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Mary Kay Cabot on Deshaun Watson Playing This Season: ‘Stranger things have happened'

Stephen Douglas

Deshaun Watson is getting more active following his Achilles injury which has people speculating whether he might actually play this season.
Deshaun Watson is getting more active following his Achilles injury which has people speculating whether he might actually play this season. / Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
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The Cleveland Browns have the strangest, most closely observed and debated quarterback situation in the entire NFL. Not only do they have Joe Flacco, a former Super Bowl winner, penciled in as the starter for Week 1, but they carry Kenny Pickett, a young veteran signed in free agency this offseason, as well as two of the most high-profile rookies in this year's draft class in Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel. Oh, and they recently signed Tyler "Snoop" Huntley who was actually a Pro Bowl quarterback in 2022.

Then there's the Deshaun Watson piece. The owner of the richest contract in NFL history, Watson is coming off three disappointing seasons in Cleveland and two surgeries at the end of 2024 as he tore his Achilles in a game and then re-ruptured it during his initial recovery.

Watson has been lurking in the background during Cleveland's camp this summer, reportedly acting as a mentor for the younger players fighting for roster spots and practice reps.

But earlier this week something changed when Watson posted a video of himself running on his Instagram stories. People started to wonder if he might be thinking about trying to play this season. The chatter got so loud that Anthony Lima and Ken Carmen of 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland asked reporter Mary Kay Cabot if that was an actual possibility and she did not immediately shut it down.

"This is such a strange quarterback year that nothing, nothing would shock me," said Cabot. "Nothing would shock me so I just think that we all have to stay tuned for that. Will they ever let him set foot on field for them, again, I don't really know, but he is certainly determined. And the Browns, every time they talk about Deshaun Watson nowadays, it's in glowing terms about what he's doing inside of that building. How he is mentoring the younger guys. His attitude. His work ethic. So he's in good standing with the club right now. and I think that anything can happen."

While Cabot doesn't know for sure if that would even be a possibility physically, she did note that the Browns have not designated him one way or the other and the way things are going, who knows if they might actually need him.

"I have no idea so I don't want to say that oh yes I think he can, but they haven't ruled him out," Cabot continued. "I mean, they haven't put him on the shelf for the whole entire season so I think they're leaving their possibilities open."

After Lima noted that the Browns had already employed five quarterbacks in three weeks of training camp, Cabot ended with this thought:

"I believe they hope it doesn't get to that point where they would have to do something like that but stranger things have happened."

That certainly sounds like the philosophy of the Browns.

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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in media since 2008 and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Douglas spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and previously wrote for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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