Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson is feeling unburdened entering the 2024 season.
Watson, who has played just 12 games since the end of 2020, told reporters in a Friday press conference that he’s changed his approach entering his third year with Cleveland.
“I think honestly it’s really just blocking out all the bullshit, honestly, outside,” Watson said. “It was tough coming in two years [ago] — different environment, different team, different all that. So you come in and your character has been mentioned this way and then it kind of flips on you and you’re trying to... the biggest thing is you’re trying to get people to like you or improve.
“But now, it’s like, at the end of the day, it’s two years in and you’re going to like me or you have your own opinions and, yeah, it is what it is. So I think blocking out all the noise and focusing on me, and focusing on what I need to do to be the best Deshaun Watson I can be for myself, my family, and my teammates.”
Watson sat out the 2021 season while still on Houston’s roster as he’d requested a trade. Then after Cleveland acquired him, Watson was suspended for the first 11 games of 2022 after he was found to have violated the league’s personal conduct policy. And in 2023, Watson missed three of Cleveland’s first nine games — and most of a fourth — before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury in Week 10 against Baltimore.
Watson admitted that “of course” it’s been tough to, as he put it, block out the bullshit.
“My character was getting challenged,” Watson said. “And like I said, I know who I am, and a lot of people never really knew my history or knew who I really was so they’re going based off of other people’s opinions and whatever other people are saying. But, yeah, I’m a person that likes to have people like me. And I feel like a lot of people are like that. So, sometimes things in your brain you’ve got to turn and you’ve got to forget it. It is what it is.”
Now that Watson is healthy — he noted that his shoulder is right on track — he’s looking forward to putting the disappointment of 2023 behind him.
“Not just because I couldn’t show exactly what I can do for this organization — I understand that they put a lot into me, but sometimes the injuries you can’t control,” Watson said. “So a lot of things didn’t fall in place the last two years, but praying and taking it one day at a time that everything [does] this year.”
But he says his motivation is internal and not being drawn from naysayers.
“Just being the best Deshaun Watson [I] can be for this team so we can get that ultimate goal. And maximizing my potential, my talent — that’s my motivation,” Watson said. “I don’t have anything else that’s going to motivate me.
“I could give two fucks what other people say, to be honest.”