Robert Griffin III knows a thing or two about the Browns – and money talks.
The once short-lived Browns quarterback posted on social media that he believes the decision to make Deshaun Watson the starting quarterback for the Browns wasn’t Todd Monken’s first choice.
“I can tell you whose decision it wasn’t,” Griffin said in a clip posted on social media when asked about Watson being named the starter after being booed by fans during a preseason game. “I believe they all could have saved us a lot of time if it was going to be Deshaun Watson. The man literally took a bazooka to the fans’ face and basically said ‘eff you’ to all of them, and they still made him the starter the next day.”
Griffin is, of course, referring to the Browns fans who crushed Watson for his horrific preseason performance where he went 5 of 12 for 36 yards and an interception.
Watson told reporters after his bad showing that his poor relationship with the fans has become “personal,” pointing to when Browns fans cheered when he tore his Achilles last season.
“There are $230 million reasons why Deshaun Watson is the starting quarterback of the Cleveland Browns,” Griffin III said, referencing the massive, fully guaranteed contract he signed with the team. “It’s his contract. Period. [Browns owner Jimmy Haslam] has already come out and said that it was a huge swing and a miss on Deshaun Watson. Why is he starting? Two-hundred-thirty million reasons. I believe it was the ownership group and the executive group.”
Griffin played for the Ravens as the backup to Lamar Jackson prior to Monken’s arrival, but he is familiar with the ownership group in Cleveland from when he was with the team in 2016.
Monken, according to Griffin, has been very short in his comments about Watson, but noted that when asked questions about Sanders, the coach raves about him.
“How are you competing with a fifth-round pick?” Griffin asked of Watson. “I know that I believe that Shedeur Sanders was better than a fifth-round pick. He should have been a first-round pick. But you’re competing with him neck-and-neck? Should it be a close competition between the $230 million guaranteed guy and a fifth-round pick? No it should not.
“That shows me that Shedeur Sanders has developed. Shedeur Sanders is managing the offense at the line of scrimmage a lot better… You can’t tell me that you didn’t feel better about Shedeur running the offense than Deshaun Watson.
“That’s a testament to how far Shedeur has come in his second year in his second offense. So I think Shedeur is golden right now; he’s going to continue to work. When Deshaun Watson ultimately doesn’t get it done, Shedeur is going to have runway to show the Browns and the NFL that he is a starting quarterback in the NFL.”
