DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns Salary Cap

My love and prayers are with you.

j/c:

Thank you to the board moderators for not having the testicular fortitude to remove someone who destroys countless threads day after day after day.

Well done.

This public service announcement was brought to you by Taco Bell.

Compliments of the little chihuahua that can't stop barking at the air and peeing on the carpet.

Stop talking about Vers that way.

Absolutely everything Andrew Berry is doing in the FA market and the draft is hanging on DSW becoming an elite QB on par with Burrow and that KCC guy. If that’s not the case and our 230 million QB has another underwhelming season in front of him then it’s probably hasta la vista for Berry and Stefanski.

The stakes are high.

This could be said with ANY quarterback. You can sign all the guys in the world who are perceived to be good at their position, but if your QB isn't good, your team isn't going to be good.

As Memphis said - this is true of any team. You try to put the best team you can together. The moves so far this off season have been solid. How Watson performs is a different topic to me.

It's an accrued season.

Yes it was and it was counted as 20% of the time he has on his contract.

I rather kept all these draft picks and 230m. Imagine what we could have done with so much wealth in the FA market and in the 2023 draft pick.

What was Watsons stats in 2022?
Top 20 QB? Worse?

Nutz!

I agree FL Dawg. I'm going to put my 2 cents in. It's been one year since we traded for DW. Knowing what I know now if I had to make the trade all over again I would. DW gives us the best chance to compete and win in the AFC. A 100% healthy Baker is at least 2 steps below the best AFC QB's. Heck, he'd only be 3rd best in our division. As fans, the 230 million really shouldn't be an issue with us. That's the responsibility of Jimmy Haslam and our FO. They made that decision. The way I look at the 3 #1 picks is like this. The one we gave up in "22 was for DW. That's a push to me. The other 2 I look at it this way. They're a crap shoot for any team but even more so for us. Since we've come back in 1999 I can only think of 3-4 #1's that were any good for us JT, Myles and Alex Mack and that's about it. I don't know if DW will ever be as good as he was a couple years ago, although I'm betting he will, but I still think it was worth the gamble. We weren't going anywhere with what we had at QB and this team's window is the next couple of years. JMO

Nobody argue that we should have kept Baker but Watson hasn’t so far shown that he’s the answer either.

Only a SB win can justify 230m guaranteed and judging from what we have seen so far from Berry/Stefanski/Watson this scenario seems highly unlikely. With 3 first round picks and 230m we could easily bought us one of the best defensive lines in the NFL. Only a few QBs has the ability to win a SB with an average defense and only one elite WR/TE and Watson paired with Stefanski has neither the results or anything else to show that they belong in that category.

If I’m wrong prove to me with up to date stats or whatever that my assumptions is “nutz”. The money and the draft picks could have been used more wisely from my perspective.

I don’t think the final six games of a problematic 2022 season defines DW.

Nutz is thinking you can get anywhere without a franchise QB.

I agree that it doesn't define him but it brought about far more questions than it did answers.

Extending a players contract takes both parties to agree. Now that may work out to be the case. But it just as well may not be the case. If everything goes great here and watson gets what he wants, there should be no problem accomplishing that. However we all saw how that worked out in Houston. Even after he signed an extension he refused to honor his contract. Extending his contract certainly isn't a given and we have the perfect example of that to look at.

230m guaranteed is Mahomes and Burrow level of salary. The absolute best of the best. You simply don’t gamble with so much money.


The other inexcusable decision was to give the largest contract in the history of the NFL to a player with so much negative baggage, not to mention all his controversies with his former employer. There’s no evidence whatsoever that Watson has what it takes to be a franchise QB, in fact the opposite. He has talent but so far he hasn’t accomplished anything to write home about. Mahomes has won two SB and Burrow has reached one SB final and one Conference final. Do you spot the difference?

This was a panic move from one of the worst owner in the NFL and a inexperienced GM who simply didn’t took his time to make a proper consequence analysis. You can quote me whenever you want but I think we don’t even reach a Conference final with this setup. The 230m and the three 1 round picks could have been used more wisely from my perspective.

With that said I wish Watson the absolute best as long as he’s part of the Browns organization.

It's a shame the Browns were not able to sign any players this FA period because they are in cap hell. Would have been nice to upgrade the defense.

tab - of all the good news we've had this week, this is the best by far. So good to see this post from you. Rest, and get your strength back. We'll be here.

DSW stats in his last two seasons in the NFL.

2020 - 4W and 12L (Houston)
2022 - 3W and 3L (Cleveland)

His latest 7W was against Washington, Baltimore, Houston, Detroit, New England and Jacksonville x2.

In 2020 and 2022 he had 40TD/12INT in 22 games. An average of 1.81 TD/game - 0,55 INT/game.

In 2022/23 the Browns scored 98 points in 6 games with DSW as an QB. An average of 16,33 points/game.
In 2022/23 (regular season) KCC scored 496 points in 17 games. And average of 29,17 points/game.

KCC in 2022/23 scores in average almost 13 points more/game than the Browns with DSW.

Ask yourself with all this in mind.
Is Kevin Stefanski a better HC and a play caller than Andy Reid?
Is DSW a better QB than PM?
Has the Browns any offensive player on the same level as Travis Kelce?
Is our D good enough to cover up for our O weaknesses?


Maybe we should lower our expectations and realize that Watson has a long long way to go before we’re anywhere near the better teams in the NFL.
When he and his offense starts to regularly produce 25+ points/game in average then we can start to dream about a SB.

My conclusion is that with a restricted salary cap it will be extremely difficult to catch up when we give our “franchise QB” such a gigantic contract. Deshaun Watson will give us hopes but the reality is that the price to trade him was probably to high. That mistake is on those in charge. Bad decision making is the mother of most failures.

They're only relevant depending on who is playing the position.

Wait a second my friend.

If I’m not mistaken we paid Watson a signing bonus of nearly $50m in 2022. He played 6 games. His high salary was part of the reason that last season was a failure. We can’t just write off 20% of the financial investment and pretend this is good business .


DSW has 3+ seasons as a pro and he got paid as the best QB in the league, then the expectation is that we get results a par with what we pay. Anything less is a failure.

Pre season you would be 100% correct. Once Brissett was running a top 10 offense, not so much. You see, if you look at it from the perspective of "what you expected before the season" that's one thing. If you look at it from the perspective of what the Browns O was actually producing in 2022 that's totally different. It seems some people are trying to say that if the Browns went into the 2023 season with a top 10 offense that wouldn't have been good enough.

I totally agree! That was btw my initial argument when we started our dialogue

j/c: