The NFL salary cap often results in teams making rather creative accounting decisions in order to create cap space, and it sounds like the Cleveland Browns have done just that to free up more salary cap space than any other team in the entire league.
According to a report from NFL insider Field Yates of ESPN, the Browns were able to create more than $35 million in new salary cap space by restructuring the contract of Deshaun Watson, bringing their total to over $62 million in free cap space.
“The Browns have restructured the contract of QB Deshaun Watson, converting $44.79M of his 2024 base salary into a signing bonus and creating $35.832M in cap space, per source. Cleveland now has over $62M in cap space, the most in the entire NFL,” Yates said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
The Browns have restructured the contract of QB Deshaun Watson, converting $44.79M of his 2024 base salary into a signing bonus and creating $35.832M in cap space, per source.
Cleveland now has over $62M in cap space, the most in the entire NFL. pic.twitter.com/KC9hLWQDT8
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 29, 2024
It’s not clear what the Browns plan to do with this surplus of salary cap space, but it’s still some pretty insane news that the team has this much available space on the salary cap heading into the upcoming season, and it led to a lot of reactions on social media.
I just don’t understand this. Browns already had top ten cap space in the league before this move, and enough space to operate throughout the season. Why push more Watson cap dollars into the future when his success is far from a certainty? https://t.co/1CpXDySVtV
— Daniel Salib (@salibdaniel1) August 29, 2024
this is all about percentage of the cap. the browns are able to pay the same amount of money for less percent of the cap by restructuring and pushing his money to later years. as long as the cap keeps increasing (as it should) it will be +EV for them to do this https://t.co/xIG0kCA44f
— Tej Seth (@tejfbanalytics) August 29, 2024
Browns now have enough cap space to go after a starting QB. https://t.co/bwfDEzSFKK
— Jordan Loupe (@CantALoupe_FF) August 29, 2024
The Browns are taking $62M of cap space into week 1 … room to add. Extend other players. Roll over $$ for next year.
The #Browns handle the cap about as good as any team in the league … now the on field production needs to follow. https://t.co/KWA29k4JqW
— Justin Kinner (@1410Kinner) August 29, 2024
🚨The Browns have the most Cap space in the NFL! 👀#Dawgpound https://t.co/fd6cfnCkwo
— DynastyCLE (@DynastyCLE) August 29, 2024
I see you, Andrew Berry. https://t.co/tbYa9T5sVa
— Kimberley A. Martin (@ByKimberleyA) August 29, 2024
This could allow the Browns to further bolster their roster if they so choose.
