The Cleveland Browns snapped their five-game losing streak on Sunday, upsetting the Baltimore Ravens 29-24 in their first game since quarterback Deshaun Watson tore his Achilles tendon. Beating the best team in the division immediately after losing the quarterback they're paying $46 million per season—a mega-contract with two more years on it to which the Browns signed Watson after 22 massage therapists had already filed sexual assault lawsuits against him—is a funny result for a rotten organization, although, as befits the Browns, even the triumph was weird and off-putting. They got the full-strength Jameis Winston experience, as the vet threw his team into and nearly out of a big win.
One week ago, Winston seemed unlikely to see the field this season. The Browns demoted him to emergency QB and listed him as inactive before their Week 7 game against the Cincinnati Bengals, only for emergency to strike. Not only did Watson tear his Achilles in that game, but backup Dorian Thompson-Robinson hurt a finger on his throwing hand after playing two godawful quarters in Watson's stead. So the Browns activated Winston and became the first team in 16 years to have three different players attempt double-digit passes in the same game. Winston earned the start this week and instantly cut a weird promo before the game, looking directly into the broadcast camera as he touted his "unwavering faith, ultimate belief, depending on the lord." He echoed similar sentiments in a signature lacrimal pregame hype speech to his team.
In his five-ish seasons as a starting QB with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints, Winston showed that his rocket-arm strength is matched by his inability to figure out which team to throw to. When the producer of the century's only 30-interception season (so far) says something like, "I am certain that when I am making great decisions one play at a time, I am a great NFL quarterback," he is mostly correct, but the word "when" in that sentence is like a single two-by-four supporting the weight of a rhinoceros.
In Sunday's game against the Ravens, Winston was unleashed, which is to his credit. He truly went for it, setting a franchise debut record with 334 yards in his first start in 25 months and first as a Cleveland Brown. He completed eight passes that traveled at least 15 yards in the air—one shy of the total number of such passes Watson completed in his previous seven games put together—including two for scores.
His best throw was his last, a 38-yard bomb to Cedric Tillman for what proved to be the game-winning touchdown. Naturally his worst throw preceded it, as he threw a pass directly to Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton that should have ended the game, had Hamilton not inexplicably dropped it. He wasn't the only Ravens defensive back to let Winston off the hook.
Winston's first drive was a great microcosm for his day: He completed four passes of more than 10 yards, but on the Browns' first play inside the red zone, he utilized something like five full seconds and 15 yards of open field won by a play-fake to stand perfectly still and deliver a strike to Ravens safety Eddie Jackson—who dropped it—prompting a member of the broadcast commentary crew to say, "I really have no idea where Jameis was throwing." You know something outrageous happened if the postgame story on a team's official website centers on a ton of quotes from defensive backs about how they have to get better at catching the ball.
Winston was characteristically rehearsed and corny after the win, quoting Eminem and debuting a new way to pronounce the word "possibly," in a performance style correctly described by The Athletic's David Ubben as "shooting a scene he’s rehearsed 100x for a movie that is not being made."
The Browns winning immediately after Watson's injury could make for something like the opening chapter of a feel-good story—if Winston, with his own history of sexual misconduct accusations, were not a piss-poor redemptive figure, and the Browns organization not so floridly undeserving. The best you can hope for is comedy, and with cause for optimism: After all, not every opposing DB is going to drop those easy picks.
