Coaches have egos too. A lot of them get into the profession to teach younger guys how to play the particular sport they are involved in the right way. The start is usually to teach the fundamentals and go from there.

But they also like to win, and they also like to look like they are smart. And if they can do that, it’s icing on the cake. They like to be innovators. Think of Bill Walsh, who developed the “west coast offense”, and used it to transform the San Francisco 49ers from also rans to three Super Bowl titles and is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Earl Weaver was among the first, if not the first to use statistics to make out his lineup card, charting what hitters did against certain pitchers, and has a long run of success as the manager of the Baltimore Orioles.

As we said, coaches like winning and they don’t mind getting credit for it. It’s a great thing to have people recognize you are good at your job and that you impacted the success of the place you work.

Now consider Todd Monken, a 60-year-old coaching lifer getting his first shot a being a head coach in the NFL. He wants to win, but he also wants to show he can do something no one thinks is possible, fixing Deshaun Watson, a player who hasn’t been an effective NFL quarterback since 2020.

Maybe that’s the reason for the decision to go with a guy who has made just 19 starts since 2021 and hasn’t thrown for over 300 yards in any of them.

Instead, the coach has told everyone that the reason for naming Watson as the starter is because the rest of us don’t see the tape, which is a comment with the corollary “you never played the game”. Monken is correct, the media and fans don’t see the coaching film and we freely admit, a lot of what we think we see on a football field isn’t true.

For example, a wide receiver is open, and they see a defensive back desperately trying to get there, but many times, he’s not the player who was beaten, he’s merely trying to cover for a teammate who was outmatched or blew a coverage.

However, our eyes show us a quarterback that is throwing the ball into the ground often, one that has “happy feet” in the pocket, and one that takes an exceedingly high number of sacks since he’s been a Brown.

In Watson’s first year with the Browns, he took 20 sacks in his six starts. Jacoby Brissett, who started the first 11 games that year, was sacked 24 times. The following year, in which Cleveland made the playoffs, Watson was sacked 17 times in his six starts, one of which he barely played. The other four QBs who played in 2023, Joe Flacco, P.J. Walker, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, and Jeff Driskel, were sacked 28 times in the other 11 games.

And the last year Watson played, 2024, Browns’ QBs were sacked a whopping 66 times, 33 of them being in Watson’s seven starts. Jameis Winston made the same number of starts and was tackled behind the line of scrimmage nine less times.

While fans don’t see “the inside game”, many longtime fans know what good quarterback play looks like, and that isn’t showing up with Deshaun Watson.

Former coach Jerry Glanville’s comment about if a coach is trying to please the fans, he will soon be sitting with them is true, but thinking they are all stupid is also a flaw. Monken made his decision, but if Watson doesn’t play better, he’s setting himself up for a rough time from the people who buy tickets.

Unless, like his employers, he doesn’t care about them.