DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum The bigger picture..

‘That’s who they wanted”

You are right, it was plan A and B. That can still be true without being desperate.

‘Giving him whatever he wanted” - not disagreeing with you, because I have no clue what went on. How do we know if that’s what DW demanded or what the FO felt was their best and final offer.

How do we know they made the best and final offer initially on that second trip? How do we know they wouldn't have offered more on that second trip if watson had asked for more? I mean, actually how do we know that's not what happened on that second trip? Maybe they took that second trip and made watson an offer, watson said no and they offered him more?

We really don't know the answer to any of that. But what we do know is that they made watson an original offer. Not only did watson reject that offer, he also said he would not agree to be traded to Cleveland at all because he had a no trade option in his contract. So not only did he say no, he said he flat out refused to be traded here at all. Baker found out they were going after watson and made it known he was moving on. Afterwords they went back to make watson a second offer. Now we have no idea if watson accepted that first offer they made on the return trip. But what we do know is the offer looked so good to watson that not only did he reverse his decision to refuse Cleveland as a trade option, he also accepted the contract. So yeah, for him to do both of those things I think the evidence strongly points to them giving him whatever he wanted.

I understand they wanted watson. The question becomes at what point does what you want become cost prohibitive? Whether their decision becomes a good one will be determined over the next three seasons be it right or wrong. Let's all hope it turns out they made the right decision.

I don't remember anything like this and can't find anything on the internet.

Texans QB Deshaun Watson passes on Browns, declines to waive no-trade clause for Cleveland

The Browns passed on Deshaun Watson five years ago in the NFL Draft.

On Thursday morning, Watson passed on Cleveland.

The Browns have been informed they are out of the running for Watson, a person familiar with the situation confirmed. Watson has a no-trade clause in his contract, and he decided he wouldn't waive it for Cleveland.

The Browns were willing to accept whatever public backlash would have come from making Watson the face of their franchise because owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam believe the controversial quarterback is capable of leading Cleveland to its first Super Bowl.

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story...ency-saints-falcons-panthers/7071254001/

It's much longer article if you would like to check out the link but I believe that covers the topic in question.

It’s an interesting question Pit.

I think pride and the risk of losing face played a small part in it, at least from the owners perspective. I have said numerous time that I have no problem with the decision to move on from Mayfield, but how it was handled created distractions, and in the end in my and many others view, lots of public badwill.

You know why I think giving Watson so much guaranteed money was wrong, and I have explained my reasoning behind it in other posts on this thread so it’s no secret.

In my world you first negotiate with Baker and find a mutual acceptable solution, so both can move forward. If he refuse to find a mutual solution just go public with the decision that the organization has decided to move on from their number 1 pick and make him, in an early stage of the off season, available for other teams. It’s not optimal and it weakened our negotiation position but it gives us more time and breathing space to find a new QB.

I also think that Berry should have advocated for a salary limit when it comes to Watson. I’m almost 100% sure that this was not his first option to offer guaranteed money, I think no other organization was willing to pay even close to our numbers.

So plan B from my perspective would be to wait until some other team had made some public offer and then evaluate the situation from there.

For me it’s a principle to not go for a player that doesn’t want to be a Brown so I was a little bit amazed that they did go after him again but maybe that’s where we go different directions.

My advice should have been to have patience and not go overboard with any offer and if the numbers was too high they should have looked elsewhere. Wilson was simply a risk too high to take from all different angles according to my experience.

Thanks. Interesting read even if I think some of it is a modified version but it’s absolutely crazy that we persisted to trade for a player that initially didn’t want to be here. I can’t believe that Stefanski and Berry were in private 100% comfortable with finalizing such a controversial deal.

Why would any team make a public offer?

Also, your plan B would’ve been a failure.

So, in other words, he didn't like the offer and just exercised his no trade clause... Not:

When we've finished reviewing the Watson trade and what happened during the trade negotiations - can someone please start a thread so we can go back over the Tim Couch pick? We need to discuss why we didn't pick McNabb or trade with New Orleans to get all those picks.

Are we going to be fabricating extra drama into this review as well?

You want to do that before the Manziel draft?? I say we work in reverse-chronological.

