Rex Ryan said he would have cut Deshaun Watson after the Cleveland Browns quarterback complained about fans booing him, sharpening a dispute that has followed Watson from the preseason into Sunday’s broadcast. Ryan made the remarks on 's Sunday NFL Countdown, where he also said he would not have started Watson over Shedeur Sanders.
The comments landed at a moment when Cleveland had already made its choice. Todd Monken gave Watson the starting nod for Sunday’s season opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars, keeping the quarterback in place despite the noise around him and the public split over how the Browns should handle him.
Watson, 29, drew attention last month when he blasted Cleveland Browns fans for booing him during a preseason game. He said the reaction had nothing to do with performance and called it personal, adding that the same fan base cheered when he got hurt. Watson later apologized in his next media availability, but the criticism had already taken hold and made his standing in Cleveland even more brittle.
Ryan did not hedge. He said, “No way would I have started him.” Then he went further: “No way. In fact, I would have cut him.” He added that there was “no more important thing than that fan base” and said, “I don't care who was the backup, no way would I have kept this guy.”
That blunt answer sounds cleaner than the math behind it. Mike Ginnitti of Spotrac said cutting Watson ahead of the 2026 campaign would have left about $41 million in dead cap in 2026 and another $86.2 million in 2027. That is why the Browns could not realistically take the same path Ryan described, even if the football and public-relations case looked tempting from the outside.
The larger issue for Cleveland is that this is not an isolated reaction to one bad week. The Browns are still trying to get value from a quarterback who once looked like a franchise answer. Cleveland hopes Watson can return to the form he showed with the Houston Texans from 2018 through 2020, when he was a Pro Bowler for three straight years, but that hope sits beside a record of injuries, suspension and poor play that has made every decision around him louder than the last.
So the starting job is not the same thing as a long-term commitment. If Watson struggles early in the 2026 campaign, it would not be surprising to see Cleveland revisit the position quickly, with Sanders still there as the alternative and the pressure around Watson only growing more difficult to ignore.
