Browns name Deshaun Watson their Week 1 starting quarterback over Shedeur Sanders

The Browns' quarterback competition is over, and Deshaun Watson has won it. Jordan Schultz reported Monday morning — per multiple sources — that Cleveland is naming Watson its starting quarterback, with Shedeur Sanders opening the season as the backup.

The beat confirmed within minutes. Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com reported the decision through league sources, and Zac Jackson of The Athletic followed with his own confirmation that Watson will begin the season as QB1 — closing a race head coach Todd Monken had publicly refused to rush, saying as recently as Sunday that it wasn't yet time to make the call.

Schultz's follow-up reporting added the texture behind the call. He reports the organization did not factor Watson's pointed comments about the fanbase — made after the boos that greeted him in his Cleveland return last week — into the decision, and notes Watson is entering the final year of his five-year, $230 million contract with "the first crack" at holding the job. Sanders, per Schultz, will be ready if a change becomes necessary.

And the decision itself, per Schultz, went down to the wire: both quarterbacks showed flashes of what a QB1 in Monken's offense could look like, but it ultimately leaned toward Watson's experience — with one significant caveat attached. Schultz reports Watson "will have to continue earning it once the season starts and the games are for real," with Monken, who has been by his side throughout the competition, now tasked with getting the best version of him when the results start counting.

So the job is Watson's — but on a short leash, in a contract year, in front of a fanbase that made its feelings known. How long he keeps it may be the defining Browns storyline of the fall.