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+some juice to move up so they could select Will Anderson

https://247sports.com/nfl/cleveland...haun-watsons-contract-moving--209728930/

How The Cleveland Browns Manage Deshaun Watson's Contract Moving Forward & His Extension
How the Cleveland Browns work with Deshaun Watson's contract beyond the 2023 season as the salary cap hits start to increase
Jack Duffin
JACK DUFFIN
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The first two years of Deshaun Watson's Cleveland Browns contract were easy to predict. He was always going to have a low cap charge in the first year because they needed the space to pay everyone else and remain competitive in years to come. When he was signed by the Browns and extended I wrote on how they would manage his deal moving forward and said few things are as certain as him being restructured in his second season.

It is important to remember that a restructure isn't a pay cut in any way, it is just taking the payment as a signing bonus instead which allows the team to backload the money on the salary cap. It is the same way as a credit card doesn't make your purchase free it just means you don't have to account for it the day you buy it.

Here is how Watson's contract looks to the team and his agent in terms of pay:

2022 - $46m

2023 - $46m

2024 - $46m

2025 - $46m

2026 - $46m

Here is what happens if you look at it on the salary cap, I have color coded each of the $46m payments so you can follow them through the deal.


Once cash has been restructured and converted into a signing bonus you can't trade or move this money, it is already in the player's bank account. You also can't move it around on the salary cap again other than if you cut/trade them in which case it escalates up to an earlier year.

So when looking at how much the team needs to pay the player moving forward we ignore this proration and focus on the unpaid cash amounts in base salary which is $46m a year.

2024 RESTRUCTURE
For Watson's third season, Andrew Berry has an interesting decision to make with how they deal with the contract and I am going to write this as if everything is going well and he is playing like a top 16 (ideally top 8) quarterback. If he has a disaster in 2023 then I will go down the rabbit hole of how they would it out long term but that isn't something I am going to get into today.

I had the 2023 restructure as a 99.99% certainty but with 2024 it is probably around a 66% chance that they do it again. This is because it will give a lot of power and leverage in the next negotiation to Watson and his agent. Let us look at what happens to the deal if they restructure him again:


You get the 2024 salary cap hit down from $63,977,000 to $28,145,000 but then the cap hits for 2025, 2026 and 2027 when he wouldn't even be on the team would increase. So this decision comes down heavily to do you see him as part of the long-term with the team or not, they aren't going to restructure if they aren't really confident in his play.


2025 RESTRUCTURE
After the 2024 season provided he is playing well another restructure isn't realistic at all because here is what the deal would look like:


An $81,884,000 cap hit for his final 2026 season and then $53,747,000 of dead cap when he is no longer on the team in the 2027 season. These numbers are far too high to realistically work with. So what are there other options if they don't want to roll with charges of $72,935,000 in 2025 and 2026 without a restrucure?


THE EXTENSION
So I expect the Cleveland Browns to get around the table with Watson's agent after the 2024 season and likely before free agency kicks off to finalise an extension to his current deal with two years remaining. I'm not sure they will fully guarantee the entire thing but they certainly could look at having rolling guarantees for the final two years which guarantee a year in advance, similar to what the Patrick Mahomes deal does.

Two years down the line we might be looking at something in the $55m to $57m range as the top of the quarterback market and it always seems to be the next man up gets the biggest payday. We have Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence to go at the time of writing and the highest is Lamar Jackson's $52m a year. So if we work with them each getting a million a year more that would be $56m a year for Watson's next deal if we don't get anymore.

So if they give Watson a deal worth $280m for five years with $168m fully guaranteed and then injury guarantees of $112m for the final two seasons which guarantee a year in advance. I could see another flat structure on the salary cap, it might look like the below or they could build option bonuses straight into it which I will cover in a second.

2027 - $56m

2028 - $56m

2029 - $56m

2030 - $56m

2031 - $56m

They would then restructure his 2025 contract year allowing them to keep kicking the can down the road.



RESTRUCTURE IT ALL
What if they went ahead and did the entire contract with option bonuses allowing them to backload every season, they would need agreement from Watson that he intends to retire a Cleveland Brown as they will need to work some cap magic on the back end.

So I have restructured every season in this contract all the way to the end of the 10 seasons.


The reason he has to retire a Cleveland Brown is that after 10 years of restructuring deals, there is $109.02m of dead cap remaining once his deal has expired. If he follows in the footsteps of Drew Brees and Tom Brady of signing a 'fake' one-year deal to take him through until the 2nd of June they can then split this dead cap charge over two seasons because then it is manageable for a team on the salary cap.

For these two years, they would need to change to a cheap rookie quarterback or a bridge like Jacoby Brissett while you get around the $43m and $65m of dead cap but as long as you win a Super Bowl in the ten seasons of Watson no one will mind a transition as he retires.

