Dan Orlovsky suggests fan boycott of Browns games over Deshaun Watson decision

Cleveland Browns fans already made their feelings toward newly named starter Deshaun Watson known, and now ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky is ready for the fan base to go a step further.

Clevelanders booed Watson during a home preseason game over the weekend, weighing in loudly on what may have been the NFL’s most interesting summer quarterback battle. The veteran quarterback responded by challenging the fans during a testy postgame press conference. Yet despite Watson’s unpopularity and the controversial press conference, the Browns named him the starter on Monday.

In an appearance on First Take shortly after Cleveland’s decision came down, Orlovsky suggested fans should boycott the team’s games.

The former NFL quarterback-turned-ESPN commentator said that, based purely on play, he was “50-50” between starting Watson and Shedeur Sanders. But Watson’s defensiveness and lack of self-awareness during the Saturday press conference pushed Orlovsky to call the decision a “tipping point” for the franchise.

“I’m being dead serious when I say this, Browns fans should not go to games,” he said. “At some point there has to be a tipping point.

“To watch that press conference and to hear him say, ‘I get more love in road games,’ what would you expect the love to come from? You went there. Now the organization chose to give you all the money, sure, but you’ve played in 19 games. And then you have the performance. And you’re standing there in the press conference with this attitude of entitlement, in a way, of ‘You guys should continue to support me,’ and it’s like, as a fan, we’ve done this song and dance. And the performance hasn’t been good either.

“If I was a Browns fan, I’m not going to the home games. No.”

After the 2020 season, Watson faced dozens of accusations of sexual misconduct. While he denied any wrongdoing, he settled more than 20 of them and did not play at all in 2021. The Browns then traded three first-round picks for Watson in 2022 before giving him the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history to that point. Finally, that year, Watson served an official 11-game suspension over the allegations.

Watson missed much of 2023 and all of 2025 with major injuries.

While Orlovsky did not directly address Watson’s history of alleged mistreatment of women, he called Watson (who, to be fair, took back the comments Monday after he was named starter) “tone-deaf” and noted the stark contrast between Browns fans’ views of Watson compared with their seeming love for Sanders, who started seven games last season.

“To have him have that interaction and make the comments that he made … in a town and city and a football fan base and franchise like Cleveland, and to sit there and be like, ‘Don’t boo me,’ and it’s more than just performance,” Orlovsky said.

“The tone-deaf element of that, and then to name him the starting quarterback less than 48 hours out of it, I truly, truly feel awful for that fan base. Because you can tell the fan base really likes Shedeur and want Shedeur, and whatever reason why, I don’t care, they don’t with Deshaun. I’m shocked.”

Browns fans have stomached the worst of the worst. While Watson’s massive salary, enormous underperformance, and moral questions make him one of the worst quarterback misses in recent NFL history, there is not yet any sign that Cleveland is ready to turn its back on the team to the extent Orlovsky wishes.

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