EverBank Stadium (Jacksonville) — It would be easier if it were as simple as changing quarterbacks.
The Cleveland Browns had their first game in the post-Myles Garrett era Sunday, and their matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars went about as poorly as you could expect.
The offense got a Deshaun Watson interception on the opening drive, and didn’t cross midfield again until they trailed 24-0. The defense allowed Trevor Lawrence to have his highest passer rating in a game of his NFL career, watching the fourth quarter from the sidelines after four easy touchdown passes.
The final score was 34-10, and that doesn’t do it justice. Cleveland got its only touchdown with two minutes left, and Jacksonville’s offense looked like it was just trying to finish the game without injuries for most of the second half.
The NFL teaches you that Week 1 can tell outright lies, that teams can win big or lose big in that first game, and two months later they look nothing like that first glimpse, for better or worse. The last time a Browns head coach had his first game, first-year coach Kevin Stefanski saw his team lose to the Baltimore Ravens 38-6. But Stefanski quickly turned that group around in 2020, going 11-6 and winning their first playoff game in 26 years.
This didn’t feel like a lie. This felt like the hard truth of a team that entered Sunday’s game as the heaviest underdog in the league this week, and needed a garbage-time score to fall two touchdowns short of those low expectations.
“I’m not down. I’m disappointed,” 60-year-old Todd Monken said after his first game as an NFL head coach. “I mean, you’re not going to get me down. Waited a long time to be a head coach in this league. Kind of freaking awesome. We’re not where we want to be, and. they’d better get us now. Because we’ve got a good young group, and we just didn’t play well today.”
The idea that Watson, playing in his first game since 2024, was their best option — long-term, short-term, anything — is fairly damning in itself, with the threat of second-year pro Shedeur Sanders not exactly looming from the sidelines. Watson is in the final year of a five-year, $230 million contract, his on-field struggles surpassed only by off-field issues that had his own fans booing him in preseason.
The right thing to do would have been to cut him, to sever ties to a terrible decision that will work against the franchise’s chances of success even after he’s gone. Monken was careful to not single out Watson postgame — and there was plenty else that went wrong.
“It’s a ‘we’ thing,” Monken said. “It’s not a me, it’s not a they thing, it’s a we thing. We’re going to fight like hell to get better. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what we’re going to continue to do.”
The Browns’ locker room wasn’t anything disconsolate, more just aware of little things that need to change for them to have a chance to beat good opponents. They owned the most lopsided loss of the opening weekend, struggling on the same day that the Las Vegas Raiders, Arizona Cardinals and New York Giants — all who picked in the top five of the draft — opened with victories.
Monken was asked if he was definitely sticking with Watson heading into next week’s might-be-even-hotter 1 p.m. game in Tampa against the Bucs, and he didn’t sound like a coach making a change.
“I’d rather just talk about today, because I haven’t had time to even look at the tape,” Monken said. “I mean, I’m sure as hell not firing me. I’m not firing our staff. I’m not giving up on the players. So [Watson] occurs to be one of many 53, and nonetheless many follow squad guys we have, and our employees, he is one in all them. We’ll consider every thing. However to simply say that emotionally right here on the finish, after we did not play adequate and did not coach properly sufficient.”
This was going to be a protracted 12 months earlier than the Browns traded Garrett to the Rams for a slew of draft picks, sacrificing at this time for tomorrow in dropping the reigning Defensive Participant of the 12 months. They gave up 24 factors within the first half Sunday of their first sport with out him, and it matched probably the most factors they’d allowed in any first half since Sept. 2017, two weeks earlier than Garrett’s debut with the Browns.
“It is like boxing,” mentioned Jared Verse, acquired from the Rams within the Garrett commerce and tasked with changing him. “They hit you within the face, you get your toes proper again up and punch again. We simply backed up a bit bit, and by the point we obtained extra collected … it was too late. They already had performed the injury.”
For those who needed to encapsulate all that was unsuitable with Cleveland on Sunday, take a sequence of performs simply earlier than halftime, when Watson had accomplished back-to-back passes for 20 and 11 yards, getting them to the Jaguars’ 39 with 51 seconds earlier than halftime. A landing would lower the result in 17, however as a substitute, they’d a holding penalty and a false begin and a delay of sport, all in a row, to arrange first and 30. A brief acquire, then one other holding penalty for second and 34. They didn’t rating.
Deshaun Watson was sacked 5 instances on Sunday as he accomplished 16 of twenty-two passes for 205 yards, a landing and an interception within the blowout loss. (Photograph by Don Juan Moore/Getty Photos)
Accountability has by no means been Watson’s finest ability, and Sunday was no completely different, proudly owning his half however saying issues like, “In fact, everybody’s going to take a look at the quarterback on this state of affairs total.” Requested how he handles adversity and retains his confidence, he spoke to the help he says he has from his teammates.
“Simply hold transferring ahead, hold stepping ahead, , hold smiling, no matter who’s in opposition to me or who’s with me,” Watson mentioned. “I feel that is extra useful for the workforce in that locker room. I had a variety of help in that locker room after the sport, telling me to maintain my head up, hold pushing ahead, hold working. They’re behind me, in order that’s at all times constructive to see and listen to. We have simply obtained to maintain going. You already know, the adversity goes to be there. You already know you have to embrace it … hold pushing by way of till you break that wall.”
There weren’t many hopeful moments Sunday. Rookie receiver Denzel Boston caught a 46-yard landing within the ultimate two minutes, however the sport was over an hour earlier. Quinshon Judkins, a second-year again with potential, had 12 carries and none of them went for greater than 5 yards. Verse, a possible star, had only one sort out within the first half.
Monken is a affected person man (you do not take the Browns job in 2026 with out persistence), and his mixture of optimism and bluntness will serve him properly in surviving what will likely be a protracted season. They produce other dangerous groups on the schedule — the Titans in Week 7, the Raiders in Week 12 — however they appear to be hard-pressed to match final 12 months’s 5-12 document. Figuring out that every loss will increase their odds of touchdown an elite quarterback in subsequent 12 months’s draft, that may not be a nasty factor.
“I informed the workforce, ‘There isn’t any testimony with no check,'” Monken mentioned. “It is simply one in all them. That is one in all 17 video games we have, and we actually did not play properly sufficient. We actually did not coach properly sufficient. However I really like our guys. I really like the best way they work, and we will come again tomorrow and battle like hell to repair it.”
