Deshaun Watson blockbuster trade details with Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are the latest AFC team to pull off a blockbuster trade, acquiring quarterback Deshaun Watson from the Houston Texans.
The 2022 NFL offseason continues to prove itself to be maybe the greatest offseason in recent memory. Maybe ever. The latest blockbuster trade involves former Houston Texans franchise quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has been traded to the Cleveland Browns for a king’s ransom of draft picks.
This trade is just the latest in a long line of impressive deals being made by NFL teams this offseason. Some of the players on the move via trade:
- QB Russell Wilson (Denver Broncos)
- EDGE Khalil Mack (Los Angeles Chargers)
- WR Davante Adams (Las Vegas Raiders)
Deshaun Watson trade finally happens, Cleveland Browns pay up
Let’s take a look at the full details of the trade, at least as of the time of this post being written.
Cleveland Browns get:
- QB Deshaun Watson
- 5th-round pick
Houston Texans get:
- 2022 1st-round pick
- 2023 1st-round pick
- 2024 1st-round pick
- 3rd-round pick
- 4th-round pick
Deshaun Watson gets:
- 5-year, $230 million contract, fully guaranteed
At $46 million annually, Deshaun Watson remains one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in NFL history and not only that, but his fully guaranteed $230 million deal with the Browns is the biggest guaranteed contract in league history.
Considering the context and circumstances around Watson, that is perhaps the most staggering fact about this entire deal.
One note about the draft picks going back to the Houston Texans — we are only able to assume at this point that the selections going back to Houston are picks in 2022, 2023, and 2024. NFL teams can only trade draft picks so far out into the future, though that detail remains slightly vague. It’s possible one of the first-round picks could be as late as 2025.
Again, at this point, the years in which the picks will be is an assumption. What we know is that the Texans have three first-round picks incoming from the Cleveland Browns, who have already made another trade this offseason to acquire wide receiver Amari Cooper, Watson’s new number one receiver.
The Houston Texans will now embark on a journey to find their next franchise quarterback. It could be Davis Mills, who showed a lot of promise in his rookie season. The Texans kept Pep Hamilton around amidst their offseason coaching changes and Hamilton is credited with helping Mills succeed early as a rookie.
With Mills in place, as well as multiple first-round picks in each of the next handful of draft classes, the Houston Texans and general manager Nick Caserio now have the ultimate flexibility. Caserio threw a ton of darts at the 2021 free agent class when he didn’t have any picks in the first two rounds of the draft to work with.
Up to this point, he’s done a pretty outstanding job and showed that some of those dart throws were very worthwhile, parlaying some of those pickups into other trades and re-signing a handful of those guys in 2022.
With that said, the loss of Watson cannot be overstated in terms of his on-field impact. The last time we saw Watson playing, he was playing at an MVP-caliber level weekly.
We’ll have to see how different he looks after a full season of not playing in any games.
For now, the Browns will be dealing with a very odd PR situation given Watson’s off-field issues and the fact that they just handed him the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history. Not only that, but the Browns also gave Watson a base salary of just $1 million in 2022 in the event that he is suspended, his pay will only be docked from that.
The Houston Texans can now move on, and the AFC continues to be absolutely loaded at the QB position.
The Browns will soon recoup some of their lost Draft assets in a Baker Mayfield trade.