The Cleveland Browns’ five-year, $230-million deal with Deshaun Watson has lived in infamy for quite some time now. And it figures to be a while, if ever, before the franchise will be allowed to live it down.
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Watson is now entering the final year of his contract, and considering the fact that he hasn’t played a single down of professional football since October of 2023, some have begun to wonder whether or not he’ll even be the starter in 2026. However, according to NFL Hall of Famer Cris Carter, the franchise still has no choice but to retain him, especially now that Shedeur Sanders is the only other notable quarterback in the room.
“They are going to keep him around and restructure his contract again,” Carter noted during the latest episode of his Fully Loaded podcast. “It’s still too much guaranteed money just to cut him.”
After years of injuries, suspensions, and various frustrations, Carter is confident that Watson is “going to get a great opportunity,” and that, if he is able to make the most of it, then we could end up being in the early stages of one of the most unlikely resurgences in NFL history.
“What a story that would be,” Carter scoffed. “Because, everyone has given up on him.”
Unfortunately for Watson, that hasn’t been without reason either. Apart from the extracurricular activities that ultimately resulted in his violation of the league’s personal conduct policy, the last time that anyone saw him in a Browns’ jersey was during the midst of a five-game losing streak.
The Browns have done their best to minimize the damage, most recently by reworking Watson’s contract yet again to default more than $44 million into future void years, but even that is proving to be a double-edged sword as even though it lowers his 2026 cap hit by more than $35 million, it also raises his 2027 dead cap hit to a staggering $86.2 million. In other words, Cleveland will have to continually eat this contract for years to come.
While the particulars of the deal have never been particularly pretty, what has always made it the most painful one in recent memory is just how little of a return Cleveland has gotten on it. Since 2022, Watson has only started in a grand total of 19 games, and even then, the Browns still lost 10 of them.
So even though Carter suggests that Watson is still capable of finally providing the franchise with some type of dividend, it would ultimately be too little too late for a club that’s cemented itself as the laughing stock of the league.
