Deshaun Watson has a chance to play football before the end of 2025.
The Browns announced on Wednesday they've opened Watson's 21-day practice window, giving the veteran quarterback three weeks to prove he's healthy enough to return to game action this season.
"Excited for him," coach Kevin Stefanski told reporters Wednesday. "His focus, my focus is obviously getting him back to playing football, practicing football, which he hasn't done in over a year. It's a good next step for him. But our focus, obviously, continues to remain on the Tennessee Titans."
The development is surprising for a number of reasons, beginning with timing. Watson suffered a season-ending Achilles injury midway through the 2024 season and re-ruptured the ligament after having it surgically repaired, theoretically eliminating him from a serious chance of returning in 2025. It appears he's outperformed the projected timeline after being cleared for practice.
Wednesday's news, however, should be handled cautiously. Cleveland does not have to activate Watson to the active roster at all and is now entering a defined window in which Watson must prove he's healthy and capable enough to play and be worthy of a roster spot. If the window closes without activation, Watson would revert to the physical unable to perform (PUP) list for the remainder of what is another lost season for the Browns (3-9).
It sounds as if the Browns aren't quite gearing up for a return to game action in the same fashion the Bengals prepared Joe Burrow over the last month.
"Really not my focus, not his focus right this minute," Stefanski said when asked if the organization wanted Watson on the field again. "His focus is putting a helmet on again for the first time, shoulder pads, throwing a football. That's where the focus is."
Watson's Achilles injury in 2024 seemed to all but guarantee he'd played his final down with the Browns, a team that made a colossal, franchise-altering mistake when they traded three first-round picks for Watson and handed him a fully guaranteed $230 million contract in 2022. The deal is undoubtedly the worst in NFL history -- even owner Jimmy Haslam admitted it was a “big swing and miss” over the summer -- and Cleveland has spent the last two seasons attempting to recover and rebuild, winning just six of its last 29 games.
In an effort to move on, the Browns drafted two quarterbacks in April, added Kenny Pickett (who was later traded) and welcomed back Joe Flacco (who was also later traded) in the offseason, giving them myriad options and all but closing the book on Watson.
Such a possibility has always lingered, though. Mentions of Watson have seen a small but noteworthy uptick in recent weeks, starting with him joining the team for their trip to Las Vegas in Week 12, a period in which Watson was publicly lauded for how helpful he's supposedly been to rookies Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel during practice.
It seems that's where Cleveland values him most at this point. After all, they have to get something out of the $230 million they guaranteed him.
"He's been so supportive in the meeting room, on the game field with the players," Stefanski said of Watson. "Now he gets to do that on the practice field, as well."
Don't be surprised if that's as far as this goes with Watson, who will undoubtedly still be on the Browns' roster again in 2026 because of salary cap penalty reasons.
Then again, crazier things have happened with Browns quarterbacks.
