Every year, The Athletic’s Mike Sando polls NFL officials around the league to break the league’s quarterbacks into rankings and tiers. This year he polled 50 league officials including eight general managers, 10 head coaches, 15 coordinators, 10 executives, and others. And the NFL is still high on Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson despite a down six-game sample size in 2022.
Of all of the quarterbacks in the NFL, Watson was thrown into the second tier of gunslingers, ranked as the 11th-best.
Here are some quotes from NFL officials about Watson as the Browns prepare to make a run in 2023.
From a defensive coach:
“I’ll tell you what, when we played him it was bad… it was real shaky.”
From a defensive coordinator:
“Everyone thinks, ‘OK, his rust will wear off after a couple of weeks… that guy hadn’t played in a what, year and some change? That’s a hard thing. He was one of my 1s last year. I would put him as a 2 with the probability that he will be a 1 again.”
From a personnel director:
“That position is the hardest to play in football, and taking time away takes some things away from you… He has a skill set that could take him back to where he was or close to, but the game hasn’t gotten slower. He is going to have to show he is able to do some of those things again.”
