Here’s what everyone is forgetting about the Deshaun Watson situation:

Yes, of course, the Browns are on the hook for the $230 million they owe him. The contract is fully guaranteed, so there is absolutely nothing that they could do about that.

But, they don’t have to let it — and his complete ineptitude thus far, with no realistic hope of him getting better — ruin their season.

They just play one of their other two backups, either second-stringer Jameis Winston or No. 3 man Dorian Thompson-Robinson. That doesn’t affect their salary cap one bit.

I don’t care at all about Watson’s feelings, or his psyche or his confidence level. This is a big-boy sport and a production-based business. If he can’t do the job, and it’s obvious he can’t — that ship has already sailed long ago — then the Browns need to do with him what they would do with any other player who doesn’t perform well. They take him out of the lineup — they bench him — and they put somebody else out there. It’s especially the case at quarterback, since everything spawns off that position.

Really, people, it’s no more complicated than that.

The rub comes in with pride. Neither Browns General Manager Andrew Berry — always the smartest man in the room, or so he would have all of us believe — nor head coach Kevin Stefanski is going to admit they made a colossal error with the Watson trade.  Making a ye yeah. mistake of that magnitude is one thing, but it’s an entirely different thing altogether when you don’t admit it and let destroy every other part of your organization. 

And that, sadly, is where the Browns are at right now.

Steve King