The Cleveland Browns announced on Monday their starting quarterback decision for Week 2.
The Browns were blown out by the Jaguars in Week 1. Deshaun Watson started at quarterback for the Browns. He completed 16 of 22 passes for 205 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
Browns fans called for his benching throughout the game.
However, heading into Week 2, the Browns have announced that Watson will remain the team’s starting quarterback. Shedeur Sanders, meanwhile, will remain the team’s backup quarterback.
Browns head coach Todd Monken told reporters that he “anticipates” he’ll stick with that plan for now.
While Watson’s Week 1 stats were not terrible, he took a lot of sacks and a lot of his passing yards came in garbage time.
The Browns quarterback is promising to keep smiling, though.
Watson promises to ‘keep smiling’
“Yeah, I mean just keep moving forward, keep stepping forward, keep smiling, regardless of who’s against me or who’s with me,” Watson said. “I think that’s more beneficial for the team in that locker room. I’ve had a lot of support in that locker room after the game telling me to keep my head up, keep pushing forward, keep working. They’re behind me, so that’s always positive to see and hear. Yeah, we just got to keep going.
“The adversity is going to be there. You’ve got to embrace it. That’s the only way — I thought it was going to be gone two years ago, but I guess not. So you just embrace it and keep pushing through until you break that wall through.”
Watson said that he knows bad plays will happen.
“No, I mean, bad plays are going to happen all the time,” he said. “You look all around the league. Everyone throws interceptions, everyone makes bad plays. You’ve got to give the defense credit. He made a good play on that. Even though I got knocked off my platform a little bit, I thought I got it over him. He reached up and grabbed it. So you’ve got to move on to the next play and try to move forward and try to put something positive on the next drive. And we weren’t able to do that.
“So it didn’t really bundle up my confidence. It’s just — we didn’t get back on track like we wanted to.”
