BEREA, Ohio — Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson doesn’t know what his football future holds, but Watson said Wednesday that he always believed he’d get another chance to play for the team that traded three first-round picks to acquire him in 2022.Watson has played in just 19 games over four seasons with the Browns and hasn’t played at all since October 2024, when he suffered a torn Achilles tendon. He missed all of 2025 while recovering from a second tear of the same Achilles tendon, but he’s been back on the field this spring and competing with Shedeur Sanders for the team’s starting job under new coach Todd Monken.“It’s a blessing. It’s great,” Watson said. “Any time you get the opportunity to play in the National Football League, it’s an honor. I don’t take it for granted. I work hard to do what I need to do each and every day to try to put out the best product I can on the field.”Watson arrived in Cleveland in March 2022 after he sat out the entire 2021 season while preparing to defend himself against multiple sexual assault allegations made against him when he was playing for the Houston Texans. The Browns made the trade and gave Watson a fully guaranteed $230 million contract a week after a Texas grand jury declined to indict Watson, who settled 24 lawsuits against him and began his time with the Browns by serving an 11-game NFL suspension for violations of the league’s personal conduct policy.The Browns are 9-10 in games Watson has started since then. They fired coach Kevin Stefanski last January and hired Monken after winning just eight games over Stefanski’s final two seasons. After the 2024 season, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam called the team’s trade for Watson “a big swing and miss” amid the team’s search for its next quarterback. The Browns drafted both Dillon Gabriel and Sanders in 2025, and they became the eighth and ninth players, respectively, to start for Cleveland at quarterback over the last three seasons.Sanders had moments good and bad as he started the final seven games of 2025. With Watson under an unmovable contract for another season and the Browns embracing a future-focused approach that will almost certainly include the 2026 roster being one of the league’s youngest, they did not add a veteran quarterback and drafted developmental prospect Taylen Green in the sixth round in April. The competition between Watson and Sanders will go into August in large part because neither has been especially impressive this spring.After Watson spent Wednesday’s minicamp practice taking his turn piloting the No. 1 offense, he conducted his first interview with Cleveland reporters since before his injury, which meant Watson was asked publicly about Haslam’s “swing and miss” comment for the first time.