Hue Jackson is not at all surprised with the way Deshaun Watson is playing as a rookie.
“I think what I saw from Deshaun [Sunday] is what I anticipated he would be,” Jackson said on a conference call Monday, one day after Watson and the Houston Texans sent the Browns to an embarrassing loss and an 0-6 record.
Watson has thrown more touchdowns through six games than any rookie since the AFL-NFL merger, and the Texans have set a team record with four games in a row of at least 30 points with Watson starting. While he does that, the Browns continue their search for their quarterback.
The most galling reality: The Browns could have drafted Watson with the 12th pick. Instead, they traded the pick to the Texans.
“He is a good football player,” Jackson said. “They have a good system for him. He is playing good football. Obviously, we had some other chances to get our hands on balls. We didn’t finish those, but obviously, he did some great things. You throw three touchdowns, and what is it ... [12] touchdowns in three games?
“He is off to a fast start. I am not surprised by what he is doing.”
Which begs the question: If Jackson thought that highly of Watson and he’s not surprised that he’s playing record-setting football, why the heck didn’t the team that doesn’t have a quarterback draft Watson when he was right there to be taken?
“We made a decision,” Jackson said. “He is in Houston. They picked him. We made the pick that we decided to take. That is how that works. He is not on our football team. He is on the Houston Texans team and we didn’t pick him.”
In a sense, it’s not fair to expect Jackson to explain these picks. In the Browns’ hierarchy, vice president of football operations Sashi Brown has final say on the roster and draft picks.
Jackson has input and the group continually says they work well together, and all decisions are collaborative. (Collaborative is a big word in the Browns' offices these past few years.) Jackson has to answer the questions because during the season the coach is the team spokesperson.
But if the coach liked Watson as much as he says -- and he said often Monday how much he liked him -- it raises the question mark flag to wonder how they bypassed him.
Brown addressed the question on Oct. 4.
“Those decisions are always difficult,” he said. “I talked about this, I think, with you guys on draft night, after Thursday night. Whenever you trade back, there’s a host of players that you would have liked to actually have on your roster that aren’t going to be available to you when you actually select.
“Now at the same time, we add Jabrill [Peppers] and David [Njoku] in the first round and that came from sliding back the year prior. But we understand that’s part of trading back, that there’s going to be players there that you miss on, some of them will go on to have great careers, some of them won’t. That’s just the realities of that decision.”
In fairness, teams routinely pass on guys they are fond of to get the guys they want. Nobody would argue with the choice of Myles Garrett, and at No. 12 the Browns decided a trade down for an extra first-round pick in 2018 was worth doing. Second-guessing a draft is low-hanging fruit. It’s even a question who Jackson favored with that pick. NFL.com reported after the draft that Watson was Jackson’s highest-rated quarterback, but at No. 12 he hoped for safety Malik Hooker. Instead, the Browns traded down and took Peppers. Few criticized their draft and many praised it.
But the non-choice of Watson by Cleveland stands out now for four reasons:
The Browns needed a quarterback.
They could have had Garrett and Watson without a trade down, which in theory would have solved the quarterback problem and lessened the need for the No. 1 in 2018.
They missed the previous year on a quarterback when they traded the pick used to take Carson Wentz to the Eagles; that would have seemingly highlighted the need to add one in 2017.
Watson just drilled the Browns on the field.
There were questions on Watson coming out of the read-option system at Clemson, but when the coach thinks highly of him, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher to trade out of a position of need.
“There were other quarterbacks, obviously, that we were into, too,” Jackson said. “I don’t want to go into what the thinking was on draft day or any of that because I don’t think any of that matters. He is not on our football team. He plays for the Houston Texans. We made the decision to take DeShone Kizer. I think that is the end of that discussion.”
When it was pointed out to Jackson that the question is relevant because it calls into question the team’s ability to judge and evaluate quarterbacks, he did not flinch.
“I hear what you are saying and I respect what you are saying,” Jackson said. “At the same time, we make decisions for our football team and where we are. I think that is what is important. We all come together and make decisions with what we think is best for our organization and that is where we are.”