Maybe the season is turning around for the Cleveland Browns. Jameis Winston took over at quarterback and lit it up. He even won the postgame interview room with a quip. And his strong outing versus the Ravens officially sealed Deshaun Watson’s fate with the Browns.
It’s hard to know what happened to Watson. If you look at his 2020 season, it's amazing to see how far he has fallen. Watson passed for 4,823 yards with 33 touchdowns and only seven interceptions. And that came on the heels of back-to-back years with 26 touchdown tosses and a combined 7,900-plus yards. But with the Browns, he has been awful. And the door has likely closed for him with this team.
Browns QB Jameis Winston seizes control
It’s not like Winston is without flaws. This is a guy who chucked 30 interceptions one season (2109).
George Blanda apparently invented the interception with 42 back in 1962. Winston's total is tied for seventh-worst in NFL history, but he's the leader in this century.
But you can’t look at the Browns’ picture without considering how bad Watson has been. Here are his yardage totals this season: 169, 186, 196, 176, 125, 168, 128. There’s zero evidence he has what it takes to be a quality NFL quarterback anymore.
And he even had coach Kevin Stefanski standing behind him a few weeks ago, according to cleveland.com.
“I think Deshaun (Watson) gives us the best chance to win, continues to give us the best chance to win,” Stefanski said. “And we need to play really good offensive football at his position and really at every position to be successful on Sunday.
“I think really the big thing for us is just running our offense at a high efficiency, regardless of personnel, regardless really of play type, run pass. And I think there’s, again, there’s moments of that we really hurt ourselves in some critical third downs yesterday. And that causes you to settle for field goals or causes you to have to punt, those type of things. So, focus for us will be to get better and certainly always try and look at things that we can do better.”
Winston rocked and rolled against the Ravens
But then Winston comes in and hits 27 of 41 for 334 yards and three touchdowns with no picks. What? How does that compute? It can’t be attributed to a better ground game because Nick Chubb didn’t do much with 16 carries for 52 yards.
Part of the reason came from the pass defense. Winston worked against the 32nd ranked pass defense — missing two key cornerbacks in Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins. And Winston finished with a 115.3 rating. It marked the highest yardage total in the first start of any of the 39 quarterbacks who have started a game for the Browns since 1999.
The Browns players certainly noticed a difference, according to guard Joel Bitonio’s comments to nfl.com.
“He was very confident in the huddle,” Bitonio said. “He was talking the whole time. Some of the stuff he was saying was a little bit out there, but he was ready to go. Obviously, he threw the ball well — 300 yards, three touchdowns. The game-winner. He was a lot of energy. But he's been like that since he's been here, so it was expected.”
What did Kevin Stefanski think of Jameis Winston?
As expected, Stefanski said he liked Winston’s performance.
“I thought he played well,” Stefanski said. “I thought the protection was outstanding all day. The guys really took the challenge of that, and I thought he got through his reads and guys got open. He made good decisions. Wasn't perfect. He's not going to play perfect. I'm not going to coach perfect. But I thought he played well.”
Safety Juan Thornhill agreed with the assessment, according to spectrumnews1.com.
“The guy played lights out,” said Thornhill. “There were some passes that had me a little scared. He was probably a little scared, too. But he put the team on his back. I can't really explain how well he played. Just look at the stats.”
Winston said he think this could be a season-changing win for the Browns, according to arkansasonline.com.
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“A win like this is required to change the season around,” Winston said. “We have a long way to go.”
Winston’s debut probably put thoughts in the minds of fans: Why didn’t the Browns make this move earlier. Stefanski deflected the notion.
“I'm not really thinking that way,” Stefanski said Monday. “I thought Jameis did a nice job yesterday. I know he feels like he can play better, but I’m not thinking about it that way.”
Jameis Winston moving forward
The Browns are 2-6, so there’s not much hope of a playoff run. But Winston became the unquestioned starter, Stefanski said, according to cleveland.com.
“Yeah, Jameis is the starter,” Stefanski said. “I thought he did a nice job with progressions, (and) I thought he saw it clearly. And I thought a big part of that is the protection was outstanding. I think we had two sacks and really the one sack was the right (after) the sack fumble. The sack fumble obviously was a big play in the game. We have to be better there.
“The one after that, it was really taking it to halftime, but the protection throughout the day was really, really good. And that allowed Jameis to get through his progressions and even third, fourth in the progression so that guys could come open. That was really a large doing by the protection.”
