The Cleveland Browns beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23-19 on Sunday in a game that stretched nearly five hours thanks to a two-hour weather delay — and left Deshaun Watson walking off the field having outlasted Baker Mayfield, the quarterback Cleveland traded away in 2022.
The final drive decided it. Watson kept his poise in the pocket as the clock drained, and the Browns defense held Tampa Bay on the game's last meaningful possession.
Cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto wrote afterward that Todd Monken's heart and Watson's poise were the two things that stood out most. Monken, the Browns' offensive coordinator, has been under scrutiny for how the offense has looked through the first two weeks.
Mayfield, meanwhile, finished on the losing side against the team that drafted him No. 1 overall in 2018 and moved on from him four years later. The storyline was unavoidable all week, and the two-hour delay only stretched the tension.
The win moves Cleveland to a better early-season position than many projections had them, and it came on the road against a Tampa Bay team that had its own reasons to feel good entering the weekend.
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What remains open is whether this is a turning point for Watson and the Browns offense, or just one strange afternoon in Florida that won't repeat itself. Cleveland's next game will start to answer that.