Deshaun Watson is no longer talking like a quarterback on his last lap.
With the Cleveland Browns set to meet the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday night in a game that will leave the winner 3-1 and alone in first place in the AFC North, Watson’s early-season play has become one of the bigger surprises around the league. The Browns have opened with a strong start, and Watson has shown enough flashes of the version that once starred for the Houston Texans to make people wonder how much football he still has left.
That wasn’t the expectation heading into the season. Watson was widely viewed as a player who would finish out the final year of his contract and then walk away from the NFL, especially after never quite looking like the same quarterback in Cleveland and after the off-the-field fallout tied to the sexual misconduct allegations that followed him from Houston.
But through three games, Watson sounds like someone who sees a much longer runway.
Per Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot, Watson laid out how he’s looking at the rest of his career, and the name that’s pushing him to keep going is Aaron Rodgers.
“I’ve known Aaron just passing throughout the years, playing against each other. When I was working with Dr. Neal ElAttrache on my shoulder, he was out there with his Achilles, I got to talk to him a little bit,” Watson said, via Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot.
“It’s motivating, it’s inspiring to be able to see what he’s doing at the age he’s been doing it for so long. I was watching him as a young kid.
So being able to now play against him is super dope. You can learn a lot from him.
I want to play as long as I possibly can until football tell me I can’t.”
Watson also said “that’s the goal” when asked about playing as long as Rodgers, who is 42.
Rodgers has already made it clear this season is his last, no matter how it ends. Watson, though, is leaving the door open. If he keeps playing like this, retirement may not be waiting for him at the end of the year after all.
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