The Cleveland Browns are set to receive millions towards their salary cap due to the long history of injuries with quarterback Deshaun Watson; at least that was the report that we covered back in early July. The credits, reportedly, will be spread out over several seasons and will cease in 2029.
The source of the salary cap credits is an offshoot of Watson’s restructured deal last year, which included an insurance policy.
Now, with it seeming more and more likely that Watson could be named the starter
over Shedeur Sanders, we look back on Florio’s original report and a couple of widely differing reports that have come out since we originally covered the information.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk took Watson’s restructured deal from 2025 and spent some time with it. Florio has a law degree from West Virginia University, so things such as this are right up his alley.
Florio then began to wonder himself. We aren’t sure if there is a specific answer, but it has to be significant, right? Cleveland had an insurance policy that potentially would pay millions if Watson had a torn Achilles tendon, and some time was lost. In this case, the entire year.
So, Florio decided to do the legwork and find a number and construct the query. The item was placed on his honey-do list.
Florio digs
What was the bottom-line, definitive savings for the Browns, if any? The answer could be given in a cash number or perhaps in cap space. After all, Watson inked a five-year, fully guaranteed contract, and 2026 is his final year of the deal, although there are cap breakdowns all the way until 2030.
Certainly, the insurance premiums the Browns took out on Watson were a hefty monthly payment. But it paid off.
It began with the March 2023 restructured deal, which included an “Insurance Addendum.” This add-on allowed Cleveland to purchase almost $92 million covering the 2023 through 2025 NFL seasons for any injury to Watson. The amount of coverage then varied as the seasons fell off the calendar: Over $58 million for 2024 and 2025, and just over $33 million for 2025.
The cap breakdowns show a return of his signing bonus for each year paid by the insurance policy. Watson had a shoulder injury in 2023 and a torn Achilles tendon in 2024, which he re-tore later, which spilled into the majority of 2025. The Browns had a 21-day window for his return, but the coaching staff declined to play him since the season was basically lost. In all, Watson missed 38 games over the three seasons, all under the insurance policy.
The Deshaun Watson numbers via Florio
Credits by year after the restructured 2023 agreement:
2023: $8.79 million
Here are the credits by year after the restructured 2024 contract:
2024: $8.79 million
2025: $8.79 million
2026: $8.791 million
2027: $8.755 million
2028: $8.755 million
The 2025 restructured deal, adds other credits:
2025: $7.983 million
2026: $7.992 million
2027: $8.018 million
2028: $7.983 million
2029: $7.983 million
Watson also restructured his contract again in March of 2026. That adds one more credit:
2026: $4.951 million
Wow, that is a lot of money. Right?
Not so fast. Jason from Over the Cap quickly pushed back on Florio’s reporting:
Then, Jack Duffin of The OBR, our most trusted source for Browns salary cap information, followed that up with his own numbers, which ended up being far less than what Florio reported but he noted he didn’t have the full information, as an insurance policy is not a part of records available through the NFLPA:
If you did 62% of insurance split (DBN note: Duffin did a great job reverse engineering other cap credits the Browns got to come to this number) across 17 games, then earned after 6 consecutive games missed. It is closer but the second is roughly double this amount:
2023 – $1,013,990
2024 – $2,534,974
2025 – $17,762,087
From Florio’s number of almost $90 million, it seems more likely that the team will receive around 60% of that amount ($54 million) as salary cap relief over the next few seasons, despite the entire amount being returned to owner Jimmy Haslam via the insurance policy. Still a lot of money added to the salary cap but spread out over six seasons, starting a couple of years ago, it isn’t the boon we originally covered if Duffin and OTC are correct.
Until we get to those future seasons and reporting is out, we will still be left with the uncertainty.
