Todd Monken is not ready to name a starting quarterback for Sunday’s home game against the Houston Texans, leaving the Cleveland Browns with their biggest decision still open after a 23-22 overtime loss to the Saints in New Orleans. The choice now sits between Deshaun Watson, who cleared concussion protocol on Saturday, and Shedeur Sanders, who helped fuel the comeback in New Orleans.
The question is being asked now because the Browns are 5-4 after losing two straight games and are trying to stay in the AFC race with Sunday’s game coming next. Monken said Monday afternoon that the team has not settled on the starter, even after Sanders spent the week preparing for what would have been his first start of the season and then delivered in relief. Cleveland scored on three of its final four possessions in the fourth quarter and overtime, and Sanders threw for 197 of his 297 yards in that stretch.
That late push did not produce a win, but it changed the conversation around the next game. Watson opened the season’s first eight games as the starter, and all five of Cleveland’s wins have come on fourth-quarter drives he engineered. That history matters because the Browns remain 1.5 games behind Pittsburgh and Cincinnati in the AFC North and are a game behind current qualification for one of the AFC’s three wild-card spots. They have also played six of their first nine on the road and are coming off their third straight road game.
Monken did not sound interested in making the decision on reputation alone. “You are what your tape says you are,” he said, while adding that Cleveland is “right there in the mix” and that its “best football is in front of us.” He also said, “We have our next four at home and a bye week. It’s all right there in front of us.” That leaves the quarterback call tied directly to how the Browns believe they can best use their next run of games before Week 11.
The friction point is that Watson’s status and Sanders’ momentum point in opposite directions. Watson has been the starter for nearly the whole season, and he cleared concussion protocol in time for New Orleans, but he did not play. Sanders, meanwhile, had not worked with the starters for 10 weeks before getting those reps again and, in Monken’s words, “battled and showed composure in the pocket.” Monken said he was “awfully proud of Shedeur,” that the operation was “clean” for the most part, and that there was “a lot there to like” despite plenty left to fix.
That leaves Monken with a decision that is about more than one Sunday. He has to choose whether to stay with the quarterback who has given the Browns their most familiar late-game answer, or ride the player who gave them one in New Orleans and turned an unsettled week into a real debate. The answer will tell the Browns how they intend to attack Sunday, and maybe the next month after that.
