On a somber day in Berea, Browns general manager Andrew Berry is only focused on what lies ahead.

Just days after one of the biggest wins in franchise history, Cleveland’s path to the postseason just got a whole lot harder without star quarterback Deshaun Watson. The team announced Wednesday that Watson was set to undergo season-ending shoulder surgery – a new injury this time – as he suffered a fracture to the glenoid in his throwing shoulder. It’s the latest injury in a Browns season drowning in injuries.

To Berry’s point, the team can’t wallow in the sorrows of this detrimental blow to a promising season. It’s football. Another game looms in just five days, against Cleveland’s biggest division rival.

Still, it’s easy to wonder if the Browns would be better positioned to survive this if not for a now regrettable move Berry made.

Let’s rewind to August 24. Cleveland was two days out from their final preseason game against Kansas City, head coach Kevin Stefanski had declared Josh Dobbs the team’s backup quarterback for the regular season. Just hours later, Berry shipped Dobbs to the Arizona Cardinals for a 2024 fifth-round pick. The move came as a shock after Stefanski’s commentary on the position earlier in the day.

Given the preseason fifth-round rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson was putting together, the move probably felt pretty insignificant at the time. Just over two months later hits like an aftershock for the Cleveland fan base, rippling from the earthquaking news of Watson’s season coming to an end.

“I’m not really focused on that right now,” Berry told the media on Wednesday. We do have a lot of confidence in our current QB room. We’re 6-3 and focused on this playoff push. We’re focused on the Steelers. There will be a time for reflection for everything over the course of the year, but that’s really not top of mind right now.”

Berry has the luxury of living in a world where he can only focus on moving forward. There’s no rest for the weary in football and all the Browns can do is press on. But it’s hard not to wonder if this blow would feel less ominous with the presence of Dobbs – who’s put together a respectable season between his time with Arizona and now Minnesota – on the roster.

There’s also the hindsight of what could have been at the trade deadline two weeks back. Cleveland was linked through reports to 2022 fan favorite, QB Jacoby Brissett – currently the backup to Sam Howell in Washington. Dobbs himself also told Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio that he was under the impression that he was either heading back to Cleveland or to his current home in Minnesota. Although PFT reported that the Browns were never in on Dobbs.

Were they or weren’t they? The world may never know. But Berry doing nothing to upgrade the backup quarterback position at the deadline may be more egregious than the original Dobbs trade itself, considering Watson had just spent five weeks dealing with a different shoulder injury.

Even if they knew at the deadline that he was due back in Week 9, the organization had a front row seat to the offensive struggles that came from their current backup quarterback situation. The team miraculously came out of that four-game stretch without Watson 2-2, but the warning signs were there.

It should have been a red flag, a cue to be better prepared for the doomsday scenario that has now unfolded. Berry confirmed the team will add a veteran quarterback in the near future, but it’s slim pickings at this point.