A little bit of this and a little bit of that as the Browns get ready to host the defending AFC champion New England Patriots in the preseason finale on Thursday night at Huntington Bank Field:
*I couldn’t wait to watch the Browns play the Buffalo Bills last Saturday afternoon on this same field. Now I have no real interest to watch Thursday’s game. I was nearly breathless anticipating Shadeur Sanders playing lights-out in wrapping up the starting quarterback job. He was outstanding, but head coach Todd Monken still picked Deshaun Watson, who looked like a bad rendition of Paul McDonald with his performance. Fittingly, it rained a lot on Saturday, because Monken rained on every Browns fan’s parade with his decision. Yes, let’s just get this game over as quickly as possible so we can start focusing on the start of the regular season.
*It surprises me — a whole bunch — that Monken never weighed leadership in his decision. He couldn’t have. Sanders has that “it” factor. You just have confudrbce that he will step up in the biggest monents. Watson obviously has another factor we can’t mention here. You have no expectation that he will make the big play.
*It’s not a coincidence that Bernie Kosar has been quiet since Watson got the nod. BK loves the Browns, so he has to adhere to the old notion that if you can’t say something nice, then you should not say anything at all.
*At the same time, I still believe in Monken. I really do. He might be setting the stage for Watson to play his way out of the job with bad performances in the two road games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers to start this season, which could easily happen. With the Browns at 0-2and doing nothing offensively with an over-the-hill quarterback as they come back home to face the Carolina Panthers, there’s no way Monken can trot Watson out there again in front of the boo birds. He would have to go to Sanders then, right? It would be an easy decision that validates itself.
*That Watson continues to have no regrets for all the lewd stuff he’s done, and thus also no self-awareness, is more than worrisome. it’s downright alarming, and a real red flag, if there ever was one. He’s not dealing in reality. Do you really want that guy quarterbacking your football team?
*And finally, what would you have said a couple months ago if someone had said that tiny East Palestine, located south of Youngstown in Columbiana County, and on the Pennsylvania, woujd be in the NFL news cycle twice in the span of just several weeks, both in disappointing fashion? Well, it happened. San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York, who is from the Youngstown area, was arrested the other day in an East Palestine trailer park while responding to an ad in a known prostitution website. Three weeks before, East Palestine High School product Fred Hoaglin, who starred as a Browns center for seven seasons (1966-72), passed sway. He was 82.
Steve King