So much more drama... trading out of Sammy Watkins, up for Justin Gilbert and then wasting the Trent Richardson fleece on the Money Man??

Why do you all insist on making me sad?

It's "hello darkness my old friend" season until late April.

Embrace it -- it will make us stronger!

First you questioned if it actually happened and now this? There was some reason that watson did not want to come to Cleveland. I have no idea what that reason or reasons were, but he made that quite obvious by excluding the Browns as a team he would not be willing to be traded to. Common sense alone tells you that the more teams that were bidding for his services the better the odds that the amount of the contract offers would continue to rise. There would be no reason to exclude any team that made you an offer from bettering that offer at a later time unless you had a reason or reasons for not wanting to go there.

Then they backed up the Brinks truck and offered to unload it for such a high amount, every dime of it guaranteed, that it outweighed whatever his reason or reasons were for not wanting to come here in the first place.

Lol.

When did he say "I will not be traded to the Browns"?? When did he "flat out refuse" to be traded to Cleveland?

IF you're talking about turning down the offer, that is a product of having a no trade clause. No matter who he "turned down", the article would site the no trade clause. That is how he is able to refuse a trade. There is nothing anywhere where he said, or anyone even hinted that it was a Cleveland thing. There is no evidence anywhere that this had anything to do with anything other than money.

You're making stuff up. I know you're willing to die on any hill, but you're going to look foolish trying to create a DeShaun Watson hated Cleveland story out of thin air.

You're in denial of the obvious. He listed the Browns as a team he refused to be traded to. Turning down a contract offer is not the same thing as.........


"Out of the running" is such an obvious and easy thing to understand. And it's certainly not the same thing as turning down an initial offer. I'm not so sure what's so hard to comprehend about this. He put the Browns on his list of teams he refused to wave his no trade clause for.

Deshaun Watson rules out Browns as QB mulls trade options, future NFL team

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...s-houston-texans-quarterback/7075286001/

Deshaun Watson changes mind, QB accepts trade to join Browns

https://apnews.com/article/clevelan...-watson-0ae7b3be157817f697f92f5533fb3ff2

Ey ey ey ... as someone said. Some painful memories to rehash. 2 years clearly isn't enough time to move on from these decisions, so why would two decades?

Watson spoke to the media for the first time since the off-field issues began months ago. During his introductory press conference, Watson was asked about the factors that led him to join Cleveland after reportedly turning them down.

"It wasn't necessarily turned down. I think the media was kind of rushing me to make a decision. And I wasn't comfortable making that right decision."


Hmmm... I don't believe that?! There has to be some underlying reason why he hated Cleveland... Lets ask Pit@Dawgtalkers!

I gave you the information that was reported by others. Not my reports. This isn't the political forum.

He did turn down the initial offer. And he obviously refused to wave his no trade clause for Cleveland after that first offer. And you seem to put a lot of stock in a PR statement put out after the fact. But of course you would give him credibility. I mean 24 women are lairs and he is the becaon of truth, right?

Take a few seconds and answer me two questions with your hand on your heart; ( I prefer to ask YOU and those others with a decent perspective)

1. Is a Stefanski/Watson combo 2023 talented and mentally strong enough to challenge a KCC/Niners 2023 version of defense in a playoff game when everything is on the line? (obviously with DSW in decent shape and healthy)
2. Can our defense handle a Reid/Mahomes/Kelce/Pacheco or a Shanahan/Purdy/Samuel/MacGaffrey/Kittle line up late in a playoff game? (I don't count one regular season win as some proof of the probability ,because as it says, regular season, not with the knife to the throat )

If your answer is yes why didn't our defense doing this against the Texans? (I know that's an unfair question but I just want some perspective before someone throwing around wild guesses)

Watson has 3 games and 1 win in the playoff's and he's in a similar age as Mahomes.

A average of 26,5 points in his best playoff-season without going past the division round. Not once has he elevated his team enough when it most matter. I'm not trying to downgrade his contribution but we have to call a spade a spade.
I know about different circumstances and quality but the question remains the same, why should we think that he, after 8 seasons, the 3 latest seasons with a participation of a 12 games in total, would just now elevate his game enough to outscore Mahomes/Reid or similar.

