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Right around the time the browns thought "hey, let's trade for DeShaun Watson"
I mean the whole entire time lol
When the dolphins who were anti-tua at that point backed out of trading for watson at the last minute, the Browns should have rethought things. See, the thing about rushing to make a mistake as a franchise isn't just that you hurt yourself, it's that you keep another franchise from making that mistake. By not dumping Tua for watson, miami let the browns be the guys who made that mistake.
ATM Watson is the 26th rated QB by rating. He's 24th by qbr if you like it. Either way, this super expensive guy with a fully guaranteed contract who also cost you picks is stuck in the bottom quarter of QBs and needs to be dumped. But the browns can't dump him.
The biggest failure is if the Browns had an average QB, their defense would let them make a superbowl run. Baker Mayfield today, who the browns cut lose, would probably good enough with their defense to make a superbowl run. Crazy how that worked out.
At this point they've got a good chance of making the playoffs, but I don't think they'd last long. So considering how he's playing, it's already a disaster because the defense is ready now and he isn't.
Has it not been being considered one for months now?
the minute it happened?
When it happened.
Day 1 easily
How many years did they sign him for?
When Watson was accused of sexually assaulting 23 people.
When they came up with the idea of trading for him knowing what he did
Now
Agreeing to a fully guaranteed, market-setting contract for a guy that hadn't played in two years.
Moving forward with the contract after he was credibly accused of multiple instances of sexual assault.
When he started and has continued to play like absolute dogwater.
Really, any of those would have been it, but combined they've set a standard for ineptitude that has exceeded even previous Browns-related expecations.
Wasn’t it dubbed that as soon as it was announced? And nothing he’s done since then has changed that narrative.
Is right when the trade happened an option?
It’s been a disaster from the word go. The league’s ultimate underdog became instantly hated and the sex offender hasn’t been any good.
Not to mention the $230 million guaranteed
I am all for that trade. I don’t think I’ve seen a better trade ever made in the history of the Texans, at least. Which isn’t saying much, I’ll admit.
But, not our problem. And, we drafted a very promising QB. So, thanks Browns!
It was a disaster the day they did it, lol
Well the issue is is that it can be called one right now. As of this moment, it is beyond a trainwreck. The only reason it's not seen as a bigger one is because they're team away from Watson has been performing well. But they've traded major picks away for a guy who has become the literal opposite of what they needed.
The only question from here is, what ceiling remains? How good can the trade become? If Watson becomes 75% of what he was in Houston at his prime, would it have been worth it? Can Watson get back to being even 50% of his prime? Right now not many of these futures has an upside.
Right now
When pen hit paper
??? Haven’t we already said this was a bad stupid trade
Even if you ignore all the rapes, the answer is about two weeks ago
It was from day one lol
It's crazy that the two worst trades in NFL history were made in the same offseason
Is it not already
Day 1. For the trade to be a success he needed to perform immediately like a top 3-5 qb (he hasn’t) and they needed both their part round picks they had left to be massive hits AND they needed to move some pieces for earlier round draft capital to keep the team salary cap in check. He’s a 64ish million hit next year and regardless what you do from this point you almost are forced to offload solid pieces to make the $$ work
Literally when they made the trade lol. PR nightmare, ungodly guaranteed money, etc.
Before it was even agreed upon.
I think this article signals it
The minute he signed that $230M fully guaranteed deal that intentionally structured his first year contract to lose as little money as possible from his suspension. That was when it should have been considered a disaster.
If it wasn’t for the Browns circumventing the Texans, which is why they had to add an additional l 3rd round pick, the Texans probably were going to get a better deal from the Falcons.
I’m so glad this isn’t the Dolphins and it was oh so close to being the Dolphins.
Yeah, I think most of us were there as soon as it happened.
Quincy Avery and Ryan Clark going to call the article writer a racist
The day the trade was made. Lol
Immediately. Dumbass organization.
Soon as the ink dried
When they made the trade it was that
When the Ink dried?
Yesterday
I hate Watson but to be as unbiased as possible, not yet. They're 4-2 somehow. If he doesn't improve at all, or he gets so expensive they have to lose Myles Garrett or something like that. If they make the playoffs the next 3 years then it is what it is there are so many good qbs getting to the playoffs and being lucky to get healthy and hot at the right time is the name of the game.
Two years ago
The day it was signed.
Why did such an unbelievably stupid article get 535 upvotes?
So I decided to put Deshaun Watson hatred aside and just look at his stats and compensation to see how bad is contract actually is. To do this, I looked at the pro football reference Approximate Value (AV) and cap number as percent of salary cap (Cap %) for every QB in 2022 who started at least as many games as DeShaun Watson, which is 4 games. In this way, we can compare how much production each team got in 2022 in return for the salary cap spending.
Top AV/Cap%
By this metric, DeShaun Watson was the 33rd ranked QB contract year with AV/Cap% of 93, or the 6th worst of all QBs with at least 4 starts, so as of the start of this season it was already a disaster.
The only contracts worse than his by this metric, Kirk Cousins, Matt Ryan, Sam Darnold, Ryan Tannehill, and Carson Wentz, in that order. Each of these player took up at least 8.8% of the cap, and all of them except Kirk were 29th or worse in total production. Kirk was 12th, but took up 15% of the cap, which is 3rd most expensive.
But - we should note it was not because he was bad, but because of his sexual misconduct suspension that he only played 6 games. The length of this suspension was originally supposed to be only 6 games total, so he would have played 11 games. If Watson had played 11 games under the original suspension terms, and had the same amount of AV per game, he would have had the 22nd ranked QB contract year - merely on the bad side of mediocre, but not a disaster. If he had started all 17 games it would have been 20th ranked. The additional 5 games imposed after appeal therefore turned it from a kinda bad contract year to a disaster.
Now, we don't know how Watson will play for the remainder of his contract. But if he continues to play similarly at 0.67 AV per start, and we assume the QBs on average will perform similarly and be compensated similarly over the remainder of his contract as they did in 2022, we can look at where each year of his contract would rank on a per game basis, had it occurred in 2022.
What would we have to do simply not be overpaid? Well, in that particularly horrendous 2024-2026 stretch, he would have to put out something like 123 AV just be to be ranked 19th (out of 38 QBs with at least 4 starts). Patrick Mahomes put out 17 AV in 2022, for comparison.
This contract was in fact a disaster from the start, no matter who it was, because an QB would have to be about 7x better than Patrick Mahomes for at least 3 out of 7 years just to not be overpaid. 32% of the cap for 3 years guaranteed for 3 years is truly and utterly insane.