If you thought the Browns would stop playing Deshaun Watson after their Week 1 stinker — why?
Head coach Todd Monken said in his Monday video conference that Watson is set to start the team’s Week 2 matchup with the Buccaneers in Tampa on Sunday.
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Watson finished Sunday’s 34-10 loss 16-of-22 for 205 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Forty-six of those yards came on that TD pass to Denzel Boston, which came with 1:52 left in the fourth quarter.
“It’s only been two weeks that he’s gotten all the reps,” Monken said. “And there were some really good things on film — some things that you can build on. And there were some others that — you know, operationally, we’ve got to get better at. There’s concepts that, there’s only so many looks you get from week to week, be it red zone concepts, third-down concepts.
“I did think that when he had time, when he understood the concepts, he didn’t play tentative, that he let it rip. Even the touchdown at the end, sure that was garbage time, but that was on their [No.] 1 corner. That was one of their starters out there. And that was a communication between him and the receiver. So, there were a lot of things to build on. Was it perfect? Of course not, otherwise we wouldn’t have scored as few of points as we did. But I’d like to see how we can build on that. I like his week of practice last week. And I think he’s only going to continue to get better.”
Monken said there wasn’t much discussion about potentially replacing Watson as QB1 after his Sunday performance.
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“No, just confirmed it when I looked at the tape,” Monken said. “We’ve got to play better around him. We’ve got to call it better. And he’s got to play better.
“Our inability to function consistently as an offense was a byproduct of we — coaching and playing.”
While Watson threw an interception to end Cleveland’s first drive, Monken said he didn’t feel like the quarterback got tentative when it came to throwing downfield after that play.
“I would say that some of those weren’t called,” Monken said. “[T]here were times where we were trying to push the ball down the field and he did have a missed throw once we moved the pocket one time. But I know right before halftime, he made two great throws that put us in position. And then we got a couple of holding calls that had nothing to do with Deshaun.
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“So, without watching the tape, you could say that — you could say, hey, he looked a little tentative there. And it’d be like, no, not really. Really, we just didn’t call certain routes to push it down the field, or we didn’t execute.”
The real issue, according to Monken, is that the club had “too many Browns hurting Browns moments.”
“And then even as we got later in the game, I did not see that one bit — that he was tentative in terms of trying to throw it down the field,” Monken said. “Sure, there’s a couple of times maybe he could’ve pumped it down there. But in my mind, I didn’t see that.”
Maybe we’ll all see something different in Week 2 when Cleveland plays Tampa Bay.
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