CLEVELAND BROWNS QUARTERBACK Deshaun Watson stood earlier than a scrum of reporters throughout a June apply.
Carrying a cutoff hoodie and Browns-themed beanie on his head, he downplayed issues concerning the harm to his throwing shoulder that required season-ending surgical procedure final November and the overhauled offensive scheme he had been adjusting to all offseason. However most significantly, he informed the gathering about his confidence in getting again to a degree of play he hasn’t proven because the 2020 season, when, as a member of the Houston Texans, he led the NFL in passing with 4,823 yards and was named to the Professional Bowl for the third time in 4 years.
“All it’s [is] time, reps getting again,” he mentioned. “You recognize, I missed a variety of soccer … in order that’s one factor which you could’t ask to get is that point [back]. You recognize, you bought to be obtainable, and I wasn’t obtainable the final two years for no matter circumstances, however, God prepared, simply take it in sooner or later at a time, and I’m obtainable. These reps will come, and I am going to proceed to get higher each rep.”
The clock is ticking for the Browns, who, once they host the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday (4:25 p.m. ET, FOX), enter the third 12 months of the large wager they made on Watson. They will accomplish that with a revamped scheme, a brand new offensive coordinator who’s beforehand helped get the most effective out of Josh Allen and Cam Newton, and a few key new faces they hope can elevate a unit — and by extension a group — with Tremendous Bowl aspirations.
“I feel our largest focus with Deshaun is simply ensuring that he is obtainable,” common supervisor Andrew Berry mentioned. “I feel the remaining will maintain itself.”
THE BROWNS HAVE tailored their offense to go well with Watson’s strengths since buying him by way of commerce after which giving him a five-year deal price a completely assured $230 million in March 2022.
Over Watson’s first two years in Cleveland, coach Kevin Stefanski has eschewed two- and three-tight ends units for extra unfold formations with three and 4 large receivers. Beneath-center exchanges have declined in favor of shotgun snaps.
This offseason, Stefanski made his most audacious pivot to this point. He fired Alex Van Pelt — the Browns’ offensive coordinator since Stefanski arrived in 2020 — and changed him with former Buffalo Payments OC Ken Dorsey.
Heading into the 2024 season, any success the Browns have had with Watson on the roster has largely come regardless of him. The Browns are 8-4 in video games Watson has began and returned to the playoffs for the primary time since 2020. However Watson has been restricted to 12 video games due to suspension and accidents, and he has posted a 41.9 QBR since making his Browns debut, the sixth-worst mark in that span.
With Joe Flacco, who final season was pulled off the sofa within the wake of Watson’s shoulder harm and led an unbelievable run to the wild-card spherical, now not on the group, Cleveland’s focus has returned to getting the 28-year-old Watson again to Professional Bowl type, and so they consider Dorsey will help.
Dorsey, a nationwide champion quarterback on the College of Miami who briefly performed within the NFL, was fired halfway via final 12 months — his second season within the function — however had a powerful relationship with quarterback Allen, working as his place coach earlier than being promoted to coordinator.
“I feel when [Dorsey] acquired right here three years in the past, my profession positively modified when it comes to how I seen the sport of soccer,” Allen mentioned final season. “Simply having a man within the quarterback room that performed the sport … he is aggressive, he is good. He works his a– off. I recognize what he is accomplished for me over the course of my profession to date.”
In Dorsey, the Browns noticed a vivid thoughts with the flexibility to attach with Watson, not solely due to his previous as a quarterback, however his expertise working with passers with an identical ability set. Along with serving to Allen blossom, Dorsey was Newton’s quarterbacks coach for 5 years with the Carolina Panthers, which included three Professional Bowl choices and his 2015 MVP season.
“Each one in all these guys could be very completely different,” Dorsey mentioned, “however I feel there’s issues you might take away, whether or not it is the run sport, the zone learn sport, the [run-pass option] sport, as a result of all these issues, a variety of instances you possibly can’t essentially educate them. It is a pure really feel that these guys have. And watching Deshaun, he clearly has a terrific really feel for lots of various points of soccer. Whether or not it is scheme-wise for us, instincts of what he sees on the sphere when it comes to the protection and adjusting issues. However I feel that is the thrilling half about working with him, is getting again to the elite degree of who he’s.”
STEFANSKI WILL CONTINUE to name performs in 2024 however Dorsey has helped set up a bevy of latest ideas to the group’s drop again passing sport, significantly the usage of RPOs and movement.
Final season, the Browns’ personnel utilization aligned extra with fashionable NFL traits, utilizing extra formations with three large receivers. From 2020 to 2022, the Browns used 11 personnel (one working again, one tight finish and three large receivers) on 47% of performs, sixth lowest in that span, in keeping with ESPN’s Stats & Info Group. The Browns used 11 personnel on 68% of performs in 2023, their highest in 4 seasons underneath Stefanski. Anticipate that to stay a staple, and probably enhance, with Dorsey’s enter.
“We see the sport equally, however then in a variety of methods, we problem one another and push one another,” Stefanski mentioned of Dorsey. “However we have labored in comparable methods. Ken’s performed on this league as a high-level participant, clearly in faculty at a excessive degree, so he has a novel perspective. He has a novel perspective from the completely different guys he is coached. So, there’s loads that we see equally, however there’s additionally loads that we push one another on, and that is the enjoyable a part of working with anyone that you just actually belief and you’ve got respect for, however you possibly can push one another.”
