They taped their fury to Jim Brown.
Not to the Haslam suite. Not to the front office glass in Berea. Not even to the tunnel where Deshaun Watson walked out to a chorus of boos. Overnight into Aug. 25, somebody put anti-Watson, anti-Haslam signs on the base of the Jim Brown statue outside Huntington Bank Field, and a Browns employee had to peel them off before the city was fully awake. By afternoon, more signs were down on East 6th and Euclid, one of them reading, “Boo him out of Cleveland. Enough is Enough!!!!!”
I have covered angry fan bases. I have never watched a franchise so thoroughly exhaust every other surface that the only bronze left standing became the protest board.
Todd Monken named Watson the Week 1 starter on Aug. 24, over second-year quarterback Shedeur Sanders, for the Sept. 13 opener in Jacksonville. Monken said Watson “gave us best chance to score points.” He framed it as a full-body-of-work call, not a week-to-week audition. Two nights earlier, in a 31-7 preseason loss to Buffalo, Watson went 5 of 12 for 36 yards with an interception across four drives and led exactly zero scoring possessions. Sections of the building booed him on contact. Watson called those boos “disrespectful” and “personal.” He said they had nothing to do with the tape. He even brought up the crowd cheering when he tore his Achilles in 2024, his last home appearance before that night.
Then, after winning the job, he walked it back and said his emotions got the best of him.
I heard both versions. Neither one changes the ledger.
Monken Bet the Building on a Man the Building Already Rejected
Let me tell you something about what just happened in Cleveland. This is not a quiet depth-chart shuffle. This is a first-year head coach telling a fan base that already spent a home night booing the veteran that the same man still gives them the best shot to move the football. On a full offseason. On a training camp. On a preseason sample that produced 36 yards and a pick. On a road slate starting in Jacksonville.
I watched that decision land in real time. Fans drove past Berea yelling “Boo! This sucks!” The next morning the Jim Brown statue wore the receipts.
Watson’s contract still hangs over this roster like unpaid debt. The ownership group that wrote it still owns the building. Jimmy and Dee Haslam have spent years asking Cleveland to trust the process while the process kept circling the same quarterback. When Monken said Watson gave them the best chance to score, he was not just picking a starter. He was endorsing the entire arc that put Watson under center in the first place. The city answered on bronze.
I am not here to litigate every civil claim that followed Watson out of Houston. Courts and settlements handle that record. I am here to talk about what a professional football franchise owes the people who buy the tickets after years of that noise, that money, and that production. Naming him starter after he got serenaded in his own building was a declaration. The statue answered it.
Jim Brown Did Not Sign Up to Be Your Bulletin Board
Jim Brown carried this franchise when it still knew what carrying meant. Nine seasons. Dominance that still sets the standard. A legacy that outlived the team’s departure, the return, and every rebuild that followed. That statue is the last clean monument left on the property. It does not belong to Deshaun Watson’s PR problem. It does not belong to the Haslams’ approval rating. It belongs to a standard Cleveland has not touched in a generation.
Taping protest signs to it is an act of negligence against the one thing the Browns still get right. I do not care how righteous the anger feels at 2 a.m. You want to fight the starter nod, fight it at Berea. Fight it in the stands on Sept. 13. Fight it with empty seats and silent pocketbooks. You do not draft Jim Brown into your argument with packing tape.
And yet I understand the impulse, and that is the indictment. When a fan base reaches for the only sacred object left, the organization has already lost the argument about direction. Monken can talk body of work. Watson can call the boos personal. Ownership can clear the signs by 7 a.m. and pretend the morning never happened. The photos remain. The second wave of signs on East 6th remains. The message remains: enough.
Shedeur Sanders spent the spring and summer in a real competition and lost it on the coach’s scorecard. Fair. Coaches pick their guys. What is not fair is asking a city that just booed the winner off the field to salute the choice as progress. What is not fair is making Jim Brown’s likeness the nearest available wall.
The Starter Nod Was the Match. The Statue Was the Smoke.
I said the temperature would rise the moment Monken locked this in. It rose overnight. Watson gets the ball in Jacksonville because the head coach believes he gives them the best chance to score. Cleveland already told you what it believes. The boos said it. The drive-bys in Berea said it. The signs on the statue screamed it.
Legacy is the only currency that matters in a market this bruised. Watson’s legacy in orange and brown is unfinished business and a battered trust account. Monken’s legacy now opens with a choice the building rejected on contact. The Haslams’ legacy is the reason fans ran out of surfaces. Jim Brown’s legacy is the one that should have been left alone.
They will play the game in Jacksonville. The signs will be gone. The statue will be clean again. The decision will not be. Cleveland already filed its dissent in the only place it still considers holy, and that filing is going to follow this franchise long after Week 1 is a line in the standings.
