CLEVELAND — For months, the Cleveland Browns foolishly thought they could bring Deshaun Watson back for one more go with minimal distraction.With a quarterback decision looming, Saturday reinforced that the Browns have been living in denial. Watson was booed multiple times by the home crowd in the preseason loss to the Buffalo Bills, and he responded in his postgame news conference by taking on the boos and the fans delivering them.“I think the biggest thing is — I think you guys know too, and I think the whole world knows — it has nothing to do about the performance,” Watson said. “It’s a little bit more personal than that. So, I think that’s a disrespectful thing. So, yeah, I’m going to keep whatever I feel with me and my family internally. … And yeah, just move on.“Last time I played on this field, I tore my Achilles. And that same fan base, they cheered when I got hurt. So what does that have to do with anything about performance when a person gets hurt, especially for your own city and they cheer?”Awkward and unseemly as the whole thing may be, the reaction actually has a lot to do with performance. Watson stunk for three seasons in Cleveland and missed a fourth while rehabbing from a twice-torn right Achilles tendon. He’s worked his way back to the field, but there’s clearly still work to be done by the team in explaining why Watson might be the best option as the battle with Shedeur Sanders for the starting job continues.Browns owner Jimmy Haslam accurately called the Watson trade “a swing and miss” in March 2025, and everyone outside the building thought Cleveland would move on before this year. Nothing in any of Watson’s 19 previous performances in a Browns uniform indicated he’s suddenly going to ascend and elevate those around him after nearly two years away.So it’s fair to wonder why the Browns didn’t have a better plan than Watson competing to start for a team clearly pointing to future seasons — after his contract finally expires.The extra complications in the dynamics stem in part from Sanders’ popularity, in part from the fan base’s frustration with a perpetual quarterback carousel and, in large part, from the Browns giving up the farm to get Watson in 2022.What appeared to be a window of contention crashed quickly, and in June the Browns traded Myles Garrett just six months after he set the NFL’s single-season sacks record and won his second Defensive Player of the Year award.The Browns made the playoffs in 2023 despite Watson suffering a shoulder injury midseason. But they won just eight total games over the next two years, and Garrett didn’t want to be part of another rebuilding project. Or part of a team that still doesn’t have a quarterback four and a half years past the Watson trade.The Browns should not act surprised that the fans booed Watson, who’s obviously not surprised himself. He said last week that he didn’t care about the boos that might be coming in his first game action in Cleveland in 22 months, but he clearly does. After he went 5-of-12 passing for 35 yards, an interception and a quarterback rating of 14.6 in four series versus Buffalo’s backups, he probably didn’t pick the best time to let on that he’s hearing and seeing everything said.“It’s a mental battle every day,” Watson said when asked if he can defeat the negativity. “I feel like I get more love on road games than I do home games. So if it is my spot and Coach (Todd) Monken does name (me the starter), maybe it’s 17 away games then.”Monken has said for months that he’s evaluating the quarterbacks on everything related to the operation and will ultimately choose the one who gives the Browns the best chance to move the ball and score points. But it’s fair to wonder now — at what was always supposed to be the end of six months of Monken hesitating to lean one way or another in an open, alternating competition — if Cleveland will finally have to weigh questions many on the outside have been asking.What’s the upside here? What, really, is Watson thinking about his present and future in Cleveland? And does anybody really benefit from a first-year head coach dealing with his quarterback getting booed in his home stadium?With the exception of one practice day in early August, Monken has alternated Watson and Sanders since the spring. When there wasn’t a clear winner in June, Monken decided both deserved the chance to continue competing this summer, with the idea of giving each a preseason start before making a decision.Watson’s start, uncoincidentally, came last weekend in Chicago, and he led two scoring drives in six series. Sanders started Saturday at home, guiding a sharp touchdown drive and completing his first eight passes before an interception derailed another promising series.Monken hesitated to make Monday the drop-dead date for a winner. But with three weeks until the season opener, it’s really past time for a decision to have been made.At its core, the competition remains unsettled largely because neither player has convincingly outplayed the other and won the job. Monken said after Saturday’s game that he has to review the film and talk with his coaching staff about everything the quarterbacks have done since April.For the first time, Monken and everyone atop the Browns’ organization are being forced to publicly confront the fact that Watson represents more of this team’s rancid past than anything to do with a future-facing program.If Monken does decide to go forward with Watson, he’s going to have to be absolutely right — or things will get as strangely ugly as they did Saturday in preseason game No. 2.