Why The Cleveland Browns Should Restructure & 'Extend' Deshaun Watson's Contract This Offseason (2024)

When looking at Watson's contract we have five years of equal pay. This is what the team and the agent agreed on. The agentisn't too worried if it is a signing bonus or base salary because the player is getting the money regardless. When Watson signed the last top 16 quarterback before that to get cut was Peyton Manning, he then got a bigger deal from the Bronco's in average per year than his Colts deal. So for the team they probably saw very little downside in a guaranteed deal, because if he was average or better you are keeping him.

2022 - $46m

2023 - $46m

2024 - $46m

2025 - $46m

2026 - $46m

Here is what happens if you look at it on the salary cap based on the current restructures, 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. 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.

Let us begin by looking at how the two contracts impact the salary cap if you restructure on not. I know they had to restructure year one to remain under the salary cap and also he would have paid a fine on the year on salary if they hadn't added that signing bonus but this is more a section looking at how restructures impact the salary cap.

Then let us restructure each year of the contract.

While each deal is going to cost you $230m of cash and $230m of cap space it is going to take different percentages of the salary cap by pushing it into future years. Let us look at each deal as a percentage of the salary cap. For the three future cap years that are not known, I have done an 8% increase of the cap.

By restructuring the deal each year the same $230m costs you 11.45% less of salary cap by spreading out these cap hits.

It is essential for the Cleveland Browns to spread out these cap hits, this is because their roster building strategy of spending roughly 120% of the salary cap space each season is built on them doing this. They need to push all this additional money they are spending into the future on the books for when the salary cap is much higher than it is now.

So anyone saying don't restructure Watson is at the same time telling Jimmy Haslam to stop spending $43m a year more than league average on the Cleveland Browns roster. If we look at how much teams around the league would be spending if they had the same model as the Browns, it would be $4.2bn extra over the last three years.

This chart is NFLPA data of how much cash every team has spent the last three years. I have written here how this model is sustainable, not restructuring Watson no longer keeps that sustainable.

If they end the process ofrestructuring now and for the rest of his deal here is the impact on the salary cap.

People talk about how big an $89.5m salary cap hit would be in 2027 but what they fail to see is that is basically the same size as the $64m cap hit you are taking this year as it eats into 25% of the league salary cap.

Let us look at what happens to the deal if they restructure him again:

Several people have asked why the delay in doing the deal. There is no reason to rush restructures, we saw Garrett, Bitonio, Teller and Wills done in August last year. You don't need to do these moves early, they can be last minute changes to create cap space. They need sorting by week one to get the full salary cap benefit.

They might want to get Watson in the building through and have a slight amendment to his contract to add a 2027 year onto it. They wouldchange the contract so on the third day of the 2027 league year he receives a $100m roster bonus or something similar to that. Then give him a league minimum base salary. This allows the team to give him a post June 1st cut once the new league year starts and spread this finaldead cap over two years. In theory it could me a $1bn roster bonus, they just want something large enough in there that the team will cut that player. The team just needs to get to the first day of the new league year to do a post June 1st cut.

By adding this dummy year which they have used in the contracts of Clowney & Smith before and is common for salary cap manipulation on other teams too, especially withdeparting quarterbacks. This means in 2027 they are only dealing with the prorated money from this one season and then in 2028 they have all the money from future years to deal with.

Here is a look at how this spendinglands on the salary cap. The four scenarios are:

- No restructures

- No more restructures moving forward

- Restructure every year

- Restructures plus a post June 1st cut and dummy year

Where as the Cleveland Browns will have language in deals to auto add void years and restructure players, there isn't any language toextend players and add dummy years. This could be why his restructure hasn't happened as they could be looking to make this change as it would dramatically help the Cleveland Browns. It would weaken the negotiating hand of Watson's agent though,because a post June 1st cutmakes it easier to get rid of him after the 2026 season.

He would need to come into the facility and sign a new contract and for me this is why I could see any restructure taking time and being done in August or next time he is in as it is actually a contract extension. They can sell this change to him as allowing them to continue spending record amounts of money over the coming years. Just because you have the post June 1st contract setup doesn't mean you can't be extended, look at Za'Darius Smith as an example.

Having a loaded roster around Watson gives him the best chance to get back to his old self and earn another deal in Cleveland or somewhere else in the league.

A lot of the theory around not restructuring seems to be around the idea you will trade him off. My argument would be that if he isn't playing like a top 16 quarterback and the Cleveland Browns want to move on, then which team is going to pay him $46m in 2026 to trade for him. This is why I think you are likely keeping him until the end of the contract either way, even if he is the backup on the team and you draft a quarterback in one of the next two years.

Cutting him could certainly be an option in his final season and then you are back to having the $89.5m figure in 2027.

I would accept the reality that he is going to be with this team for five years, not restructuring him only hurts the Cleveland Browns.

They are better doing therestructureand thencreating $35,832,000 of additional 2024 cap space that they can roll into next season. Building this reserve is important for them to keep their aggressive nature of outspending the entire league.

This then gives them a significantly larger pot of money to work with next offseason and they can keep building cap space so that if they do want to move on from Watson down the line then they have the salary cap flexibility to do this. But it is better to time this up for when the salary cap is potentially $320m in 2027 than taking significant salary cap hits in 2024 with a salary cap of $255.4m.

Getting the dummy year added to the contract would be a massive benefit to the team for planning their spending over the coming years. It is important to remain aggressive rather than the individuals calling for no restructure who are shooting themselves in the foot for rather than benefiting the Cleveland Browns.