Rich’s Stern Advice for Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson

The Cleveland Browns cannot do anything straight up and normal. Their head coach, on the other hand, might be the most normal man in the building.

Rich has been circling Todd Monken for weeks, and on Monday he stopped pretending it was a scouting exercise. "I like Todd Monken and I cannot lie," he said. The voice is already shot. He sounds like Parcells. He sounds like mid-season Doc Rivers. He is 60 years old, he is in his first head coaching job, and he is out of blanks to give.

He is also holding a genuinely miserable hand. Monken has a quarterback management wants to see, a quarterback who may be the best practice player he has, a quarterback more veteran than anyone else on the roster, and a quarterback whose relationship with the fan base has gone up in flames. In some cases those are the same guy.

Monken named Deshaun Watson the starter anyway, then stepped to the microphone and explained himself without flinching.

"Deshaun is going to start against Jacksonville," Monken said. "Took in the full body of work over the course of off-season to training camp to the games, the joint practice. And ultimately felt like to start the season on the road, Deshaun gave us the best chance to move the ball and score points."

Asked whether this was week to week, he shut the door. "No, we're not anticipating this being a week-by-week thing." He praised Shedeur Sanders in the same breath, said the young quarterback had come a long way, said the team is excited about his future. Then repeated that this is not a week-to-week decision.

The sound bite that actually won Rich over was the next one, because it was the one Monken had every incentive to fudge.

Did the fans factor into the decision at all?

"Absolutely not. Zero," Monken said. "Ultimately the fans want us to win. Ultimately to put a good product on the field. That's really what they want. And so that's our job as coaches, why we're hired, to try and put the best product on the field. And when we don't, then I understand the frustration. But ultimately, they don't decide who plays. Who would I be if I let someone outside of the building decide who plays?"

"I kind of dig this guy," Rich said. "He's winning me over."

The show's fair caveat followed immediately: we will find out who Monken is when this goes south, not while it is still theoretical. But the instinct is right, and Rich extended the same logic to Watson, who gave his own mea culpa later in the day.

Watson said his emotions got the best of him, that his comments were not aimed at the fans, that plenty of them have supported him. He acknowledged what the organization invested to bring him back in 2022 and that injuries and time off meant he has not put his best football forward.

Rich's advice, delivered with the affection of a man who wants this to work, was simple and unsentimental. Winning is the ultimate deodorant. This is a talent-over-everything league, which is the entire reason Cleveland acquired Watson despite everything that came with him. So show the talent.

Do it at Jacksonville, which Marcus Spears called the team nobody is talking about and should be. Duval County, Liam Coen with his chest out, Trevor Lawrence with his hair flowing. Then Tampa, where Baker Mayfield has already said Cleveland is the game he circled.

"Get out there and prove yourself," Rich said. "This is the National Football League."

And then the button, for anyone still litigating whose feelings got hurt in a preseason game: "It's not called the National Feelings League. It's the National Football League."