QB DeShaun Watson Open to Restructuring his Contract? What?
There have been reports that Browns quarterback DeShaun Watson is open to restructuring his contract to help the team with its salary cap issues and to also acquire more talent.
Okay, I have to make this joke. If Watson restructures his contract, then how will he pay for all his women? Too soon?
Anyway, this is via Pro Football Talk and they explain this potential change:
This year, Watson has a $46 million salary and a cap number of $54.993 million. With a minimum salary for Watson at $1.08 million, $44.92 million can be converted to a signing bonus and prorated. That would push $33.69 million to future years, and it would drop Watson’s cap number to $21.3 million.
Oh, no! Only 1.08 million dollars? What would the common folk do?
Essentially, this isn’t going to take money away from Watson but spread it out across the future years of his contract. This could actually be a very good thing for the Browns because here’s the problem.
The NFL cap is 252.3 million and the Browns are about 14 million over the cap. With the Watson contract restructuring, the team could dip under that…
—
Another interesting story in regard to Watson’s contract is the fact that Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson remains a free agent. It’s that 230 million that Watson is set to make over the course of five years. Other teams aren’t willing to fork that over to Jackson even though he is a legitimate quarterback that doesn’t carry the same baggage that Watson did/does with all of those allegations against him and not playing for an entire season.
The salary cap is interesting because it has even brought up rumors of the Browns potentially looking to trade running back Nick Chubb. In 2023, Chubb will earn a base salary of $10,850,000, while carrying a cap hit of $14,850,000 and a dead cap value of $10,860,000. Again, this would just be to simply resolve the cap issue…
There are a lot of ins and outs that go into the salary cap and everything the Browns have to figure out with the roster and who is making what moving forward. This will all hopefully be resolved before the season starts…
I do commend Watson on the willingness to restructure his contract, but it’s not like he’s losing money. It’s just going to be over the course of time. This remains to be seen if the Browns do in fact change the contract. They do have the right to do so…
Thus, let’s make this happen and stop any problems from occurring…
