Wut? Here you go. $230 mil. guaranteed, 5 years is just that. Can’t spread it beyond 5 years. And if he shits the bed after 2 or 3 years there’s still a ton of dead cap with a fully guaranteed contract. Looks like they’re getting a break this year for a 5 game season. Dumber than dumb.
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So couple problems with this. Namely, this is a really good structure for the Browns:
1. If people think he's playing 2023 on a $55M cap hit, they're delusional. They'll convert a large chunk of salary to a signing bonus, prorate that, and rinse repeat.
2. If you're saying to yourself "well yeah, but they're just putting more cap into the future", you're right. Except by the time they get to the 2025-2026 timeframe, they'll be talking extension. That extension will involve taking large amounts of his current salaries, converting to bonus, and prorating over the new contract length.
The only way that doesn't happen is if Watson a) sucks and doesn't produce or b) does something ridiculously stupid again.
Not saying either can't happen, but on-field production has never been an issue for Watson.
When Cleveland did this, its pretty clear they view him as the franchise QB for 10-15 years, not 5 years. They structured this contract in a way that pretty much guarantees they can do whatever they want with it, every year, as long as he's performing.