BEREA, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Deshaun Watson will start Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals after being a full participant in Friday's practice.
Here's our top Brownie Bites from Friday.
He's back – Watson was a full participant Friday sat practice and the Browns are confident he is ready to return Sunday against the Cardinals. "Deshaun's been playing this game for a long time. He understands how to protect himself," head coach Kevin Stefanski said. "As you can imagine, our offense, our offensive line, you want to protect your quarterback, but you also understand the game. So he knows how to protect himself. He knows when to get out of bounds, when to slide, those type of things. But he's a very competitive player and he makes plays with his feet, so it's all part of the game." Watson originally suffered a right rotator cuff strain in the third quarter of a 27-3 win over the Tennessee Titans September 24 and he rushed to return against the Colts on October 22 before suffering an aggravation of the injury in the first quarter of the 39-38 win. The Browns had him rest and rehab last week before returning to practice this week. "It's every day you look at it and you see how the player's feeling and you watch how the player's doing," Stefanski said. "And I think, again, just going back to this week, felt that he had a really good Wednesday, really good Thursday, really good Friday, and I think he's comfortable and he looks good." Watson was limited Wednesday and Thursday before getting the full workload to wrap up the week Friday. "I felt like he looked good," receiver Elijah Moore said. "Of course, his first day, well, he's been back a couple of days now, but now named the starter. He had a couple throws that we a little iffy all at in the beginning, but he's been working. You can't be mad at that." Watson is completing 61.7% of his passes for 683 yards with four touchdowns and three interceptions this season. His best game came against the Titans where he completed 27 of 33 passes for 289 yards and a pair of TDs, and he got hurt.
Scoreboard watching – The Steelers just won't die. They beat Tennessee Thursday night 20-16 to improve to 5-3 and put pressure on the 4-3 Browns to keep pace in the tight AFC North race. "Saw it this morning, but I wasn't really looking at who played last night," defensive e end Myles Garrett said. "Working on what we got to work on, focusing on ourselves and how we can get better, how we can win. It's all about the people in this building. If we continue to win, like I said, things will take care of themselves. It won't matter what the other teams in our division are doing." Opportunity knocks with the 1-7 Cardinals flying into town this weekend. "You could win or lose every week, so I don't pay attention to the record, division rival, whatever," safety Grant Delpit said. "[We've] got to come with that same mentality. If you don't, you might get punched in the mouth. So this is a big, big game for us. It's an opportunity for us to get in front of our home crowd, make a statement win in front of, like I said, our home crowd and going to next week feeling good. The team that we haven't seen a lot of, so it's good for us to go in Sunday and try to take care of business."
Injury report – OUT: WR David Bell (knee), CB Greg Newsome II (groin), DE Alex Wright (knee); QUETIONABLE: Dawand Jones (shoulder); EXPECTED TO PLAY: WR Amari Cooper (rest/knee), DE Myles Garrett (rest/shoulder), David Njoku (ankle), DE Za'Darius Smith (rest/neck), LT Jedrick Wills Jr. (foot/ankle), S Grant Delpit (ankle/shoulder), RB Jerome Ford (ankle), CB Mike Ford Jr. (ankle), LB Sione Takitaki (hamstring), LB Anthony Walker (shoulder), QB Deshaun Watson (shoulder), LB Tony Fields (shoulder), CB Cameron Mitchell (shoulder)
