Dawgs By Nature
We’ve talked about the insurance the Cleveland Browns have had on Deshaun Watson’s contract in the past, but how much money has the organization actually saved over time?
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk was asked by a fan how much Cleveland saved due to an insurance policy of Watson missing the entire 2025 season. Fans had feared at one point that Watson would recover sooner and try to force a return to action, which could negate that insurance policy. Even though Watson returned to some team activities, he was never activated.
According to the NFLPA records that PFT obtained, from 2023 to 2030, they found several records noting “a return of [signing bonus] from insurance policy.” In total, it shows that the Browns received :
In total, the payments add up to $88.781 million in cap credit from 2024 to 2029, as a result of Watson’s shoulder injuries in 2023 and the Achilles tendon injury suffered in 2024. As PFT notes, while the contract given to Watson has often been talked about as one of the worst in NFL history given what Cleveland gave up and how they’ve gotten nothing out of it, the insurance premiums that Cleveland paid to protect themselves (albeit expensive in themselves) definitely appears to have paid off.
All of this seemed to stem from a March 2023 restructuring of Watson’s original five-year deal with the Browns that contained an Insurance Addendum that allowed the Browns to purchase up to $91,801,463 in insurance covering 2023, 2024, and 2025 for an injury occurring between the signing of the contract and the start of the 2023 offseason program.
