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NFL Week 5 Awards: Browns deserve every bit of Deshaun Watson’s spiteful fall from grace

robert zeglinski
·14-min read

As we begin to rightfully eulogize another Cleveland Browns season, make no mistake about what happened on the Lake Erie lakefront. When the Browns traded for Deshaun Watson, who once faced more than 20 allegations of sexual misconduct in what the NFL would later characterize as "predatory behavior," they did this to themselves.

The Browns jettisoned a perfectly capable Baker Mayfield, traded a veritable farm of first-round picks, and gave $230 million guaranteed to a high-profile quarterback accused of sexual abuse by dozens of women. He then promptly turned into the NFL's premier pumpkin of pumpkins. He is an incompetent quarterback who is utterly unplayable but who probably can't be benched because of his contract and general office politics:

I don't know if karma really exists because I'm not omniscient, but it's hard not to watch Watson's now 1-4 Browns and think anything else happened here. It's gotten so bad in Cleveland that Watson is quitting on his team in the middle of games because he doesn't know the Browns' offense enough.

Talk about a loser mentality from an already horrific leader personified:

I will readily admit that I expected (and feared) Watson's Browns would be a Super Bowl contender when they traded for him. Beyond the overzealous Browns who sold their soul for Watson, I don't think I'm the only one. A three-time Pro Bowler with the Houston Texans, it was easy to envision Watson breaking the game every week for Cleveland. He really was that good during his time in Houston.

From a certain respect, Watson did end up breaking the game every week, just not in the way the Browns or anyone who had watched him as a football player foresaw.

Through 20 games with the Browns, Watson has a total of just barely over 3,000 passing yards, 19 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He has completed roughly 60 percent of his passes, averages less than a paltry 6.0 yards per pass attempt, and he gets sacked an astonishing 10.2 percent of the time. (Psst, sacks are a quarterback stat.) It gets worse. According to RBDSM.com, on an expected points added (EPA) and completion percentage over expected (CPOE) basis, Watson is the 63rd-best quarterback in the NFL since he threw his first pass with the Browns in 2022. He is a shell of whatever player we once saw in Houston, and at this point, it's time to give up the idea of him returning to that superstar form.

Again: 63rd! How is that real???

For all intents and purposes, with Watson, we are looking at someone who might genuinely be the worst quarterback in Browns history -- an organization that has rostered Brady Quinn, Johnny Manziel, and Tim Couch, among so many others. And when you consider how much the Browns surrendered just to get Watson in their uniform, that is absolutely staggering. That is reaching transcendent levels of ineptitude and hopelessness. It's almost artful.

In the interest of being a tried and true hater, I won't pretend to be upset about any of this Browns/Watson debacle, though. Nor do I feel bad for anyone involved. Because I don't. That's not what this column is about. I'm actually dancing on the Browns' grave.

This mess, dearest readers, is what the sad-sack Browns get for moving mountains to abandon all semblance of moral principles in pursuit of football relevance. This is what they get for prioritizing fake sports success over tangible human beings. They get Watson, the worst quarterback and leader in the NFL, dragging them down into the dark abyss with him for the foreseeable future.

In a way, seeing the Browns flounder like this is comforting. It shows us that bad people don't always win in life.

Elsewhere in this week's NFL awards, the Bills blew a winnable game with an overly aggressive offensive strategy, two young quarterbacks started to come into their own, and Jordan Love paid tribute to Will Levis in the worst way. Let's get to it.

Once upon a time, The Parent Trap was a seminal, wholesome movie about keeping your parents together for young millennials. A young Lindsay Lohan captured the vibe of trying to keep a house together perfectly between an American and British upbringing.

At the time -- meaning 1998 — it was everything.

With the Vikings playing the New York Jets in London on Sunday, Vikings defensive backs Camryn Bynum and Josh Metellus did the famed handshake from the movie to celebrate a pick of Aaron Rodgers.

Perfect. No notes on the reference:

Entering their Week 5 matchup with the Indianapolis Colts, the formerly winless Jacksonville Jaguars had every right to be frustrated. Nothing seemed to be going according to plan, especially for Trevor Lawrence, as he tried to rebound from a tough 2023 season. Everything seemed to come to a head when Lawrence and receiver Gabe Davis seemingly had an altercation on the sidelines after another futile offensive drive:

With a moment like this, you would've expected the Jaguars to crater and head to 0-5. We've seen that kind of tension lead to nothing but doom for so many teams over the years. As soon as everyone starts pointing fingers at each other, that's when you know they've hit rock bottom.

Instead, the Jaguars rattled off 37 points and nearly 500 yards of offense to finally get one in the win column. Powerful runs like this one from Tank Bigsby epitomize how much Jacksonville fought back:

Kudos to the Jaguars for fighting through adversity and not giving up on their season. It looked pretty dicey there for a bit.

In case it wasn't clear, Josh Allen is a football player. A superstar one, at that. If he were playing basketball, he would probably be a hulking small forward, but he's usually nowhere in sight of a regulation court. So, the discussion is moot.