Obviously, if he wants to keep playing then you can add one-year deals on the back end and keep backloading as he might not be ready to hang up the cleats.

Pi

I love PIE!

Love me strawberry pie

If he gets back to his ceiling then it's 100% worth the trade...

You need to change the thread title and cut a bunch of numbers from the end. It’s annoying on a cell phone and not particularly clever. I look forward to you doing so. 😀

Would a, hundred digit number system, b/c we use a ten digit number system, would a hundred digit number system lead to more repeating numbers in pi, for example the 3 repeats once for double 3s, and the 8 once for double 8s, but none of them 3 times back to back, so would a hundred digit number system lead to more or less chance that a digit would repeat twice like 333, instead of only 33, in pi, compared to the current ten digit number system.
and

D. Watson is overrated, because he can be counted upon to throw an int in a playoff game that will end your chances for success
and he takes too many sacks by being unwilling to let a play fail and throw it away,
there are things to work on.

Not sure you will find many - if anyone - who would disagree with this statement. What is likely to cause some hot debates is if he doesn't return to 100% of his prime Houston self. And to clarify once again because I can see this being a hot button thing too - the evaluation of the trade should have zero to do with the decision to move on from the former QB. One has nothing to do with the other. If the time and decision was to move on - there was a lot of other ways to move on other than make that trade and give that contract.

It will be interesting to see and it will be a roller coaster ride whether we are great or whether we are mid-pack.

Who is better Watson at his past 100% or Burrow now?

That's ridiculously east for me -- Watson.

NEITHER
if Kevin Stefanski is coaching them
and K. is not a bad coach, eeehhhhh, he just sometimes is kryptonite to his own offense.

All indications are that DW will return to form this year… If he does we should be contenders. If he doesn’t? Everyone should get the axe.

I say West !

In reality I think there are lots of different angles and takes possible on this. Both from W/L record. Play off record. Statistics record. I don't find the answer to be clear cut.

I could see a debate about the relative ability of the teams they were on - but the 2019 Bengals without Burrows was bad with a 2-14 record. He's been intrinsic to their becoming a contender even if they have added other talent around him. I don't know Houston's roster and who they lost and gained, and I am sure there is some probably a lot that went on - but in 2016 before drafting Watson they were 9-7 and first in a weak division.

At the end of the day - I don't care about his Houston days, the only thing that matters is how well he plays for the Browns. I am ready for a massive improvement from his first 6 games after a 2 year absence.

** To add -- the question that matters is this: May 2023 and you can choose either guy to start your franchise, who do you pick. That's an easy pick and you take Burrows all day everyday. Hopefully the answer changes if asked May 2024.

You would say west.

I read that numerous times before I noticed. 🤣

Besides his six starts from last year, what other "indications" are there? Those are the only indications anyone has to go on other than just claiming, "There's no reason he can't be what he used to be."

[quote=mgh888]

** To add -- the question that matters is this: May 2023 and you can choose either guy to start your franchise, who do you pick. That's an easy pick and you take Burrows all day everyday. Hopefully the answer changes if asked May 2024.

Burrow is so ridiculously overrated. His arm talent isn't special...he is throwing to (2) #1 WRs. Give him a gaggle of #2+ and #3 WRs like we've had STR (until last year) and see what he can do. There is a reason why he couldn't beat out Dwayne Haskins at OSU.

What type of offense was it that Dwayne Haskins ran again? You seem to dismiss the difference in what the two have accomplished in the NFL. You know, the part that actually matters at this point.

Some may argue their NFL performance bolsters his argument. I mean, Haskins was throwing the ball to Terry McLaurin, Kelvin Harmon and Steven Sims.

Some may argue that. But then I think we both know that such an argument is either considered viable or not depending on the name of the player involved. Same goes with whether a player is injured or not. For certain players it's accepted that has a direct negative impact as it pertains to their performance on the field. For other players that same thing is not accepted and is dismissed. It's all in the name.

I know that you feel that way about Burrows. I personally think you sell him short - yes, Chase is elite. But Burrows is smart, accurate and grounded. I think plenty of QB's would fail to be as effective as Burrows even with that talent. jmo.

Burrows gets away with lesser arm talent because he throws with an extremely high level of anticipation. It’s the sane thing that made Brees great. I’d take Burrows ability to read a D and throw with excellent anticipation over ball velocity or general arm power. Doesn’t matter if you can throw it through a wall if you can’t hit the wall on time and in stride. Besides, most throws in the NFL don’t require a cannon. Typically big armed QBs rely in their cannon when they get into trouble. Burrow relies on his smarts and anticipation to stay out of trouble.

