By the time Deshaun Watson came out of the tunnel during the Cleveland Browns‘ pregame introductions in Week 7 of the 2024 season, the Dawg Pound had already seen enough and booed as he came onto the field. When Watson went down in that game with a non-contact Achilles injury and got carted off, the fans still kept cheering. Cut to 2026, and the Dawg Pound still hasn’t gotten over Watson’s history with Cleveland’s heartbreaks. To have any hopes of changing that, BIGPLAY Sports Network personality Gabriella Kreuz believes Watson should start with an apology.

“The world where that would have to exist for Deshaun to be well received in any capacity is his ability to say, ‘I was very immature, I made stupid mistakes. That bled through into a lot of what had materialized for me on the field,’” Kreuz said in a recent podcast. “‘And yeah, maybe I wasn’t in the most ideal of situations at certain points in terms of the page I was on with my head coach or whatever, the schemes we were trying to run.’

“‘But that’s irrespective of the fact that I sabotaged myself first. I put myself and my family and women in a compromising position, and that reflected so poorly on me; it certainly bled into my psyche and my game, and I deserve it.”

Deshaun Watson’s football problems in Cleveland never stood alone. Before he got there, in 2021, 24 women had filed civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct during massage sessions. When the allegations came to light, Watson was already engaged in a standoff with the Houston Texans, unhappy with their coaching blueprint, and looking for a trade.

Nothing emerged until the Browns took the bait in the 2022 offseason and handed him a $230M, five-year deal, fully guaranteed. But by August that year, the league had hit him with an 11-game suspension, a $5 million fine, and mandatory counselling. That $230 million investment started looking like a “big swing and miss” long before Owner Jimmy Haslam used those words to describe Watson, and it wasn’t just about the lawsuits and suspension.

The football fit got messy. Watson had spent his best years in Houston working from shotgun, where he could freelance and play off-script. But the then-head coach Kevin Stefanski wanted more under-center structure, and that mismatch never really disappeared. If that wasn’t enough, Watson’s availability only made it worse.

Watson missed 11 games in 2022 due to his suspension, and came back the next season to deliver on the investment Cleveland had made in him. But playing just 6 games, he injured his shoulder in Week 10, ending his season. Then came the Achilles tear that pushed the Dawg Pound over the edge in 2024. The reaction at the stadium said the rest.

Former Browns DE Myles Garrett had called out the crowd for cheering the injury at the time. Even Jameis Winston backed him and spoke up. But the fanbase was reacting to the trade, the suspension, the injuries, and the years spent waiting for Watson to become something he’s never really been in Cleveland: dependable.

Last season could have been different, but Watson re-ruptured his Achilles, underwent surgery, and coach Stefanski never opened his training window.

Deshaun Watson can still throw the ball and make plays. Under new head coach Todd Monken this offseason, he’s received a second chance at redemption, and followed it up by being a frontrunner for the QB1 role alongside second-year quarterback Shedeur Sanders. But none of this fixes the rift.

The ownership saw Watson as a mistake once, and has since moved away from that stance. But Watson hasn’t given Cleveland the kind of blunt, personal accountability that sounds unpolished because it is real. Until he does that, every good throwing session is just another rep in a city that has stopped believing in him.