The Cleveland Browns are having an interesting start to the season with Deshaun Watson under center. Heading into the team's Thursday Night Football matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Browns are 2-1 after narrow victories over AFC and NFC South contenders, the Buccaneers and the Panthers. So far this season, Watson has thrown for 587 yards and five touchdowns with one interception, while also rushing for 105 yards on 24 carries.
But an NFL writer believes that Deshun Watson's level of play hasn't been as high-level as many believe. Dan Pizzuta used his BlueSky account to do a deep dive into Watson's advanced stats, arguing that he isn't playing as well as the box score suggests.
“Over the past two weeks, Deshaun Watson has league-lows in average depth of target (4.8) and completion (3.7) while a league-high 64.1% of his passing yards have come after the catch. Second-lowest explosive pass rate. He's set the bar so low, but don't let anyone mistake this for playing well.”
Despite Pizzuta's criticism of Watson's play to start the season, Brown's head coach Todd Monken spoke highly of the newly returned QB.
“I'm just really happy for him,” Monken said. “Again, the work he's put in, certainly he knows he can play better. We can certainly coach better around him. And all we're trying to do is this week, clean up what we can clean up in a short week and be ready to go and be as fresh as we can be for Thursday night, to better put our best foot forward.”