Well, not according to referee Clay Martin, who made an unfortunate gaffe by saying Allen didn't fumble the ... basketball? Oof, buddy. No. No, no, no:

We had warranted concerns about Caleb Williams' development with the woeful Bears over the first month of the season. It was a testament to Williams' individual talent that he somehow managed to stay above water despite his challenging circumstances with a putrid offensive line and foolish coaching.

About that.

On Sunday against the Carolina Panthers, Williams broke a Bears rookie quarterback record — one that is actually notable! And this spectacular touchdown pass to D.J. Moore epitomized how comfortable the No. 1 pick is getting in the Chicago offense.

Watch out, NFL. Williams is coming:

We're at the point in two-time MVP Lamar Jackson's career where we're probably not all that shocked when he pulls off the unbelievable. But let me tell you something: we should NEVER take his brilliance for granted.

With the Baltimore Ravens trying to pull off a comeback against the rival Cincinnati Bengals, Jackson was in his bag in the fourth quarter. The below touchdown saw the Ravens superstar bobble the snap, break the tackle of a sizable defensive end, then launch a perfect touchdown pass into the end zone off-platform while veering right.

Uh, what? Lamar Jackson, you are so ridiculous, man.

Kyler Murray is the kind of NFL player who is keenly aware of how good he is. If he sees a dynamite running or throwing lane, he's likely going to show supreme confidence because he knows he can take advantage of it. However, I don't know if I've ever seen someone like Murray celebrate a touchdown run 44 yards from the end zone.

Most of the time, guys actually only start to high step and whatnot right before they're about to cross the goal line!

The New England Patriots had a real chance to notch their second win of the season over the similarly hapless Miami Dolphins. And when this game matchup between two inept teams came to the final possession, it sure seemed like New England rookie Ja'Lynn Polk got both toes down in the back of the end zone for a game-winning touchdown.

Except, the refs on hand said that Polk got too much of his toes down and, as such, needed to get his heel down, too. What? Since when is that a rule?

Ah, good old NFL. No one knows what a catch is, and it's 2024. Fantastic.

The Bills mounted a heroic comeback on the road against the Houston Texans on Sunday. Once down 20-3, Buffalo managed to knot the game up at 20 in the closing moments. It even got a stop on the Texans in the last minute, putting the onus on the Bills about what they wanted for an end-game situation.

With only 32 seconds left and no timeouts while backed up against its own end zone, Buffalo probably should've just taken a knee or two and played for overtime. Instead, Sean McDermott gave Josh Allen the green light to throw three straight deep incompletions for no good reason.

That led to a Bills punt and enough time for the Texans to launch a game-winning 59-yard field goal. A good lesson for all you football coaches: you don't have to be that aggressive at all times.

We assumed there would be some measure of bad blood between Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs as they met up on opposing teams for the first time. Even though nothing has ever been directly stated between the two, it sure has felt like there's been some simmering tension between the stars.

If there is any grudge here, we didn't see it in Allen's and Diggs' exceedingly cordial postgame handshake. In fact, it appeared that Allen actively looked for Diggs to greet him. Hmm. What a twist:

Joe Burrow is near the top of almost every major NFL passing statistic. But the Bengals can't stop anyone on defense, so they are 1-4 and almost certainly out of the playoff picture.

After Cincinnati's heartbreaking overtime loss to the Ravens on Sunday, Burrow was appropriately grim about the Bengals' Super Bowl hopes. You may as well stick a fork in them:

The best advice for every quarterback is to know when to live to fight another day. While it's tempting to try and control everything, it's worth understanding that defenders get paid, too, and you need to take small losses in the grand scheme of things. You will get more opportunities to make things happen.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love did not keep this in mind when, instead of taking a safety, he launched a wild circus pass from the back of the end zone while already falling to the ground. Love effectively channelled his inner Will Levis. I'm still confounded by the decision:

Fortunately for Love and Packers, this didn't cost them a win. But man, it was so nonsensical.

Sometimes, we read into heated exchanges between the quarterback and head coach a bit too much. Football, like any sport or industry, is about communication. If the two most important people on any NFL team aren't having healthy back-and-forths, then they're probably not fully diagnosing what's happening in any given game.

Denver Broncos rookie signal-caller Bo Nix gave us an example of this when he talked back to Sean Payton for trying to coach him up on a specific point. OK, Bo Nix! Way to stand up for yourself.

Whatever Nix said to Payton clearly had an effect as the Broncos exploded for 34 points in a big win over the Las Vegas Raiders.

The Giants were in the midst of delivering a spirited effort over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday. But Geno Smith and Co. still had a chance to tie the game up and potentially get it to overtime at the end of the fourth quarter.

This was when Bryce Ford-Wheaton returned a blocked field goal to cement the Giants' victory. A blocked field goal ... to preserve a win. I don't think I've ever seen that before:

This article originally appeared on For The Win: NFL Week 5 Awards: Browns deserve every bit of Deshaun Watson’s spiteful fall from grace