When it comes to the all-important Browns quarterback situation, all the focus is on Deshaun Watson.

And that’s certainly understandable. Really, it is as it should be.

After all, he’s the $230 million man. The contract is fully-guaranteed. That’s a lot of money. You can almost buy whole cities — decent-sized ones at that — for $230 million.

But in the NFL, the second-most important position behind starting quarterback, which is the most important position in team sports, behind starting quarterbacks, is backup quarterback. Starting quarterbacks are likely to get hurt, and when they do, you’ve got to have a backup plan — and a backup. That’s especially the case for the Browns, since, because of injures, they went through quarterbacks like water last season. The potential for something resembling that happening again this season is certainly there since Watson is coming off serious shoulder surgery. One big hit, and he could easily go down once more..

The way the Browns see it — not the way I see it, but they didn’t ask me — is that, if Watson gets hurt, then Jameis Winston would get the call, followed by Tyler Huntley. I would reverse that order in a heartbeat. Huntley reminds me a lot of former Brown Jacoby Brissett in that he is solid and dependable. You can count on him not to make an egregious mistake that costs you a game. Conversely, Winston is high-risk, high-reward. That’s not a good trait for a backup, who is supposed to come in and, while perhaps not doing much to lose you the game, also not doing anything to lose the game. He is a game manager who will be buoyed by the players around him.

Yes, Joe Flacco was kind of high-risk, high-reward, but the good stuff almost always won out and he gave the Browns a potent deep-passing threat ththey had not enjoyed in years.

Just as the Browns have to live with their decision to pay Watson all that money, they will have to live with their decision to choose Winston and Huntley and, even more importantly, Flacco by letting him walk in free agency and sign with the Indianapolis Colts.

If this quarterback plan — this quarterback strategy, this quarterback gamble — works out, then Browns General Manager Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski will look like geniuses. And if it doesn’t, then they will look like something just the opposite.

But that’s not all of this story.

The Browns did not re-sign Flacco — even though it was clearly and without question the common-sense thing to do based on last season, his eagerness to return and his overall NFL resume — because they didn’t want Watson looking over his shoulder.

Wow!

That’s such poor and irrational thinking.

The object is to have a great offense and to win games, not to make Watson look good. The team comes first, above everything and everyone else. Flacco jump-started the offense and really got it going, causing a series of victories that vaulted the Browns into the playoffs for just the third time in the quarter-century history of the expansion era. The city was jazzed up. Flacco became a cult hero.

Come on, what’s not to like —what’s not to love — about that?

If the Browns have to weaken —markedly so — their depth at quarterback just to coddle Watson and make sure that he’s not challenged or threatened — that says a lot about him, and also about Berry and Stefanski. Players — at all positions, and regardless of who they are and how much they’re being paid — need to be pushed. It makes them better.

If Watson plays well and is healthy, then he won’t lose his job. Flacco would have stayed on the sideline.

A single player — especially one who gets hurt and has not been productive — can’t be bigger than the whole team.

Watson should be focused totally on just practicing, preparing, playing and beating the Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers. Nothing else should matter.

But that is apparently not the case, and that is both disappointing and troubling. It does not bode well for the Browns going forward.

Steve King