Deshaun Watson’s postgame stroll off the field Sunday said plenty before he even opened his mouth.
With both arms raised and a crowd roaring around him, Watson came off the field after Cleveland’s win over Carolina looking like a quarterback who had finally turned the volume down on the noise around him. The video from Cleveland 9 News reporter Ashley Holder captured the moment, and the exchange with general manager Andrew Berry outside the locker room made the message even clearer: the Browns are standing with Watson.
On Tuesday, Watson talked about what Berry has meant through all of it, and he made it plain that the communication never stopped even as the quarterback situation got messy.
“Yeah, man, AB always been right there,” Watson said of Berry. “He’s always communicated with me throughout the whole process, whatever was going on, what we’re doing in the QB room, what we’re doing coaching-wise, everything.
So, he’s always communicated. We got a great relationship, and we just continue to build from that.
We built that trust and that honesty where we can just talk to each other, and we just hope that we can continue to build that and win a lot of games together.”
That relationship has been one of the quiet constants behind Cleveland’s quarterback drama. Over the past two offseasons, Berry never used a real draft pick on a quarterback and never made a major trade to change the picture.
Even after Watson’s first Achilles injury in 2024, the two sides kept moving forward. They mutually reworked his contract that December, setting him on a path to potentially play again for the franchise.
The Browns also never fully walked away after Watson re-tore his Achilles in January 2025. Berry added short-term veterans like Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco, but the organization still didn’t spend significant draft capital at the position. Since then, Cleveland has only used third-, fifth-, and sixth-round picks on quarterbacks.
Watson’s bond with Berry is not the only one that matters inside the building. The broadcast also showed him embracing executive vice president JW Johnson on the sideline after Cleveland’s Week 2 road win at Tampa Bay. He also looks to be in sync with head coach Todd Monken.
What’s been loud all season, though, has come from outside the building. Beyond owner Jimmy Haslam calling the Watson trade and contract “a big swing and a miss” last spring - comments he has since walked back multiple times - the anger over Watson holding the job over Shedeur Sanders has mostly come from fans and media. Inside the Browns’ facility, Watson appears to be a different story: respected, supported, and firmly in place.
Still, the long-term picture is what it is. The Browns’ exit plan has always pointed to March 2027, by the second day of that league year, when Watson will be designated as a post-June 1 release for salary cap reasons. That makes the idea of a big contract extension next offseason feel unlikely, especially with two 2027 first-round picks in Cleveland’s hands.
So when Watson talked about winning a lot of games together, it sounded more like a statement about the present than a promise about the future. For now, though, the Browns have made their stance unmistakable, and the image of Berry and Watson walking back toward the locker room with arms around each other told the story as clearly as anything else.
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