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It started with a pregame benching of a receiver and didn’t end happily. The Cleveland Browns lost Deshaun Watson for the season. And eventually, they had to put emergency QB Jameis Winston into action despite his demotion during the week.
The final score didn’t look too bad, but the Browns suffered a 21-14 loss to the Bengals. They used three quarterbacks in the game with Watason completing 15 of 17 passes for 128 yards before exiting. Dorian Thompson-Robinson connected on 11 of 24 for 82 yards before Winston managed five connections on 11 attempts for 67 yards and a score.
Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski gave the injury report after the game, according to cleveland.com.
“Deshaun has an Achilles injury,” Stefanski said. ““I think let’s get the test to confirm, but that’s what it looks like. Dorian has a finger injury. I’ll have more updates on that.”
Browns QB Jameis Winston unexpectedly forced to play
Winston had been the backup quarterback for the first six games, but got demoted to emergency status for Week 7.
“Yeah, kind of went into the season thinking both those guys were the number two and felt like with some of the packages that we had up today, didn’t have really Jameis in the short yardage that we’ve had up before, so felt like it was the right thing for this game.”
Winston said tough circumstances put him in the game.
“I am grateful that I had a chance to serve Deshaun,” Winston said. “But I am very upset with the reaction to a man that's had the world against him for the past four years. And he put his body and life on the line for this city, every single day. Regardless of your perception, regardless of what you thought should happen with him, he committed every single day that I've been here to be the best that he can be for this team.”
Stefanski said playing a division rival made the whole day tougher.
“You come here to try to get a win versus division opponent and fall short and really disappointed that we can’t,” Stefanski said. “We have to eliminate some bad football that’s holding us back. We have to eliminate those plays that are holding us back. And then when we do that, we’ll have a chance, but disappointed.”
Another disappointment for Stefanski came from fans’ reactions to Watson’s injury. Apparently some fans cheered.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s ever okay to cheer when someone’s injured,” Stefanski said. “I’m sure it’s not every person in that building doing that, but that’s disappointing.”
Myles Garrett and others said the fans displayed poor behavior for cheering a hurt player, according to newsweek.com.
“We don't boo guys that are injured on the field, especially when the cart comes out,” Garrett said after the game. “We should be ashamed of ourselves, as Browns and as fans, to boo anyone in their downfall. To be season-altering, career-altering injury. The man's not perfect. He doesn't need to be. None of us expect to be perfect. Can't judge him for what he does on the field or off the field because I can't throw stones from my glass house, but we need to do better.”
