Deshaun Watson does it again, pulling off another game-winning drive to lift the Cleveland Browns to victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, validating a 3-1 start to the season.
Just like everyone expected.
It's a remarkable start for a team that supposedly hired a one-and-done coach in Todd Monken and then traded Myles Garrett earlier this summer as a signal that it was tanking.
Whatever you thought this Browns team was supposed to be in 2026, flush it from your memory. Back-to-back wins over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers may have been easily dismissed as beating up the lowly NFC South – a division notorious for sending under .500 teams to the playoffs year-over-year.
The same goes for the quarterback play, with Deshaun Watson delivering several bipolar performances, punctuated by some epic game-winning drives in crunch time.
If it all felt like fool's gold, that's understandable. But Thursday's win over the Steelers proves this is anything but that. These Browns, Monken's Browns are for real.
"If you said that was the way we would start the season after the way we worked, I would have said you’re nuts," Monken said of the season-opening loss to the Jaguars. "And if you’d have said we’d be three and one after that first game, I would’ve said you’re nuts. But that’s a credit to our players, because all they do is just work. It’s them. I mean, they didn’t blink."
So many times on a prime-time stage, the Browns have invented ways to lose, but this time, with everyone watching, they delivered a gutsy win over their biggest rival and one of the gold-standard franchises in the league, even after blowing a 21-7 lead and with a Hall of Fame QB in Aaron Rodgers on the opposing sideline.
And once again, trailing in crunch time, Watson led a game-winning drive to set up Andre Szmyt for a game-winning 56-yard field goal.
In totality, Thursday night was arguably the most complete game Watson has played since coming to Cleveland in that controversial trade in 2022. With the exception of a third-quarter lull that saw the Browns have only two possessions that ended in a punt and a fumble, Watson completed 24-of-33 passes for 268 yards, a touchdown and an interception, which came on a tipped ball.
The fumble was also on him, but Monken chalked it up afterwards to a terrible decision on his part to run a zone read at T.J. Watt. Regardless, Watson looked as decisive as he ever has in brown and orange and on numerous occasions he pushed the ball downfield.
After two years of the defense needing to seemingly be perfect to give the Browns a chance to win, it finally has an offense that can complement it – led by Watson, as unfathomable as that may have been.
"That’s part of the NFL. You have to ride the waves. So many momentum shifts," Watson said postgame. "We made a couple of plays that went our way. We just have to ride the wave until our opportunities came and at the end of the day, whenever those moments come, especially at the end, we found a way to get the W. That’s what ultimately matters."
That is all that matters to Browns fans. And the fact is, their team is 3-1 and they have no problem believing it's legit. They've waited a long time for some sort of payoff from the Watson debacle. A win over the Steelers carries a lot of weight in this town.
It also carries a lot of weight in the national conversation, which is due to start talking about Cleveland much differently moving forward.
The truth is, Monken has this Browns team believing. That's a dangerous thing, especially for a young group that hasn't even reached its full potential yet. What he's pulled out of Watson and this young roster is nothing short of special. It also looks sustainable, especially considering the schedule that lies ahead.
These aren't the Browns of old. These Browns are for real.