One main change to the offense this season will probably be the usage of choice/selection routes, which permit pass-catchers to interrupt in a given course based mostly on the protection’s leverage. It requires timing and connectivity between the quarterback and receiver, however is an idea Watson is accustomed to.
It was a key part of Invoice O’Brien’s offense when he was Watson’s head coach and playcaller with the Texans. O’Brien introduced it over from his time with the New England Patriots, the place wideouts Wes Welker and Julian Edelman have been consultants with quarterback Tom Brady (Browns large receiver Chad O’Shea was the large receivers coach in New England for 10 years and overlapped with O’Brien).
“It is a completely different scheme, a scheme that’s similar to what I did earlier than in Houston,” Watson mentioned. “And [Dorsey has] been round a variety of soccer, very good and he is a really player-led coach similar to Stefanski. And he lets his gamers do what they should do for his or her expertise to be proven.”
The Browns’ makes an attempt to enhance their offense and get probably the most out of Watson did not finish with the teaching change. The entrance workplace traded with the Denver Broncos for large receiver Jerry Jeudy, a 2020 first-round decide. Jeudy did not eclipse 1,000 receiving yards in a season throughout his time in Denver. However he was a participant the Browns coveted throughout the draft course of due to his quickness, deep velocity and talent to realize yards after the catch.
The Browns did not get a lot from their large receiver room past Amari Cooper, who recorded a career-high 1,250 yards in 2023. The hope is Jeudy generally is a top-three choice within the passing sport behind Cooper and tight finish David Njoku, who was named to his first Professional Bowl in 2023 after a breakout season. The Browns have been twenty first in proportion of yards that got here after the catch in 2023, in keeping with TruMedia. Jeudy ranked ninth amongst large receivers in yards after the catch per reception (6.0).
FOR ALL THE optimism the Browns have publicly displayed concerning the state of their revamped offense, they enter the 2024 season with a number of questions and harm issues.
Operating again Nick Chubb will begin the season on the bodily unable to carry out (PUP) listing as he continues to rehab the extreme knee harm he sustained final September and that required a pair of surgical procedures. The Browns count on Chubb, whose profession mark of 5.3 yards per rush is second solely to Jamaal Charles for the best within the Tremendous Bowl Period, to play in some unspecified time in the future this season however have not given a timetable for his return. Jerome Ford, who led the group with 813 speeding yards final season, will as soon as once more be the highest choice within the backfield till Chubb is again.
Cleveland additionally spent all of coaching camp with out beginning offensive tackles Jedrick Wills Jr. and Jack Conklin, who have been rehabbing season-ending knee accidents. Each gamers have been activated from the PUP listing forward of final Tuesday’s cut-down deadline and Conklin returned to apply however Wills stays sidelined. If Wills is not prepared for Week 1, Conklin might transfer over from proper deal with to left deal with, a place he hasn’t performed since faculty, whereas Dawand Jones continues to occupy the fitting deal with place he took over when Conklin went down within the 2023 season opener.
The lack of highly-respected offensive line coach Invoice Callahan looms giant over the place group, although. Callahan helped lead prime offensive traces in Cleveland for a number of years however departed to affix the workers of his son, Brian, who turned the Tennessee Titans’ head coach this offseason.
The Browns employed Andy Dickerson, the Seattle Seahawks’ former OL coach and a Callahan disciple, to fill the void. Between Dickerson’s previous with Callahan and new assistant OL coach Roy Istvan, who has familiarity with RPO blocking ideas from his time with the Philadelphia Eagles, there’s perception in a clean transition regardless of the absence of Callahan.
WATSON, HOWEVER, REMAINS the central determine, along with his efficiency this season seemingly deciding whether or not the Browns are merely a proficient group able to reaching the playoffs or a real risk to dethrone the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs within the AFC.
Cleveland began 5 completely different quarterbacks in 2023 and posted a cumulative group Whole QBR of 37, which ranked twenty seventh. It was additionally the worst by any group to win 10 or extra video games in a season because the QBR metric was launched in 2006.
In June, the Browns’ possession rewarded Stefanski and Berry with contract extensions, a present of religion in a pairing that has guided the franchise to a 37-30 file within the common season — the best successful proportion for the group over a four-year stretch since 1986 to ’89 — two playoff appearances and two AP Coach of the Yr awards for Stefanski.
Nonetheless, the return for the group’s aggressive transfer for Watson stays the unknown entity on an in any other case robust roster.
Watson’s rapport along with his prime receivers was stunted by minor accidents that sidelined them for components of camp. He was a full participant in the summertime however did not play within the preseason, leaving open hypothesis on his harm standing and type. Watson was anticipated to play within the finale however Stefanski in the end held him out, citing the variety of offensive teammates sidelined and his contentment along with his physique of labor.
In January, Berry spoke of the Watson commerce in a “10-year time horizon” that spans a number of contracts. A renaissance from Watson might palate the capsule of the assets that went into buying him. Continued struggles to carry out or keep wholesome would depart the Browns in an identical state of affairs as they have been with former quarterback Baker Mayfield, a proficient group hamstrung by its QB — and one to which the group stays financially tied via the 2026 season, with exorbitant cap hits for the approaching years.
“He is rehabbed from an harm, however then he is put himself in place to actually do a pleasant job in apply studying a pair new ideas,” Stefanski mentioned. “He is grinding within the assembly room to ensure he is on prime of every thing. So, he is a professional and he is accomplished a very nice job with the work that he is gotten.”
