Todd Monken is not carrying Deshaun Watson’s past into his first year in Cleveland. Monken said Tuesday he has only looked at Watson from afar and is taking a clean-slate approach to the quarterback as the Cleveland Browns head toward the start of the 2026 NFL season.
That matters now because the Browns are less than two weeks from opening the season against the Jacksonville Jaguars on September 13, and Watson is being asked to lead the offense in his first regular-season game in almost two years. Monken said he has not really studied Watson’s previous work closely, adding that he has spent six of Watson’s eight NFL seasons in the league and wants to begin with the idea that every player on the roster is elite.
“I really, to be honest, haven’t looked at it,” Monken said. “To be honest, only from afar.” He said he saw Watson only in crossover film when he was down the road and prefers to judge what he sees in front of him. “I want to go into it thinking every player we have is elite, and all they have to do is prove me right,” Monken said. “That’s all they have to do.”
For Watson, that is a very different standard from the one his recent seasons have set. He has played in just 19 games over the past five seasons, missing the entire 2021 season in a contract dispute with the Houston Texans, the first 11 games of 2022 while serving an NFL-mandated suspension, 11 games in 2023 with a shoulder injury, 10 games in 2024 with a torn Achilles tendon and all 17 games in 2025 after a re-tear of the same tendon.
And when he did play in 2022, 2023 and 2024, the production was not close to the level that once made him one of the NFL’s most efficient quarterbacks. His EPA/dropback was minus-0.14 in 2022, minus-0.09 in 2023 and minus-0.25 in 2024, the lowest of any quarterback in the past two seasons. Monken said none of that changes how he is approaching the season, but it does leave the Browns with a test that starts immediately: whether the clean slate survives if Watson keeps playing the way he has in Cleveland, or whether the evaluation changes once the games begin. “We’ll let it play out,” Monken said. “We’ll see where it goes starting a week from now.”
