The Browns are still carrying Deshaun Watson on the books, but the financial escape hatch is getting closer.
By March of 2027, Cleveland will be down to two realistic paths with the quarterback’s contract: cut him with a post-June 1 release and absorb the remaining dead-cap hits in 2027 and 2028, which are estimated at about $86.2 million by Over the Cap; or extend him again with added dummy years and push the pain farther into the future. That second route looks highly unlikely. Watson has played only 19 games since signing his fully guaranteed $230 million deal in 2022, and the Browns are expected to move on when the time comes.
There’s another piece of this contract that could soften the blow before then. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk recently addressed a fan question about the Browns’ injury insurance tied to Watson, who missed half of 2024 and all of 2025 because of Achilles injuries. The exact figure has not been made public, but the payout should deliver meaningful financial relief during the 2026 league year.
“I don’t know the specific answer, but it has to be significant,” Florio said of the pending insurance credit. “They had a policy.
It pays out millions if he suffers an injury that keeps him from playing. And this isn’t something the team’s advertised.
It isn’t something that gets filed with the NFLPA. It’s a number that I’m going to have to go out and construct.
So … I don’t have the answer for you now, but it’s on my list of things to explore: What was the ultimate bottom line savings, as a practical matter, for the Cleveland Browns in cash and cap space?
And remember, the way they structured his contract - this is one of the reasons he’s still on the team, the five-year, fully-guaranteed contract, $46 million a year - they have kicked the can, and kicked the can, and kicked the can going with the smallest possible cap hits in the early years. They’ve got some big cap charges still left. Last year’s insurance payments, and the cap credits from those, will help make it easier as the Browns move into the non-Deshaun Watson cap years that are coming up in 2027, 2028, and I think they’ve smoothed it all the way out to 2029.”
The key point is that the Browns should get something back, even if it won’t be a clean one-for-one refund of Watson’s $46 million annual average. Insurance on an NFL contract doesn’t work that way. Still, with Watson having missed the past 27 games, any cap relief matters.
Fans now have tools like Spotrac and Over the Cap to follow this stuff closely, and the old “because of the cap” explanation doesn’t carry much weight anymore. Since Watson signed in 2022, Cleveland has already operated as one of the league’s biggest cash spenders under Jimmy Haslam.
So while Watson is still owed every dollar in his deal, the Browns appear headed for at least some financial help from the insurance side of the contract. That should ease part of the dead-money burden waiting in future seasons and make the transition into 2027 a little less painful.
Watson gets the money and a shot to reset as an unrestricted free agent. Cleveland gets a chance to claw back some cap space from one of the worst trade-and-contract decisions the NFL has seen.
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