Deshaun Watson has decided he wants to play for the Cleveland Browns in a stunning change of events, per sources. Watson has informed the Houston Texans that he now is willing to waive the no-trade clause in his contract to be dealt to Cleveland.
They still have $145 million in salary cap obligations over the next 3 years and have to keep an eye on that horizon with how they SPEND that money. Because if they turn around and spend that $60 million now (which, honestly, is virtually impossible for them) and enter the 2025 season with the 'regular' $260 million cap while Watson accounts for $72 million of it, that's no bueno.
And where it's REALLY an issue, is if they approach Watson at all for a restructure next season or the season after. His leverage is MASSIVE. And it's a headache of Cleveland's own making.
The cap is something that can always be shirked for 2-3 years. And every time you kick the can, things get just a little tighter.
Cap Hell is a real thing. It's gonna eventually happen to you. But where the 'myth' comes is that Cap Hell should destroy a team for a sustained period of time. It doesn't.
One year of slash and burn can almost always clean a cap sheet. I wouldn't have been opposed to us being more aggressive this season with an eye on just such a season in/around 2027. We just go scorched earth that season and hack away at everyone we can. Accelerate a bunch of shit onto the cap, win 6 games and then jam the accelerator again in 2028.
So is Cleveland setting itself up to be able to release Watson in the next season or two and not be absolutely decimated by the move? [Reply]
Originally Posted by RunKC:
If your owner has money, then the salary cap is a myth. This Watson deal was supposed to destroy this team and yet they’ve redone it twice and now have the most cap room in the NFL
Nah, the cap still applies. They’re just backdating it. If anything they got away with offering a blockbuster contract before gambling revenue. These new qb contracts on the other hand are gonna make it really hard for teams to keep their loaded rosters.
I kind of wonder if this is a desperation move because watsons arm looks like it’s falling apart and stefanski and a lot of the browns regime are starting to face the pressure of justifying this cursed move [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bowser:
So is Cleveland setting itself up to be able to release Watson in the next season or two and not be absolutely decimated by the move?
Wasn’t his contract fully guaranteed? I don’t think any amount of finessing can really mitigate a fully guaranteed contract like that.
I think that’s why the owners most definitely colluded afterward in declining to give Lamar a fully guaranteed contract. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bowser:
So is Cleveland setting itself up to be able to release Watson in the next season or two and not be absolutely decimated by the move?
I would think the main move was turning guaranteed 2024 money into signing and roster bonus which means the cap obligation gets pushed back to the back end of the contract. Their dead cap the next 2 years is obscene and I’d imagine this just makes the back 2 years of the contract obscene too. I think this just basically guarantees they have to keep him for the rest of his contract
Deshaun still gets paid the same so it doesn’t affect him. Cap wise they just take the hit for that money later [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bowser:
So is Cleveland setting itself up to be able to release Watson in the next season or two and not be absolutely decimated by the move?
No, because the salary is guaranteed.
I mean, in theory they could trade him if they attached a 1st rounder or something to him, but they'd take an $80 million dead cap charge to do it. They haven't really done anything to make that any more or less manageable.
No, they'd pretty much have to eat giant buckets of shit to get him moved. Which they really shouldn't be doing at/near the back end of Garrett's prime years.
They seem to be setting themselves up to push in over the next 2-3 seasons rather than get out of Watson's deal. Then bottom out in 2027. [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
I would think the main move was turning guaranteed 2024 movie into signing and roster bonus which means the cap obligation gets pushed back to the back end of the contract. Their dead cap the next 2 years is obscene and I’d imagine this just makes the back 2 years of the contract obscene too. I think this just basically guarantees they have to keep him for the rest of his contract
Which, realistically, they already had to do.
This looks to me like an effort to push as much of his money as possible into his void years in 2027 and 2028 before having to take their medicine then while trying to open their window as wide as possible from '24 through '26.
I mean they have a $37 million cap charge for a 32 year old Myles Garrett on a void year in '27. They're looking at a complete tear down in 2 seasons anyway. Might as well do what you can before that time gets here. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Which, realistically, they already had to do.
