There are three things we know about Deshaun Watson at this point in the season, and two of them are easy to pinpoint: (1) he’s struggling mightily, and (2) he’s seriously overpaid. The third thing is more surprising and harder to fathom, though, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that we’re entering uncharted waters in this sad story.
Specifically, some horrendous Watson stats and comps are emerging. It’s definitely awe-inducing to see them all in one place, so let’s go there and take a "by the numbers" look at what a debacle Watson has become.
Start with the JaMarcus Russell comps
In many ways, Russell is the Mario Mendoza of NFL quarterbacks. Like Mendoza, he should have his own “line,” a defining number that establishes the baseline for truly putrid mediocrity among NFL quarterbacks.
Since he doesn’t, though, we’ll have to go with a collection of relevant numbers. Russell’s bellwether season with the Raiders, if you want to call it that, was 2009, when the Oakland quarterback became the only quarterback in the 21st century NFL to drop below a success rate of 30 percent in his dropbacks for the first six weeks of the season.
Watson is close, to the point where he’s got a shot to establish his own special kind of awful. He’s currently at 32.7 percent, but Watson has plenty of long-forgotten names to “pass” before he can directly threaten Russell. Those include Josh Rosen, Akili Smith and David Carr, all of whom were disastrous in very unique ways.
Deshaun Watson’s sack numbers are jaw-dropping
Speaking of Carr, Deshaun Watson might be in the running to threaten Carr’s sack numbers as well. This is noteworthy because those numbers were so bad that Derek's older brother was driven out of the league way too soon because of the sheer number of devastating hits he took.
David Carr was sacked a remarkable 76 times during the Houston Texans inaugural season in 2002, and it’s remarkable that Watson could actually threaten to topple that mark if he’s allowed to continue as the Browns starter. If he does, you could make a (weak) case that he’ll
be earning every penny of that $230 million given how badly he’ll be broken at that point.
Watson does have a penchant for holding onto the ball too long, but any discussion of his sacks should include at least a footnote about Cleveland’s offensive line woes. Both starting tackles, Jack Conklin and Jedrick Wills, Jr., have missed time, and there have been other injuries across the line and on the depth chart.
That may mitigate Watson's issues to a small extent, but it certainly doesn’t let him off the hook. He used to be a wizard when it came to buying time, scrambling and avoiding sacks, but these days he’s mostly just indecisive. It’s sad to watch, especially for long-suffering Browns fans.
Watson’s third-down stats and yards per attempt numbers are awful, too
These two stats are basically performance definers for most quarterbacks, and Watson comes up short in both sets of numbers here, too. He recently had an incredibly bad stretch of 0-for-26 on third down, so hopefully Cleveland’s punter has some incentive bonuses based on the number of kicks, both overall and per game.
His yards per attempt numbers are just as much of a lost cause. Anything under five yards per attempt is considered awful, and Watson is currently at 4.2. To get an idea of the baseline comp here, Patriots placeholder quarterback Jacoby Brissett is just above Watson at 4.4, and he was just benched for Drake Maye.
How long will Watson last as Cleveland’s starter?
This is the $230 million question, to define the problem succinctly. Cleveland coach Kevin Stefanski says he has no plans to replace Watson at the moment, but Jameis Winston has shown the ability to move the ball during his up-and-down NFL career.
The problem with Winston is that he’s turnover-prone, to the point where he's more than capable of keeping both teams in the game at once. Winston has always been a nerve-wracking watch, but at least the Browns would be watchable, which they aren't right now. But right now it seems like a matter of when, not if, that move happens.
The final resolution of this situation is harder to predict. Numerous reports have been floated about Watson’s theoretical cap numbers if he were cut or traded, and they’re astronomical, even compared to the cap hit the Broncos took when they cut Russell Wilson.
There’s a theory out there that a bad team could take on Watson’s money numbers in exchange for a huge amount of draft capital—most likely a pair of #1 picks to start the conversation. That's a fun but far-fetched possibility that's entertaining to consider, but the reality is that the Browns will probably demote Watson to backup and keep him, which amounts to kicking the contract can down the road until the numbers become less insane.