NFL / Teams & Games

Watson Faces Stroud and His Old Team in Cleveland

LIVE — Texans 17, Browns 10 at halftime: Houston's fast start met a Cleveland answer — Watson ran one in against his old team.

Miles Rook2 min read Updated Nov 15, 2:28 PM ET

C.J. Stroud in November 2024 (archive); Stroud faces Deshaun Watson for the first time on Sunday. Photo: Tennessee Titans, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Summary

Watson's return lines up against Stroud and a Texans defense that leads the league in sacks.

Tap a passage. React to the part that matters.

LIVE — Texans 17, Browns 10 at halftime in Cleveland. C.J. Stroud (15 of 19, 190 yards) threw touchdowns to Nico Collins (8 catches, 92 yards) and Xavier Hutchinson as Houston built a 17-0 lead — then Cleveland scored 10 straight before the break, capped by Deshaun Watson's 6-yard touchdown run against his old team. Watson has 126 passing yards and 37 rushing.

The most layered quarterback matchup of the early window is in Cleveland, where the Browns (5-4) host the Houston Texans (3-5) at Huntington Bank Field. Kickoff is 1 p.m. ET. Deshaun Watson is back under center for Cleveland, and across from him stands the quarterback Houston built its future on after him.

Watson missed one game in the concussion protocol — Shedeur Sanders started last week's 23-22 overtime loss at New Orleans — and he returns against his former team. This is his first game against C.J. Stroud, the quarterback who took the job Watson once held in Houston and made it his own. The history writes itself; the Browns just need the football to cooperate.

Houston's season nearly ended before it started. The Texans opened 0-4, but they've won three of their last four, including a 44-22 rout of the Chargers last week, and their defense leads the league in sacks. That front against a quarterback just out of the protocol is the game's central tension.

Cleveland's case is its building. The Browns started 5-2 before back-to-back losses, but they're 3-0 at home this season, and the lakefront in November is a miserable place to visit. Watson doesn't need to be brilliant; he needs to be upright, and he needs the home crowd to stay in it.

Watson's presence in this game is its own comeback story. He beat out Sanders for the starting job this offseason, an improbable return after two Achilles tears, then lost the job for a week to the concussion protocol. Cleveland's staff said all along the plan was to come back to the veteran. Sunday is where that plan meets the pass rush that leads the league in sacks.

Both teams can see a wild-card path from here, which makes this a tiebreaker that will matter in December. This story updates live once the game kicks off and closes as the game's full summary at the final whistle.