It’s that time of the year when weak and dejected teams have no choice but to trade their players to make room for new ones in the next year. One of those teams is the Cleveland Browns. Their problems have continued to mount ever since they gave Deshaun Watson a $230 million fully guaranteed contract. Watson’s season-ending Achilles injury has left the Browns in a storm in the middle of the ocean. They have no option but to empty the boat right now. What does that mean? This means they have to trade players from the roster to make cap space to absorb the hits they’ve taken from Watson’s injury. They already started it with Amari Cooper.

Cooper getting traded to the Buffalo Bills means other teams are also trying to get in touch with the Browns to see if a guy like Myles Garrett is up for grabs. Albert Breer speculated on what will happen to teams like the Browns and the Raiders who are in heaps of trouble right now. He went to The Rich Eisen Show and dropped some food for thought.

“Trading Amari Cooper that’s a bad signal like we’re open for business, right,” that quote from Breer’s appearance on The Rich Eisen Show is enough for everyone to understand that the Browns are out of any sort of contention in this season now that they are 1-6. This came after the loss to the Washington Commanders. Now, the Browns have received a third-round pick for the 2025 draft and a seventh-round pick in the 2026 draft. They’ve traded him for a handful of peanuts. The Browns GM Andrew Barry must be punching the air right now.

But for Cooper, this trade is a blessing in disguise. He thinks he’s headed for an “increased role” and “more opportunities” that he can “pounce on.” Breer is right when he says the Browns are open for business. That means they cannot keep up with Deshaun Watson’s contract, and releasing him will do more harm than good to the Browns.

How did Deshaun Watson mess up the Cleveland Browns?

We’ll talk about the cap implications in a bit. But consider this, Watson hasn’t played more than 7 games in each of the last three seasons. The game against the Bengals was his 19 game in 3 years. If that’s not a sign of a dismal investment, we don’t know what is.

Moreover, Watson makes a base salary of $45 million this year. So if the Browns decide to prematurely release him somehow, they’ll be hit with a $200.7 million dead cap. If they do it next year, it will be $172.7 million in cap hit to the Browns. There seems to be no way out at the moment.

“According to a copy of Watson’s contract obtained by ESPN, the Browns have up to $13.9 million of Watson’s 2024 salary insured and up to $44.2 million of his 2025 salary insured,” per Daniel Oyefusi’s article on ESPN. Soon, as Breer also concurred, the Browns might get calls for Myles Garret and Z’Darius Smith. And if the situation is dire, the Cleveland team might have to let go of their franchise-caliber players.