This looks to me like an effort to push as much of his money as possible into his void years in 2027 and 2028 before having to take their medicine then while trying to open their window as wide as possible from '24 through '26.
I mean they have a $37 million cap charge for a 32 year old Myles Garrett on a void year in '27. They're looking at a complete tear down in 2 seasons anyway. Might as well do what you can before that time gets here.
Oh holy shit. I just saw the numbers on over the cap. I don’t know if it’s updated or not. But basically have $99m dead money in 2025 (so he will be impossible to cut). But he’s due $72 million of base salary in 2025 AND 2026. At best they have an out in a few years assuming they eat 2 years of absurd contract. But they can’t do that without cutting their entire team. im guessing they’ll be restructuring throughout the contract and each time they do that the back years become guaranteed.
This contract is so rough that they’ll probably have to either take a year or 2 where they pay him record high money. Or is it possible by the end of the contract they’ll be forced to extend the contract a few more years just so they can spread the cap charge out even more.
All for a guy whose arm may be too dead to even make it through this year let alone for 4+ years [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
Oh holy shit. I just saw the numbers on over the cap. I don’t know if it’s updated or not. But basically have $99m dead money in 2025 (so he will be impossible to cut). But he’s due $72 million of base salary in 2025 AND 2026. At best they have an out in a few years assuming they eat 2 years of absurd contract. But they can’t do that without cutting their entire team. im guessing they’ll be restructuring throughout the contract and each time they do that the back years become guaranteed.
This contract is so rough that they’ll probably have to either take a year or 2 where they pay him record high money. Or is it possible by the end of the contract they’ll be forced to extend the contract a few more years just so they can spread the cap charge out even more.
All for a guy whose arm may be too dead to even make it through this year let alone for 4+ years
Again, they're looking at eating shit in 2027. Nothing else makes sense.
Garret, Watson and Delpit will be responsible for $80 million in cap charges ON VOID YEARS. Denzel Ward will be cut for a $20 million cap savings but still carry $9 million in dead money. And that's without getting into the smaller deals.
Za'Darius Smith, Dalvin Tomlinson, Njoku, Bitonio, Teller, Conklin, Thornhill, Wills, Okoronkwo and Pocic will all be in ther early/mid 30s (so long gone) and between those guys they'll suck up ANOTHER $40 million in dead cap on void years.
$120 million in dead cap charges on void years in 2027. Yeah - that's real.
And they have no business extending a single one of those players I named. So that money is all but locked in. Even if the cap continues to rise at a solid clip, that's likely to be 1/3 of their entire cap allocated to void seasons for guys that aren't likely to be on the roster.
So let's say the cap is $300 million by then, they're going to start at $180 million BEFORE they absorb the dead money from Denzel Ward. If they don't have substantial carry-over, they'll be looking at needing to build a roster on about $3.5 million/player at a time when the minimum NFL salary is likely to be approaching $2 million. Made all the more difficult by the fact that Jerry Jeudy and JOK will take up another $20 million between the two of them. So they'll have $160 million to pay for 51 guys on the roster.
They're fucked in 2027. So they have to make things happen now. [Reply]
They're already over the projected 2026 cap with all of 26 guys signed to contracts for 2026. So they're almost certainly cutting Ward in 2026 just to get themselves a little breathing room. They'll cut Dalvin Tomlinson and Jack Conklin by then as well. Those are fake figures so that'll get free up $40 million but they'll still need to come up with 30 more dudes to even put together an NFL roster.
They're heading into Saints territory.
The more I look at this, the more I think they almost have to get an Aiyuk trade made and essentially move heaven and earth to try to win this year or next. Because things are going to get nasty in '26 and completely untenable by '27. [Reply]
Originally Posted by scho63:
Dumb franchises do dumb things. :-)
I mean, I credit them for taking a big swing and not just trying to Ryan Tannehill their way to a Super Bowl. It’s weird they didn’t take a sexual predator discount on the contract. But what really fucked them and had to be unexpected was that he doesnt look like he really wants to play and more unexpectedly his arm just completely fell off his body.
If Watson was the qb they traded for in Houston, the browns with that defense and run game would have been tough. I think it’s more a sign of how absurdly cursed that team is. [Reply]
