On Thursday, news broke that the Cleveland Browns were restructuring the contract of Deshaun Watson to free up a massive chunk of salary cap space this season. While this does give the Browns the most cap space of any team in the league, it also puts the Browns in a pretty horrible position in the future.
As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk points out, even with the Browns restructuring the contract of Deshaun Watson, that contract will still count against the team’s salary cap – they’ve just decided to push that problem down the line with a pretty significant cap hit even after the current contract expires.
“Those cap dollars don’t evaporate. They get deferred. To future contract years. Combined with his $46 million base salary each year and the consequences of a 2023 restructuring, Watson’s cap numbers for 2025 and 2026 have skyrocketed to $72.935 million,” Florio wrote for Pro Football Talk. “There’s also a $36.858 million dead-cap charge looming for 2027, the first year after the current deal expires.”
This would put the Browns in a particularly horrible situation if they want to part ways with Watson at any point before his contract ends – which is not entirely unrealistic considering he has not exactly lived up to expectations thus far.
“The bigger issue for the cap-rich Browns continues to be the $92 million Watson is owed for 2025 and 2026. If he doesn’t provide the Browns with a return on their investment (money and draft picks) in 2024, will they cut the cord and eat the cash, like the Broncos did with Russell Wilson?” Florio wrote.
Clearly, this is not an ideal situation for the Browns.
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