Deshaun Watson started in the Cleveland Browns’ first preseason game against the Chicago Bears, lost a fumble on a strip sack, didn’t throw a single touchdown in two quarters, and looked like someone who hasn’t played pro football in a long time. Shedeur Sanders came in next, threw a bad pick, and paved the way for Dillon Gabriel to get some NFL action.

Even after that 34-10 beatdown, head coach Todd Monken believes in equal opportunity for both Shedeur and Watson heading into Week 2, keeping the QB competition wide open. Now, Week 2 against the Buffalo Bills was supposed to be when Shedeur started; that much was already known. Then, on Sunday, coach Monken said “it would be unfair not to” give Sanders the start. But when that comment landed on Outta Pocket with RGIII, former Browns quarterback Robert Griffin III decided to call out the Browns’ QB competition.

“I just with the Browns would have saved all us the consternation, the time on task, saved the Browns fans from just the outside noise,” RG3 said, “saved the locker room from the outside noise, and just came out in April and said, ‘Look guys, we’re starting Deshaun Watson because we’re paying $230 million and we want to get out money’s worth out of him, so we’re going to start that guy.’

“Don’t put on this show and this facade like, ‘No, Shedeur Sanders has a chance.’ If Shedeur Sanders was actually in a quarterback competition, he would have already won the job by leaps and bounds; he has outperformed Deshaun Watson all offseason, all training camp. And you’re telling me now that because he threw one interception, one bad throw, oh, he’s not gonna be the starter? That means you already had the decision made.”

The quarterback narrative around Cleveland is nothing new. We saw this last year when it was Kevin Stefanski’s team, and he wouldn’t decide who to start. Through a carousel of injuries and trades, Shedeur Sanders finally got pushed onto the gridiron with the team unfamiliar with his cadence, having spent zero first-team reps with him in his rookie year. This year was different at the beginning, but now it’s starting to look like more of the same thing.

Under new head coach Todd Monken, Deshaun Watson got a fair chance to prove he can still play football. But by all comparable margins, Shedeur had been the better quarterback through the minicamps, the OTAs, and now the training camp. Still, after that defeat at the hands of the Bears, Coach Monken called it a close competition, while noting that a different set of players might take the field with the second-year quarterback.

“I did feel going into the last game that it was relatively close in terms of both having an opportunity at the starting position,” Monken said. “It would be unfair not to go to the next game and allow Shedeur that opportunity, albeit against a different team, certainly at home, and there is no guarantee that the same players will be playing this game. But it’s the closest you have, and we owe it to both players who have handled it well and have played at a high level.”

Now, if you just take the first preseason game at face value, neither of them was actually great. Watson went 11-of-15 for 126 yards and a strip sack, while Sanders went 6-of-11 for 79 yards and a pick. Watson came out of that with a better passer rating (98.2) compared to Shedeur (39.6), but in Robert Griffin III’s words, “the fumble looked like a guy that hadn’t been playing consistent football in six years.”

Come Week 2 against the Bills, Shedeur will face a similar challenge. If Sanders finally finds his footing and makes good plays, that would help him with the QB competition regardless of the outcome. The Dawg Pound, meanwhile, has already booed Watson once at training camp. When (if) he takes the field at home against the Bills, 92.3 The Fan’s Ken Carman has already said Watson is “about to get a taste of real Cleveland coming up here on Saturday.”

Still, you cannot deny the fact that out of the $230 million invested in Watson, the Browns have only gotten 19 starts, and a whole lot of criticism to show for it. This is the last year on his contract, the last chance for Cleveland to make the best of a bad investment. Robert Griffin III’s comments land right at the center of this. But the quarterback question in Cleveland, as always, remains unanswered.