Browns coach Hue Jackson can explain why he texted "be ready" to Deshaun Watson on draft day. 

Watson, considered one of the best quarterbacks in the 2017 NFL Draft, was selected 12th overall by the Texans, who traded up to get him. There's more: The Browns, who have been on a never-ending search for a franchise quarterback, originally had the No. 12 pick before shipping it to Houston. Cleveland waited until the middle of the second round to draft quarterback DeShone Kizer, who struggled through the first five weeks of his rookie season before mercifully being benched last Sunday (though it sounds like he'll be under center again this week as the Browns look for their first win in 2017).

Anyway, Jackson says he never texted Watson to give him a heads-up that the Browns would be drafting him.

"I think he made that very clear,'' Jackson said on a conference call, via Cleveland.com's Mary Kay Cabot. "If I texted him and said, 'Get ready,' or whatever it is that everybody is saying I said, it probably was 'Be ready for the draft,' and not to become (a Brown). I think he said that very clearly. I think we are making more of this than what it is."

Maybe. But here's how we all learned that the exchange took place: During Sunday's Browns-Texans game, CBS announcers Andrew Catalon and James Lofton recounted the story told to them by Watson.

Here's the full transcript from the broadcast:

And we had a chance to revisit that trade ... we asked Watson about it on Friday after practice. He said he woke up draft day, had no idea where he was going to go, and he got a text from Hue Jackson and it said "be ready." He thought that was a sign that the Browns were interested.

It comes to No. 12, and he knew that Arizona had told him, if no one takes you by the time we pick at No. 13, we're taking you. So at No. 12, Browns on the clock, he thought maybe this is it. Looked up at the TV screen and it said the pick has been traded to Houston. Immediately looked down at his phone and it was ringing a Houston area code and that's how he got drafted.

Back to Jackson.

"I wasn't saying, 'Hey, look, we're about to draft you,''' the coach said. "It might have been, 'Here is draft day, congratulations. Here is a big day. Be ready to go,' regardless of where he went. I know that me and him did text quite a bit way before the draft.

"He was a guy that I was fond of as a person and as a player, but I knew on draft day exactly where we were heading and what we were trying to accomplish. Like I said yesterday and I will stand by it, I never would have said the way it came out that everybody is trying to make it seem like I texted him with the thought process that we would draft him and put him on our team. That wasn't the case at all."

Follow-up question: How many other players did Jackson text on draft day that weren't taken by the Browns? Maybe Jackson's being straight, though we were hoping his explanation would be some variation of, "See, I was trying to text 'DeShone' but accidentally typed 'Deshaun' -- it was an honest mistake and could happen to anyone."

Wherever the truth lies, the Browns, in back-to-back drafts, have now passed on Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson.