When the Browns’ injured starting quarterback, Deshaun Watson, was spotted in a suite during Sunday’s game, many fans were perplexed as to why he wasn’t on the field with his teammates. The sight of the injured active and involved on the Bengals’ sideline during Cincinnati’s game last week heightened those concerns.
However, the Browns insist Watson was simply following doctors’ orders.
A Browns spokesman told Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot that the medical staff didn’t want Watson on the sideline because they didn’t want to risk a collision, which could delay his recovery from shoulder surgery. All of the injured Browns players who attended the game were in the same suite as Watson.
The Browns also claim Watson’s decision to stay in Los Angeles after his surgery and not return to Cleveland was a medical decision: the doctors didn’t want Watson flying back and forth between Cleveland and Los Angeles because of the risk of swelling on a flight.
In the NFL, sideline incidents do occur. Two of them occurred on Sunday, with a sideline official in New Orleans suffering a serious leg injury as a result of a collision and a security official in Philadelphia becoming involved in a fight with the 49ers. It makes sense for the Browns to believe that having fewer players on the sideline reduces those risks.
So, while Watson has been a major disappointment given what the Browns paid him and what they traded for him, the specific criticism that he should have been on the bench is unjust. He was exactly where the team had asked him to be.
Leave a Reply