Outside of Mahomes I’d take Burrow over every other QB in the league. It’s not even close.

Amen, IF we get the Texans DW- the Pro Bowl QB- we get long into playoffs AND might win a SB. The city of Cleveland would go crazy with SB win and would get monkey off their backs with a SB appearance. We got a deal on DW salary IF he produces......time will tell.

Oh the love for the cincy @uarterback is a little too much to read at the moment.
He has a good head coach, one thing Burrow does do well like Dan Marino did is throw @uickly after the snap.

When I think back into the six games DW played last season, I remember a few flashes of his arm talent and his running ability, but there was a lot of him looking unsure, hesitating. Likely due to a combination of rust, lack of cohesiveness due to lack of real-game work with the O, and that our receivers struggled to get open at times .

He’ll be good this year, I have little doubt of that.

Yes, he had a few flashes of his old self.... hoping he can get more consistent and comfortable with this offense.... if Watson can get back to form, we can have a killer offense...

That's really desperate in your argument when you bring up
Haskins and Burrow and who was the better QB at OSU.
It's really irrelevant at this point.

Field smarts, anticipation , pre snap reads, going through
Proper reads trumps arm strength anyway all day
Burrow is everything Baker Mayfield wasn't
Burrow is a top 3 NFL QB.

Burrow is talked about as if he were the 2nd best QB in the NFL (which is laughable)...one would think that a QB with THAT kind of talent (you know...second best on the planet) could have beaten out a pedestrian QB like Haskins regardless of the offense that was run.

Burrow's best throw is the -0- air yards WR screen to Chase...his 2nd best throw is to throw a Flacco up for Chase to run under or punk the DB...his 3rd best throw is the 6-8 yarder over the middle to a wide open TE...wide open because the D is defending (2) #1 WRs. His 10 yard outs are a pick 6 waiting to happen and when he has to try and put some stank on the throw it shows his arm talent. He's beyond fortunate that the Bengals appear to know how to draft WRs and has a HC (same guy his whole career) that doesn't try and make him something he's not.

Even the college ranks disagree with you. Burrow won a Heisman. I don't know who you are trying to convince. The posters on this board or yourself. So far it seems the only one you have convinced is yourself.

Once again, OSU ran an RPO style of offense. That fit Haskins style. That has nothing to to do with which one was actually the better QB. BTW- Where is Haskins Heisman?

So did JFF... as a freshman.

So are you too trying to suggest that Haskins is a better QB than Burrow? Or that Haskins was a better college QB than Burrow? Context adds value. The argument he is making is that Haskins was better than Burrow in college or he would have beaten Haskins out as the starter at OSU. My point was the Burrow was a better QB "in college" than Haskins was. Hopefully making the context clearer for you was helpful.

System QBs do exist- and the Haskin/Burrows debate- who cares- I think of Texas QB Vince Young- 30 and 2 college record.....but an athlete QB who wasn't very smart according to Wonderlic.....I'd take Burrow's smarts and anticipation every time at Pro Level.

Can you prove Burrows best throw to Chase is the WR screen? Or is that a illusion
In your mind? Cause anykind of highlight catch by Chase is that
He is running past defense on a 30 to 50 td catch.
Did you bother to watch the games where Chase lit up the Chiefs
He wasn't catching WR screens to account for his 250 yards

Burrow is a great QB. I hate that he plays for the Bengals. He reads defenses and processes information very quickly. He is fearless and stands in the pocket. I was impressed last year when he beat the Titans in a playoff game while being sacked 9 times. Most QB's would have been shell shocked and not looking down field getting hit that often. This is a silly argument saying he is not very good.

Watson averaged 3.5 wins the last 3 years.
4 wins..
Joe Burrow who is a very mediocre qb is clearly better then him
For the last 3 years.

General consensus. I’m Missouri too, show me. But I can’t base anything on anything except general consensus because other than his games last year that were putrid, I have ZERO other data points that I’ve personally witnessed.

Watson's career stats are really good also

67.0 CMP%, 15,641 TDS, 111 TD, 41 INT, and a 102.3 Rating.

I would put Watson and Lamar Jackson (coming off 2nd consecutive year injured) both just below Burrow and ahead Pickett in our division. Both Watson and Jackson have the ability to have a better season than Burrow but last 2 years Burrow has been the best and should rank higher.

It's pointless trying to say who is better. They are all good. It still takes good play around them for things to work. Receivers need to get open and catch the ball, linemen need to block. If those guys do their job, then all can be really good.

No doubt QB is important, but to me it isn't the most important position in sports except that it is possible for them to play every game. From a pure domination standpoint, a baseball pitcher or hockey goalie are more impactful than a QB.