The Cleveland Browns’ quarterback competition might never have been much of a contest to begin with.
Throughout the offseason, the team appeared to bounce between two leading candidates for the starting job. Deshaun Watson has been working his way back from a torn Achilles tendon that required two surgeries after he last played in an NFL game in October 2024. Shedeur Sanders, meanwhile, has been trying to keep the role he held late last season.
Reports have flipped back and forth for months about which player held the edge. Even as training camp opened this week, observers offered conflicting views on who looked stronger depending on the day and the source. Dillon Gabriel has also drawn some attention in the mix
.One league insider insists the outcome was never truly in doubt.
Mike Garafolo of NFL Network first reported in February that the Browns preferred Watson as their starter. More than five months later, after OTAs, minicamp and the early days of training camp, Garafolo has not changed his stance.
Asked on ESPN who would start for Cleveland, Garafolo answered without pause: “Deshaun Watson. I have been on this since February, at the scouting combine I had people telling me Deshaun Watson is going to be the starter for the Browns. Like, that’s the worst-kept secret in the NFL back in February. Then, all the sudden you see the way it started to play out in the spring, and the answers you got from the coaching staff and others there.”
He continued on, explaining more about his belief that the Browns’ quarterback situation has already been decided.
“It’s going to be Watson because owner Jimmy Haslam had said before that they, ‘Took a swing and a miss with Deshaun Watson,’ made it seem like it was over. Now, all the sudden, Watson is coming back here–he’s still got to fend off Shedeur, he still has to practice well and play well in the preseason. But my educated guess is it is going to be Deshaun Watson.”
Some around the league have long suspected that owner Jimmy Haslam and general manager Andrew Berry, the two key figures still with the organization who engineered the costly 2022 trade for Watson, want to give him one more chance to justify the deal.
Watson has been limited by injuries and has appeared in only 19 games since joining the Browns. His record in Cleveland stands at 9-10 with an 80.7 passer rating, numbers that fall short of elite standards even in the games he managed to play.
If the decision had truly been left open, the race between Watson and Sanders might look close right now. The Browns are installing a new offense under head coach Todd Monken, and the team’s strong defense has made life difficult for the quarterbacks during early practices.
Monken addressed the uneven early results this week.
“I think it’s probably been like anything when you’re installing, you’re going against a really good defense. I’m not sure stacking days has come up. I think what we’re trying to do is stack as many good plays as we can within what we’re asking them to do on a given day. I’d much prefer stacking really good days, but as the head coach, if the offense is stacking really good days, it probably means the defense wasn’t stacking a very good day.”
Watson still needs to show he can handle the physical demands and perform well in practices and preseason games. Sanders will keep pushing for the job. Gabriel remains in the conversation as well.
Yet Garafolo’s longstanding view suggests the Browns’ preference has been clear for months. What looked like an open competition may have been something closer to a formality all along, with Watson positioned as the favorite from the start of the process.
The coming weeks of training camp and the preseason will provide more evidence on the field. For now, the insider who first raised the idea in February continues to stand by it, calling the situation the NFL’s worst-kept secret.
