When the Cleveland Browns traded for Deshaun Watson, they didn’t just ship a boatload of team-building draft picks south for a player under investigation following more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct and what the NFL would later deem “predatory behavior.” They also handed Watson a curve-shattering, fully guaranteed extension worth $230 million over five years.
It was an unprecedented deal. That 100 percent guaranteed contract was by far the largest in league history, outshining Kirk Cousins’ 2018 Minnesota Vikings by two years and an extra $146 million. Good-to-great quarterbacks have always earned massive paychecks in a league where guys like Mark Sanchez, Jimmy Garoppolo and Joe Flacco have all led the league in salary cap hits in the past two decades. The question now was whether Watson’s truly absurd deal would set the new standard for other teams to follow or be a trade-induced fit of Browns ephemera.
