BEREA, Ohio \u2014 There were 10 NFL head coaching jobs available this past offseason and most of those teams either had a franchise quarterback, or a clear plan to acquire one. Nothing is more important to a new coach than having that quarterback. It rarely works when they take a job without one. “Yeah,” new Cleveland Browns coach Todd Monken told me. “When you have a choice.” The 60-year-old Monken didn\u2019t have one when he was hired by the Browns in January. It was the first NFL head coaching job he had been offered in his 37-year coaching career, and he wasn\u2019t about to turn it down. But the fact that he inherited a volatile quarterback situation hasn\u2019t dampened his enthusiasm. No, he doesn\u2019t know whether he\u2019ll roll with veteran Deshaun Watson, who hasn\u2019t played since 2024 and hasn\u2019t played well since he last appeared for the Texans in 2020, or second-year pro Shedeur Sanders, who had better publicity than performance as a rookie. It\u2019s possible \u2014 maybe even likely \u2014 that neither of them will help the Browns win either now or in the future. But before heading out to practice on Monday, Monken told me he was fine with not diving into the draft or free agency this past spring to find a better answer. He and the Browns thought it would be better to use this year to find out what they\u2019ve got. “We made a decision as an organization, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s build the roster. Let\u2019s see where we\u2019re at and then pivot then,\u2019” Monken told me. “That\u2019s why we stuck with the guys that we had. We might as well exhaust every opportunity to see what we have, because it would\u2019ve been a damn shame to not, and (then) someone goes on to play really well (somewhere else). \u2018The guy was in our building for God\u2019s sake!\u2019 “So let\u2019s at least exhaust that and see where we\u2019re at.” It certainly could be exhausting because there really has been no indication that either Watson or Sanders can be their long-term answer. At 30 years old, it\u2019s hard to imagine Watson recapturing his Pro Bowl form after playing just 19 games over the past five seasons. And despite the volumes of hype around Sanders last season, he was generally inaccurate (a 56.6 completion percentage) and threw more interceptions than touchdowns (10 to 7). He was only a rookie, but he didn\u2019t exactly look like a budding star. Which means it\u2019s likely that Cleveland’s future quarterback will end up coming from the 2027 NFL Draft. And that\u2019s a shame, because there is a lot to like on the rest of this roster. On defense, for example, the Browns may have traded away Myles Garrett, the best defender in the NFL. But they replaced him with defensive end Jared Verse, the NFL\u2019s Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2024. And he\u2019s backed by last year\u2019s Defensive Rookie of the Year, linebacker Carson Schwesinger, and Pro Bowl corner Denzel Ward. On offense, the club has promising skill players such as running back Quinshon Judkins and tight end Harold Fannin and rookie receivers K.C. Concepcion and Denzel Boston, whom they took in the first two rounds of this year\u2019s draft. That\u2019s a lot of talent for the future. But this is a franchise that has had just five winning seasons over the past three decades. Nobody wants to wait for next year again. “I think the future is very important, but I\u2019m mostly focused on the present before anything else,” Verse said. “I think we\u2019ve got a lot of talent. I think we\u2019ve got a lot of people that can do amazing things. But we need those amazing things today.” Unfortunately, it would have to be really “amazing” for those players to do enough today to drag this team toward even respectability without the quarterback mess sorted out. And it doesn\u2019t look like that\u2019s going to happen any time soon. So yes, once again, the present is probably bleak. But that hasn\u2019t dampened Monken\u2019s outlook about what comes next. “Because I see it,” the first-time NFL head coach told me. “I see the young talent. I see the draft capital we have in the future. I see we\u2019re going to have money. If you didn\u2019t have the young talent, I\u2019d see that. But I see the future. I see how (GM Andrew Berry) does the draft. We have an ownership that is committed to winning, committed to whatever we need to win. “Now we\u2019ve just got to do our part, which is develop a young roster and find a quarterback.” That last part, of course, is the hardest of all. I get that he wasn\u2019t traded straight up for Myles Garrett. The Browns got first-, second- and third-round draft picks, too. But he\u2019s the piece that is expected to fill Garrett\u2019s shoes \u2014 an impossible task given Garrett\u2019s NFL-record 23 sacks last season and the 125.5 sacks he tallied in his nine-year tenure. The 25-year-old Verse is pretty good, but not in the Garrett stratosphere. He had 7.5 sacks for the Rams last year, his second in the NFL. The Browns had a top-10 defense last year, so they can probably excel even without Garrett\u2019s historic production. But they are almost certainly hoping Verse will deliver double-digit sacks, at least. After all, defense is probably all that could save this team. It\u2019s why the Browns were competitive at all in a 5-12 mess of a season in 2025. They still don\u2019t have a quarterback, so they need to disrupt as many opposing QBs as possible to stay in games. Verse offers their best chance to do that. “In California, it doesn\u2019t really rain that much. I was outside yesterday just enjoying the rain, sitting on my back porch. \u2026 I like it here. I wasn\u2019t really distraught at all after the initial shock wore off. I love the organization.” \u2014 DE Jared Verse on being traded from the Rams to the Browns No Quarterback = No Hope I want to believe. I really do. But I just can\u2019t see any way in which this Browns team wins more than a handful of games. I might\u2019ve felt differently about them if they appeared to have the defense they had the past couple of years. But the Myles Garrett trade took care of that. While I think they have some really intriguing young players on offense, it\u2019s meaningless to me until they find a quarterback. And right now, there\u2019s no way to convince me that whatever\u2019s left of Deshaun Watson can be anywhere near the quarterback he was in Houston, before sexual misconduct allegations and injuries derailed his career. And while I\u2019m not completely dismissing Sheduer Sanders after half of one rookie season, I need to see much more from him before I join the many cheerleaders on his overcrowded bandwagon. If either of those guys turns into a viable quarterback this year, then sure, maybe the Browns have the pieces to surprise me and become a really competitive team. If that happens, though, I won\u2019t be the only one proven wrong. It\u2019s a special treat for me, because the Bills will be holding another practice at their brand new Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y. I\u2019m going to like it because, let\u2019s face it, their old stadium was a dump. And I assume the press box seats aren\u2019t one of the many restricted view seats that have surprised and upset so many Bills season ticket holders. It\u2019ll take a three-hour drive along the beautiful shores of Lake Erie to get there, though I doubt I can see much from the New York State Thruway. Fun fact: If you continue about a half hour past the stadium, up I-190, you\u2019ll get to Niagara Falls, my old home. My first job was covering the Bills for the Niagara Gazette \u2026 a long, long time ago. I\u2019m still big there, I\u2019m told. Not as big as the expectations on new Bills coach Joe Brady. He replaces Sean McDermott, who did everything in Buffalo except get the Bills to the Super Bowl. So, yeah, the first-year expectations on the 36-year-old, first-time head coach are very real.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEREA, Ohio \u2014 There were 10 NFL head coaching jobs available this past offseason and most of those teams either had a franchise quarterback, or a clear plan to acquire one. Nothing is more important to a new coach than having that quarterback. It rarely works when they take a job without one. “Yeah,” new<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}