BEREA — It took three seasons, but Deshaun Watson finally reached his 16th start with the Browns last Sunday in Las Vegas. Just as big was the fact he started his fourth consecutive game in a season for the first time in more than a year.

That Watson started four or more games in a row for the first time since the final six games of the 2022 season is only seen as progress when viewed through the context of what has been his two-plus seasons in Cleveland. The sporadic nature of his playing time the first two seasons — missing the first 11 games in 2022 due to suspension, and then missing 11 games in the 2023 due to two separate shoulder injuries — meant the development of a rhythm was virtually impossible for the quarterback.

As Watson assessed last Sunday's 20-16 loss to the Raiders in its totality, the areas where that continuity could show itself was where he saw the positives.

“Just being able to see things, just being able to operate, just playing football," Watson said Wednesday. "I think that's the biggest thing — just playing football, getting active, acclimated to the speed of the game and how people are going to defend us and try to defend me. So I think that's the biggest thing, and each week, week by week, I plan to continue to have that arrow pointing up and going in the right direction that I want it to go.”

Don't confuse that for anyone, including Watson, saying things have been great. No one would go that far with an offense that has been statistically among the NFL's worst through four games, including dead last in third-down conversions (20.75%) and next-to-last in total yards (246.3).

The area where Watson's most directly responsible, passing offense, has hardly been better. The Browns rank 30th in there with 151.5 yards per game.

"I don't care about the stats," Watson said. "I just want to win. So none of that stuff matters."

The problem for the Browns has been that it's all gone together. They haven't been good offensively over the first four games, and it's reflected directly in their 1-3 record entering Sunday's game at the Washington Commanders.

The Browns have yet to score more than 18 points in a game this season. It shouldn't come as a shock that those season-high 18 points also came in the only win — 18-13 in Week 2 at the Jacksonville Jaguars.

In the other three games they have scored 17, 15 and 16 points. They've only scored three offensive touchdowns on any drive after their first one of a game, with two of those coming in the fourth quarter of the season opener against the Dallas Cowboys.

"I mean, we know what the struggles are and that's just self-afflicted offensively," Watson said. "It's just self penalties that's causing us not to continued drives, and I can't speak defensively and I can't speak special teams, but offensively just holding penalties and things like that, misalignments, things like that that are just causing for us to not be as explosive as we as we want to."

The Browns have struggled with penalties all season, but those numbers have come down after they combined for 24 flags in the first two games. They've drawn five flags in each of the last two games, putting them tied for the fourth-most in the league overall.

It's been more about the timing of those five penalties, especially against Vegas. The Browns had a long touchdown pass to Amari Cooper wiped out by a holding call, and a third-down roughing the passer call on defensive end Alex Wright extended what became a Raiders field goal drive.

While Watson's side of the ball wasn't responsible for Wright's flag, he said the message has to be the same regardless of who draws the penalties, and that's to "just lock in."

That extends beyond penalties to the overall operation of the offense. Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy said Monday the key to unlocking the Browns offense was to get all 11 players on the same page.

"It’s really just we’ve got to correct the little mistakes that's costing us the opportunity to make big plays and win games," Watson said. "That's pretty much it."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Deshaun Watson calls Browns offensive struggles 'self-inflicted'