Deshaun Watson's season-ending Achilles rupture in Week 7 leaves the Cleveland Browns in a complex spot as the front office looks ahead to 2025.
Next season, the 29-year-old will enter the fourth year of the record-setting five-year, $230 million guaranteed contract signed in 2022. The Browns owe Watson a salary of $46 million in each of the final two years.
ESPN senior NFL national reporter Dan Graziano believes it's time for the Browns to take the "best solution" available to rid themselves of Watson's debilitating contract as soon as possible.
In listing Watson as a possible "surprise" cut candidate this offseason, Graziano all but acknowledged that Cleveland needs to cut its losses and accept a $172.7 million dead-money hit, spread over the next two years.
"There comes a point when the negatives outweigh the positives and it's worth just eating the cost," Graziano wrote. "Since the positives have been stuck close to or at zero for three years, one has to believe the Browns have reached that point. Designating him as a post-June 1 cut would allow them to spread the dead-money hit out over two years, and that's probably the best solution the Browns have right now.
"It will hurt. It will set the franchise back years. It could cost people their jobs. But the mistake was made in 2022, and unfortunately, there's just no clean way out of it."
As Graziano noted, the Denver Broncos were left holding the largest bag in NFL history earlier this year when they took on $85 million in dead cap space to cut quarterback Russell Wilson. If the Browns elected to travel down a similar path with Watson in the coming months, they would more than double that total.
