Deshaun Watson shocked his season is over after requiring surgery on new shoulder injury
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
“I’m still in disbelief.”
That was Deshaun Watson’s raw reaction in front of media a day after he learned a new pain in his right shoulder – unrelated to his rotator cuff injury --turned out to be a displaced fracture that will require surgery.
Deshaun Watson was emotional discussing the latest setback to his career. (TheLandOnDemand)
His season is over after playing just five complete games and missing essentially four because of a strained right rotator cuff. Last year Watson only played six games because of an 11-game NFL suspension due to violations of the league personal conduct policy.
Watson played through the displaced fracture to the glenoid bone and a high sprain of his left ankle while pulling off his first fourth-quarter comeback victory in a Browns uniform in Baltimore. He was a perfect 14 of 14 in the second half as the Browns made up deficits of 15 and 14 points. The 33-31 win thrust the Browns back into the race for the AFC North title. They are 6-3, one-half game behind the 7-3 Ravens.
Now what?
Coach Kevin Stefanski announced that rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson will start Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
For the first time in his two years with the Browns, amid off-the-field ordeals that resulted in an 11-game NFL suspension last year and the separate shoulder injury that cost him to miss essentially five games, Watson showed emotion when asked his feelings about his season ending prematurely.
He paused for several seconds and his eyes welled up before answering, "It's very tough. Hurt about it, but I'm going to make sure I keep my head above water and make sure I stay in touch with all the guys and support them as much as I possibly can and attack this rehab process after surgery and make sure that I'm doing whatever I can to be beneficial for the team while not actually being on the field with them and also prepping for the next year."
Watson and the team could not pinpoint the actual play that caused the injury. There were more than a few hits to the shoulder during the game, some inflicted by Ravens defenders and some on hard landings to the ground.
“I guess I felt something pretty much towards the end of the first quarter,” Watson said. “Then I had time. I kind of recognized something was wrong, but during the midst of the game, I was just pushing through whatever I was feeling. And then after the game and Monday and Tuesday, we got testing done, and that's when I found out from the doctors that it was something worse than what we thought it was.”
Watson injured the left ankle also in the first quarter on a sack by former Browns and Texans teammate Jadeveon Clowney. Watson said he was expecting to play this week with the ankle injury.
“I'm still in disbelief,” he said. “[I’m] just trying to process all the information that I've been getting since last night. It's tough. I felt like we were turning a corner to really make a run and, you know, I, we still believe we still will with the guys in this locker room. You know, I just wanted to be physically a part of it on the field with those guys, and six weeks I was down and try to come back and two weeks later back at it again. It's tough to try to wrap everything around my head right now.”
Watson tried to convince the team to allow him to put off surgery and play through the injury, but he was over-ruled. The decision was made after Dr. James Voos, the Browns’ head physician, consulted with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, a leading shoulder specialist.
GM Andrew Berry said, “Just the reality of it, this injury in a thrower and with the repetitiveness of throwing a football a couple of hundred times a week, realistically, it could create significantly more problems for the shoulder and make the injury that much more severe. So, this was a pretty clear medical recommendation. We feel good about it, and ultimately, like I said, we want Deshaun for a very long period of time, and that's the course of action we're going to take.”
Surgery may be scheduled for next week.
Watson speculated he will be laid up for months. Berry conceded it is an unusual injury to the throwing shoulder of a quarterback “but the medical process moving forward is very clear to us … and we do feel really good about him returning and playing at the level that we’re accustomed to.”
What was not clear was how Berry will add to the quarterback room with the NFL trade deadline passed. He didn’t seek a bona fide, experienced backup quarterback while Watson was struggling through his previous injury prior to the deadline.
Berry said he will add a third quarterback, but he wouldn’t say if it would be one to the practice squad or an available veteran capable of working his way into the lineup.
Berry has struggled to give a good answer why he traded Josh Dobbs to the Arizona Cardinals in August for a fifth-round draft pick in the first place, and also did not give legitimate insight why he didn’t seek to correct that error at the trade deadline. Dobbs has since become a national feel-good story after being traded to the Minnesota Vikings and leading them to two wins in his two games for them without much preparation time.
Dobbs recently said that on the day of the trade deadline his agent told him to be prepared to be traded to the Vikings or the Browns.
"Yeah, I can't speak to that,” Berry said. “I'm not familiar with those commentsm to be honest.”
Watson was given a fully-guaranteed $230 million contract over five years to convince him to waive his no-trade clause with Houston in March of 2022 and join the Browns. The Browns agreed to trade six draft picks to the Texans, including three years of No. 1s.
In two seasons, the Browns have paid out about $92 million to Watson. He has appeared in 12 games and the Browns have won eight of them, including one game in which Watson was pulled after one quarter. Watson has completed 204 of 341 passes (.598) for 2,217 yards, 14 touchdowns, nine interceptions for an overall passer rating of 81.7.
“We feel good about Deshaun,” Berry said. “We see how talented he is. We could see it since he returned from his last injury, the level that he is able to play. He's smart, he's physically tough, he's mentally tough. He really is … he's the leader of the team and we're excited to get him back for 2024.”
