Yesterday?
Don’t forget, the Browns structured the contract to ensure Watson could minimize his financial losses in the likely event he got suspended for the sexual abuse cases.
The moment the trade was accepted
Right now
The minute after it was signed and announced.
The day they signed any contract with a washed serial rapist, let alone a guaranteed contract that completely destroyed the existing league pay scale, they lost not only their future prospects of success, but also any and all good will they had garnered as sad sack underdogs. The Browns will never win a playoff game with Watson and will have a hard time finding support or selling merchandise to anyone who isn’t a resident of Northern Ohio with Stockholm Syndrome.
When they paid a sexual predator
Honestly, this guy’s career will be so interesting to look back on in the future. He started out so hot and beloved among the league only to become a small footnote in the sport. Just shy of an awkward anomaly.
Hard to say its a disaster when the team is 4-2.
You’d think they looked like the bears the way people are letting their own hatred bias their judgment.
The 4-2 is not indicative of whether or not the Watson trade is a disaster as wins are a team metric that is heavily weighted, but not completely reliant on the QB. If that was the case, the argument for it being a disaster would be as simple as pointing out that PJ Walker has led the team to half those victories for a measly $1m as opposed to a $230m fully guaranteed boat anchor contract.
But let’s look at it more objectively. Over the past couple of weeks, Jordan Love has become the leaguewide punching bag and the situation in Green Bay is being described as a disaster. Let’s compare the 2 QBs current season side by side, keeping in mind that Love has 6 games compared to Watson starting (but not completing) 4.
Love - Watson
Comp% 57.5 - 61.7
QBR 79.4 - 80.9
Yards/gm 210.5 - 170.8
Yards/att 6.5 - 6.4
Long 77 - 43
TD% 5.2 - 3.7
TD/INT 10/7 - 4/3
Fum(L) 2(0) - 4(2)
Rush yards 130 - 83
Yards/att 6.2 - 5.5
Yards/gm 21.7 - 20.8
Long 26 - 13
TDs 2 - 1
2023 cap hit $4.4m - $19.5m
2024 cap hit $7.7m - $64m
Guaranteed $13.5m - $230m
Signed thru 2024 - 2027Green Bay used their own 1st round pick (26th overall) to acquire Jordan Love. The Browns traded 2022, 2023, and 2024 1st round picks as well as a 2023 3rd round pick, and 2022 and 2024 4th round picks to acquire Watson and a 2024 6th round pick. Not to mention that Watson sat out for the Texans in 2021, and had a lengthy suspension in 2022. The Browns still traded the farm for him knowing that his suspension meant that he wouldnt be able to join the team for quite some time while also casting mystery on what almost 2 seasons on the sidelines would mean for his level of play once back. For a team that has cycled through QBs at an alarming pace over the past couple of decades, it’s no surprise that Watson will likely be added to the pile. But considering the baggage that he brings with him, anything short of a run to the Super Bowl should be considered a massive err in judgment by this team. Even if that were to happen, it still shows a lack of character in the organization to trade away their future for a somebody like Watson.
TL:DR - At this point, unless something drastically changes for the Browns with Watson as QB, this has been a failure.
When they gave a sexual predator a guaranteed contract. They gave a bunch of money to a guy that couldn’t get hired as a P.E coach.
The moment they made it
You could argue it’s a disaster right now, but at least they’re still winning games. If/when they start losing is when it’ll be panic mode
Immediately upon signing. Almost regardless of his success on the field, IMO.
That article title implies we might not have reached that point yet, which is kinda funny. It was overwhelmingly questionable when they even traded for him; he basically needed to be an All-Pro to try justifying being allowed to play*, and not only is he not that, he’s been one of the NFL’s worst quarterbacks when he’s played. On a insane contract, too.
*Don’t construe this as "if he’s an All-Pro, then it makes up for the allegations. I’m talking purely from a PR perspective with the Browns; my personal views on Watson are just as negative as anyone else here.
Yeah, the difficult part about assessing this trade is the sexual assault allegations. Like, most of us would agree that having a QB with 30 sexual assualt/sexual harassment cases is bad, because that QB is a piece of shit, so from that perspective any trade for Watson is bad the moment it gets made.
However, looking at this from a purely on-the-field perspective (hard to do, yes, because Watson is a piece of shit), I can see why the Browns made the trade. It’s based on three assumptions: 1) Baker had hit his ceiling as a mid-QB, certainly not on the level of Mahomes and Allen; 2) Watson was better than Baker at that time; 3) Watson had not hit his ceiling and could potentially be a top-5 QB in the league. Now, you can debate all three of those points, but that’s what Cleveland was operating on - and after the 2020 season, the narrative on Deshaun was that he was a great QB wasted on a shit franchise in the Texans.
Top-5 QBs, or potential top-5 QBs, don’t typically become available in their late 20s unless there’s some heavy baggage involved like a spotty injury history or torched relationships with the owner and front office. That baggage typically isn’t 30 harassment/sexual assault cases, but the Browns FO still saw that as baggage all the same. And the thing with baggage is that, typically people stop caring as much if the guy comes in and plays like a top-5 QB and the team wins a bunch of games. You’ll never really live down trading for a sex pest in the eyes of a lot of people, but if Deshaun has them regularly competing for titles playing like the top-5 QB they think he can become, they aren’t going to care. Lots of Super Bowl teams had some absolute pieces of shit as their best players. The Super Bowls count all the same and last I checked the Browns don’t have any of those yet.
The fully guaranteed contract was dumb as hell, but I look at that from the perspective of 1) Watson didn’t want to play for the Browns (reports at the time were that he greatly preferred Atlanta or Miami), 2) the Browns thought this was their best chance (and maybe their only chance for a long while) to get a potential top-5 QB on their roster, 3) they needed a trump card that would get him in the building, because he wasn’t even considering them as an option. So, hell, throw a bunch of money at him and guarantee the contract. Yes, you run the risk of him mailing it in, but at least he’s in the building and you just hope that he’ll be motivated to play to his best abilities.