By trading for Deshaun Watson, the Browns thought they became a Super Bowl contender.
It turns out they may have slammed it shut for years to come.
On March 11, 2022, a Texas grand jury declined to bring criminal charges against Watson in connection with complaints by more than two dozen massage therapists alleging various forms of sexual harassment and assault. On March 18, the Browns outbid the Falcons, Saints and Panthers.
The price? A fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract. It remains the only one of its kind, with the rest of 2023 due to be paid in full and another three years to go.
Ken Blaze/USA TODAY Sports
Thus far, the result has been disastrous. Even sticking strictly to on-field matters, it’s in the running for one of the worst contracts in NFL history. And that doesn’t include the trade to acquire Watson, which cost the Browns three first-round picks along with 2023 third-round and ’24 fourth-round choices. Cleveland also received a ’24 fifth-round pick from the Texans.
After sitting out the 2021 season in Houston and then serving an 11-game suspension to start the ’22 campaign, Watson played the final six games and was terrible. He completed 58.2% of his attempts with seven touchdowns and five interceptions, averaging a meager 6.4 yards per attempt.
Many expected Watson to find his form after a full offseason in coach Kevin Stefanski’s system. So far, no dice.
Watch the Browns with Fubo. Start your free trial today.
The 28-year-old has started four games and been flat-out horrific in three, completing 52.7% of attempts with two touchdowns, three interceptions and 5.3 YPA in those contests. Watson will miss his third game this week due to a shoulder injury. Despite being cleared from concussion protocol Sunday in Indianapolis, he was left on the bench in favor of PJ Walker, who will start against the Seahawks.
Frankly, the Browns might be content giving him all the time he needs to rehab his shoulder.
But that leads to a larger question: If Watson doesn’t improve the rest of the season, and Cleveland continues to be a team led by a great defense and held down by bad quarterback play, what’s the move? Is there a move?
Here’s a look at three possibilities.
Release Watson
“If you give that kind of contract and guarantee that kind of money, you’re married,” a former NFL general manager says. “You’re in it. And you better fight your f---ing ass off for him because if not, you’re going to ruin the team. You’re going to get fired, first of all. Second, you’re going to ruin the franchise for three or four years with that dead money, so you can’t have it.”
The notion of a release is a nonstarter for general manager Andrew Berry.
Because Watson’s entire contract was guaranteed, the dead-cap hit alone is enough to ensure this won’t happen, barring Watson doing something to void the guarantees in his deal (i.e., getting suspended).
For example, if the Browns released Watson after this year, they would incur a dead-cap charge of $200.9 million in 2024, per Over the Cap. That’s not a typo. And doing so post–June 1 is of little consequence (this typically lowers the hit significantly by spreading it over two years), as the cost would be $155.7 million.
The dead money continues to be massive throughout the deal as well. Again, releasing him isn’t an option for Cleveland.
Trade Watson
“I think your hands are tied; you’ve made the deal,” another former NFL general manager says. “You have to live with it now.”
When the Browns signed Watson in 2022, both parties knew a suspension was coming. And when a player gets suspended, his financial loss comes from the base salary portion of his deal, not the bonus.
So Cleveland and Watson’s representatives got creative. Watson was paid only $1.035 million in base salary last season. This year, the number jumped slightly to $1.080 million. However, the next three seasons his salary will be $46 million annually. (Berry defended the contract structure as similar to other large contract extensions.)
When a team acquires a player via trade, the base salary becomes the new cap hit. In short, a general manager would have to want Watson badly enough to accept a $46 million hit, with an owner also willing to accept the ensuing PR nightmare.
As for Cleveland, the only way it could do this is through the post–June 1 avenue. In that scenario, the Browns would eat $17.9 million in dead money from his prorated bonus.
Essentially, pulling off a trade would be a long shot and almost impossible in reality. Unless the Browns are willing to attach a hoard of draft picks alongside Watson to jettison him, the likelihood another team would take him on is basically zero, unless he plays markedly better.
“Good luck,” a current NFC personnel director says. “They still owe the other guy for three more years. They took [a quarterback] in the [fifth round] last year, too. Tough spot to be in.”
Package picks to move into first round
The Browns still don’t have a first-round pick in the 2024 draft. They’ll have selections in the second and third rounds, and then not again until the fifth.
Cleveland could try to package its picks and get into the first round, where as many as eight quarterbacks could go off the board. However, with so many teams potentially eyeing a signal-caller, finding a trade partner could be tough.
As mentioned above, Cleveland used a Day 3 pick on UCLA’s Dorian Thompson-Robinson last spring. Would the Browns sink another selection into the position, knowing a benching of Watson would be unprecedented considering their financial commitment to him?
It’s more plausible than a trade or release, but it’s still unlikely.
Stick with Watson
Trevor Ruszkowski/USA TODAY Sports
“Keep him!” an NFC general manager says. “Still talented … just has to get healthy.”
Not long ago, Watson was one of the league’s best quarterbacks. He threw for a league-high 4,823 yards in 2020 with the Texans, earning his third consecutive Pro Bowl berth. Then he sat for the better part of two seasons and has never been the same.
But for the Browns and their current brain trust, moving on lies somewhere between difficult and impossible. Cleveland has to hope it can revive Watson’s career, which is why the former GM who said releasing Watson is not an option stated he would load up around the beleaguered quarterback.
“You’ve got to surround him with better talent, have to,” he says. “You have to go offense, offense, offense the first three picks [of the 2024 draft] and say, ’F--- it, we’re going to make this guy good no matter what.’”
It’s clear people in and around the league believe Watson still has the requisite ability to be a top-tier quarterback, but concerns are growing. There’s not a large sample size of players who were once great on the field, then had a precipitous decline, and then rose again to previous or higher levels.
Cleveland is hoping Watson can be an outlier because if not, the Browns are looking at a locked window and massive turnover once again.
