The Cleveland Browns are good. What do we all do now?

There are certain truths we hold to be self-evident: The sun rises in the east. Star Wars movies were better when you were a kid. And the Cleveland Browns will always, always be terrible.

So what happens when one of our bedrock truths turns out to be wrong? What happens when — I can't believe I'm writing this — the Cleveland Browns turn out to be good?

As of Week 6, the Cleveland Browns lead the AFC North — by tiebreaker, at least — with a record of 4-2. That's better than the defending champion Seahawks, better than the supposed super-team Rams, better than the entire NFC South and East. This is the latest the Browns have been in first place in a season since 2014, one of those stats that makes you cringe because it even has to be said.

How did this happen? Well, nobody's going to like the answer. Coming into the season, the verdict on Cleveland was that this was a donut of a team , blessed with talent on both sides of the ball but lacking that essential core — i.e., a quarterback. This problem has haunted Cleveland for decades , of course, but it became particularly acute when Cleveland's front office piled up draft picks and then, shockingly, used them wisely.

Shedeur Sanders wasn't the one. Dillon Gabriel wasn't the one. Joe Flacco wasn't the one. As it turned out, the one quarterback able to lead the Cleveland Browns to victory is the quarterback nobody wants to lead the Cleveland Browns to victory.

Deshaun Watson, it turns out, is the answer to Cleveland's quarterback troubles. Of course.

Watson, who's been accused of dozens of counts of sexual assault and settled 20 claims, is just about the last person any organization would want as the face of their team. Were this virtually any other workplace, Watson would have been kicked to the curb and forgotten years ago. But the NFL has a forgiveness blind spot for players who are just too talented to disregard, and Watson has set up camp in that blind spot.

Regardless of the court of public opinion — and the Browns, among other teams, made it clear they don't recognize the authority of that court when they pursued Watson in the first place — Watson has met all the terms of his employment with the NFL. That means all his past "adversity" — the euphemism announcers are now employing to sanitize the many allegations against him — will remain in his past. And as distasteful as it may be to a swath of NFL fans, Watson is forcing the league to consider him in football terms, not social ones.

From a football standpoint, Watson has been a qualified success this season. He's not dominating games, but he's not losing them, either, which in the current NFL is enough. He has seven touchdowns against two interceptions this season, with a passer rating of 92.0 and a completion rate of 63.8 percent. That's not good enough to reign, but it's good enough to survive.

The Browns are coalescing around Watson. The defense lost Myles Garrett via trade, but remains strong enough to contain opposing offenses. Against Baltimore on Sunday, for instance, Cleveland's defense gave up 10 points in the first quarter, but nothing the rest of the game. That allowed Watson and the offense to plod along, turning a crucial Derrick Henry fumble into a touchdown and kicking just two field goals, including a walkoff game-winner.

The Browns are reveling in the moment … for the moment. "I'm going to enjoy tonight," first-year head coach Todd Monken said after the win. "And that's what you have to do in the NFL. These are the nights that you don't ever want to end, because tomorrow it's on to the next game."

Here's the good news for Cleveland: the "next game" is woeful Tennessee. After that, the Steelers, the Saints, the Texans — on and on, winnable game after winnable game. The only current division leader on the Browns' remaining schedule: the NFC East's Giants. Not exactly a fearsome slate.

This most definitely isn't the way you want to build a team, with a radioactive quarterback and a defense that relies more on opportunity than overwhelming force. But it's working for Cleveland, and in a year where there's no one dominant team, slow and steady keeps you in the race.

No, we're not saying the Cleveland Browns will go 15-2 this season. But we're saying there's a non-zero chance they could. And that should concern all of us. Because if the Cleveland Browns are now good, what can we even believe in anymore?