Sports

Browns coach Kevin Stefanski left uncertainty on Monday about whether Deshaun Watson is ready to return to practice.

Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com clarifies that although the quarterback has made "excellent progress" in his comeback from his twice ruptured Achilles, the team will not open Watson's 21-day practice window this week.

Watson, who is on the reserve/physically unable to perform list, first must pass his medical exams before being cleared for practice, per Cabot.

He has rehabbed at the team facility and has attended quarterback meetings.

“I know he wants to play a lot of football again,” Browns quarterbacks coach Bill Musgrave said late last month. “He feels like he’s got a lot of tread left on his tires."

Watson has played only 19 games since the start of the 2022 season, going 9-10 with 19 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.

Rookie Dillon Gabriel will make his sixth start on Sunday against the Ravens.

The Giants' head-coaching job is open. Given that he has been linked to the position in the past (and in light of the fact that he won two Super Bowls there as a defensive coordinator), North Carolina coach Bill Belichick was asked about the vacancy during a Tuesday press conference.

"Getting ready for Wake Forest," Belichick said. "That's all I got this week."

Belichick then was asked whether he has been asked about NFL vacancies by players or recruits.

"I've been asked about it from time to time, but look — I've been down this road before," Belichick said. "I'm focused on Wake Forest. That's it. And that's my commitment to this team. And next week, it'll be to our next opponent and so forth, but, you know, I'm here to do best I can for this team."

The reality is that no NFL team wants him. He has gotten one interview since he was fired by the Patriots. His reputation for taking over a football operation will limit his options to a franchise that is willing to give him the keys and let him reshape the entire operation. Firing anyone, perhaps everyone. Hiring whoever he wants, including his consigliere, Mike Lombardi.

What owner will do that, especially given the extent to which Lombardi has crapped on NFL jobs, on Belichick's behalf? Consider the petty feud Belichick maintains with the Patriots. Anyone who hires Belichick will simply be the next one to be on the wrong end of Belichickian pettiness.

Throw in the whole Jordon Hudson situation and the fact that Belichick's record without Tom Brady is 84-104 (with Brady, it's 249-75) and what owner in his or her right mind would hire a 73-year-old curmudgeon who will want to become emperor of the organization?

The easiest way for Belichick to deal with NFL-related questions would be to say, definitively, "My NFL days are over." He didn't say that.

Which means that, if someone is ever interested in him, he'll be interested in them. And he'll reserve the right to feign disinterest in NFL jobs as a defense mechanism against the fact that, even if he won't say his NFL days are over, he really doesn't need to say it.

That said, dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things. It's therefore impossible to rule out the possibility that one team will be sufficiently dysfunctional to hire Belichick.