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After lately opening up Deshaun Watson’s 21-day apply window, the Cleveland Browns is not going to be activating their veteran quarterback this season, coach Kevin Stefanski advised reporters on Tuesday. The Browns host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday earlier than concluding the season with a highway sport in opposition to the Cincinnati Bengals.
Watson, 30, has not performed since he sustained an Achilles harm in the course of the seventh sport of the 2024 season. He then re-aggravated the harm in January.
A 3-time Professional Bowl quarterback with the Houston Texans, Watson’s profession took a flip in 2021 when he was sidelined by the Texans for a complete 12 months whereas going through quite a few sexual misconduct allegations from ladies. Watson had requested a commerce previous to the allegations made in opposition to him.
Regardless of the allegations, Watson signed a unprecedented five-year, fully-guaranteed $230 million take care of the Browns that offseason after being traded for 2 future first-round picks along with different draft picks.
Months after becoming a member of the Browns, Watson reached settlements with 20 of the 24 ladies who had filed a civil lawsuit in opposition to him. Watson was then fined $5 million by the NFL and suspended for the primary 11 video games of the 2022 season.
Since that point, Watson has performed in simply 19 video games for the Browns, accruing a 9-10 document in these video games. His greatest season in Cleveland befell in 2023, when he went 5-1 because the crew’s starter earlier than struggling a season-ending shoulder harm throughout a win over the Baltimore Ravens.
Final season, Watson was finishing 63.4% of his passes (his highest complete since 2020) earlier than struggling his newest season-ending harm.
Two months after the 2024 season concluded, Browns proprietor Jimmy Haslam admitted remorse by way of the Watson signing.
“We took an enormous swing and miss with Deshaun,” Haslam mentioned in the course of the NFL house owners conferences. “We thought we had the quarterback, we did not and we gave up a whole lot of draft picks to get him. So we have got to dig ourselves out of that gap. [It] was a complete group choice, and it ends with Dee and I, so maintain us accountable.”
The Browns rebuilt their quarterback room this offseason regardless of Watson nonetheless being beneath contract via the 2026 season. The crew traded Kenny Pickett (who was then traded to the Las Vegas Raiders), signed veteran Joe Flacco and chosen Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders within the 2025 NFL Draft.
Flacco began the season as Cleveland’s starter, however he was traded to Cincinnati shortly after he misplaced his beginning job to Gabriel, who subsequently misplaced his job to Sanders shortly after he sustained a concussion throughout a Week 11 loss to the Ravens. Sanders has a 1-3 document as Cleveland’s starter coming into Sunday’s sport in opposition to the Steelers.
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