That's the question we have to ask ourselves when discuss Super Bowl window or whatever we're now dreaming of. Perspective and sanity.

I think that Stefanski with a couple of more seasons under his belt, with the right people around him, can elevate his coaching to a level where he can challenge to win a Super Bowl. I don't think for one second that Watson is capable of this because after 8 years in the NFL he hasn't once showed he's mentally tough enough to elevate himself to a quality required when winner and losers are going to be separated. Maybe I'm a bit too skeptical but results over time usually don't ever lie.

It can change, but, with 230 million guaranteed and a couple of more tens of million dollars from his time in Houston, experience tells that you don't change your personality to the better and the hunger to win often decrease with easy money in your pocket. The other part is if he's mentally stable enough to be on the front line for a organization who need a natural born leader and warrior to go all the way. The Browns as a organization has zero experience of fighting on the highest level. Look at the Lions and the Ravens what happened to them in the second half. It's freaking tough at the top.

This isn't the political forum?

People are only allowed to disagree with you in the political forum?? You really need your own message board.


We'll just go with this as law:


Watson refused to come here AND he refused to come here...

Then he came here.

Bringing political forum style trash over here is exactly what I'm talking about. And you know it. That's beyond disagreeing with someone.

He refused to come here until they backed up the Brinks truck for him and was willing to fully guarantee his contract. Sadly rather than admit that reality you're trying to turn the football forum into a swamp.

But hey, if that's the way you want to play it let's go. I'm just trying to avoid it. But game on man.

So not this?


This is getting confusing.

Only for people that refuse to allow for context. And only for people trying to be obtuse for the sake of sowing confusion. That is what he said at the time. After the first offer. Then, you know "afterwods"? he changed his mind once they backed up the Brinks truck and guaranteed the entire 230 million. Maybe the term "The made him on offer he couldn't refuse" would be something more palatable for you after all of the Fredo references on the board lately.

If you actually find that confusing, I believe that's a you issue.

But Pit, he didn't say anything.

His agents made generic statements and people printed stories. Every team was eventually "out of the running". There was never anything from the horse's mouth saying "I flat out refuse to go to Cleveland". There was never any report about what he said about any team, only whether or not their offers were turned down.

If you wish to dismiss all of the reports from people close to the situation that's your choice and your opinion. This was widely reported and each of us have to make what we wish from those reports. Players have agents and legal teams to speak for them in such negotiations. It would be very rare and pretty stupid for a player or their representatives to come out publicly and make the type of statement you are referring to. That has nothing to do with what's going on behind closed doors and what those people who know what's going on have information and privy to. You don't take what those close to the situation knew as being credible because it didn't come out of watson's mouth directly and I do because there would be nothing gained by people simply making it up. Thus where our difference of opinion lies.

He obviously did, so perhaps the quoted item wasn't entirely accurate or written in the proper context.

I suppose anything is possible if one wishes to look at it that way.

No, and I wasn't trying to be snide. I mean something wasn't accurate about the comment since he did come here. Be it more money or whatever.

I didn't think you were trying to be snide. What would seem obvious to me is that he really didn't want to come to Cleveland which is why he said he wouldn't wave his no trade clause for Cleveland. But the 230 million dollar guaranteed offer was enough to overcome his reason/reasons for not wanting to come here whatever that or those reasons were. Because he could have easily have declined the offer without saying he refused to wave the clause to be traded to Cleveland. But I can certainly understand people feeling otherwise.

1. It's hard to tell. Unfortunately "mental strength" doesn't exist in a vacuum. Some people have to put it to use more and/or have more working against it. Outside factors can be enough to crush anybody if enough is piled on them. On the positive side, if one can come out the other side of being "crushed," it can make one "stronger." The talent is there. Mental strength is hard to measure, as are the things that could be challenging it. If they figure out a support system to lighten that extra load and/or support his mental strength, who knows what will happen? They have shown resilience in the past.

2. Yes. They can/could. Unfortunately, health plays a factor (definitely appeared to in the later stages of this season.) On the "positive" side, (poor/unfortunate) health can affect other teams, too. Things happen, gotta roll with the punches and hopefully come back stronger next time. The team seems to have that approach/mindset much more than in the past. ...the "fanbase" on the other hand....