If you look at Deshaun Watson’s final numbers from Cleveland’s 34-10 loss to Jacksonville on Sunday, you might be able to talk yourself into some positives.
After all, Watson was 16-of-22 for 205 yards with a touchdown and an interception — good for 9.3 yards per attempt and a 97.7 passer rating.
But if you watched the game, you’d know 46 of those yards came on a garbage-time touchdown to Denzel Boston against the Jaguars’ backups. You would’ve seen Watson fire an interception to end Cleveland’s first drive, almost throw another to end the second, and then get strip-sacked on the third. You would understand that most — if not all — of Jacksonville’s five sacks on Watson happened because he was dropping so far back that the offensive line couldn’t form a cohesive pocket. You might’ve been baffled by how often he was trying to change a call at the line of scrimmage too late in the play clock.
Cleveland’s first drive had gotten off to a solid start, with the team moving the ball before Watson’s interception. After that, the unit was off the rails with no sense of rhythm.
But Watson said postgame that the pick didn’t rattle him.
“No, I mean, bad plays are going to happen all the time,” he said in his press conference. “You look all around the league. Everyone throws interceptions, everyone makes bad plays. You’ve got to give the defense credit. He made a good play on that. Even though I got knocked off my platform a little bit, I thought I got it over him. He reached up and grabbed it. So you’ve got to move on to the next play and try to move forward and try to put something positive on the next drive. And we weren’t able to do that.
“So it didn’t really bundle up my confidence. It’s just — we didn’t get back on track like we wanted to.”
Will the Browns’ dalliance with Watson continue? It seems likely, for at least another week. And so, Watson will lean on his experience in dealing with adversity as the Browns ready to play the Buccaneers.
“Yeah, I mean just keep moving forward, keep stepping forward, keep smiling, regardless of who’s against me or who’s with me,” Watson said. “I think that’s more beneficial for the team in that locker room. I’ve had a lot of support in that locker room after the game telling me to keep my head up, keep pushing forward, keep working. They’re behind me, so that’s always positive to see and hear. Yeah, we just got to keep going.
“The adversity is going to be there. You’ve got to embrace it. That’s the only way — I thought it was going to be gone two years ago, but I guess not. So you just embrace it and keep pushing through until you break that wall through.”
The Browns will be on the road to face Baker Mayfield and the Bucs next Sunday.
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