Shedeur Sanders’ Browns Future Takes Another Concerning Turn

Shedeur Sanders will have to keep waiting for his chance to run the Cleveland Browns offense after the team’s first-year coach made it clear Deshaun Watson is staying in the starting job following a rough season opener.

The Browns were beaten 34-10 by the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday. Watson completed 16 of 22 passes for 205 yards, one touchdown and one interception in his first regular-season game since tearing his Achilles in 2024.

Those numbers looked better than the game felt. Cleveland trailed 34-3 heading into the fourth quarter, and Watson had thrown for only 100 yards through three periods before some late garbage-time throws padded the stat line.

Todd Monken reviewed the film and still planned to send Watson back out there this week against Tampa Bay. The coach said the problems were bigger than one player.

“We got to play better around him,” Monken said. “We got to call it better, and he’s got to play better. It wasn’t just our inability to function consistently as an offense; it was a byproduct of ‘we’ – coaching and playing.”

Monken pointed to the limited time Watson has had with the full playbook after missing so much football.

“It’s only been two weeks he’s gotten all the reps, and there were some really good things on film, some things that you can build on, and there were some others that operationally, we’ve got to get better at,” Monken said.

“There’s only so many looks you get from week to week, be it red zone concepts, third down concepts, and I did think that when he had time, when he understood the concepts, he didn’t play tentative, that he let it rip.”

That stance matches what people around the team were saying even before the opener. FOX Sports reporter Ralph Vacchiano spent time at training camp and came away convinced Watson would get a long look.

“Quarterback Deshaun Watson wasn’t terrible in his return to action, even though the Browns were. Even if he had flopped, he wasn’t in much danger of losing his job. On my visit to Browns training camp, multiple people told me first-year coach Todd Monken planned to give Watson a long leash early in the season,” Vacchiano said.

“So expect him to remain the starter at least through October — for better or, more likely, for worse.”

Inside the building, Watson was still viewed as the safer choice to start the year. Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported that the veteran was widely seen as the better option at the moment, even if a switch later would be simpler than the other way around.

“Monken stuck to his guns, went with Watson (widely seen internally as the best option), and did it knowing that it’d be much easier to pull the plug on him and go to Sanders than to do the opposite. And he did leave open the possibility that a change would come in-season, with a set of interesting Sundays situated early on into Cleveland’s football season,” Breer wrote.

Sanders, the son of Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, was picked in the fifth round (144th overall) of the 2025 draft after a surprising slide. He started seven games as a rookie and went 3-4 while throwing for about 1,400 yards, seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He needs real snaps if he is going to prove he can be the long-term answer.

Watson is in the final year of the fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract he signed after the Browns traded three first-round picks to get him from Houston. He has started just 19 games in four seasons with Cleveland because of injuries and inconsistency.

The next two weeks will test everyone’s patience. Cleveland visits the Buccaneers on Sunday and then hosts Carolina on Sept. 27. Another loss would drop the Browns to 0-2 heading into their first home game, where fans have already shown they are not in a forgiving mood.

The offense looked disorganized from the start against Jacksonville, and the defense never kept the Jaguars from pulling away. Monken has a young group around Watson and is asking for better execution on both sides of the ball.

Sanders remains the clear backup and the easiest in-season change if things keep going south. For now, though, the Browns are choosing patience with the veteran who has not played a full healthy season in years.

That leaves the younger quarterback on the sideline, watching and waiting for the moment the leash finally runs out.