possible home look in start two, second half, against twos and threes, the boos presumably out of the building. Get him feeling good, turn the page together, head into the season clean.

Watson looked like hot garbage, and the few thousand fans still in the stadium booed him anyway.

So the page did not turn. And Monken's first two games are at Jacksonville and at Tampa, a Florida primary before the general, against a division winner and a Baker Mayfield team that would love nothing more than to send Cleveland home 0-2.