The Cleveland Browns are facing a fresh start – what feels like their eighth in the last ten years. The franchise had actually turned a corner, but Deshaun Watson has set the Browns back years again. An opinion piece.

The Cleveland Browns were actually on an excellent path.

In 2020, Cleveland was still in the Divisional Round of the NFL. The Browns lost to the Kansas City Chiefs that year due to a dubious call by the referees, but the future looked bright.

Kevin Stefanski was named Coach of the Year and young players like Baker Mayfield, Nick Chubb, Denzel Ward and Myles Garrett were already playing at the top level. Actually, everything was set for the former laughing stock of the NFL to become a force to be reckoned with in the AFC in the years to come.

Actually. Because at the beginning of 2025, the Browns are once again a shambles. It is the preliminary low point of what is arguably the worst trade in recent NFL history: Deshaun Watson.

Cleveland Browns: Garrett’s trade request results from Watson’s disastrous trade

The fact that Cleveland took an incredibly high risk with Watson was probably known to those in charge even when the contract was signed. The Browns paid a total of six picks, including three first-rounders, for the quarterback.

Not only that, they also gave the playmaker, who was coming from a holdout with the Houston Texans, $230 million – fully guaranteed. Not to mention the accusations against Watson.

And now? Watson is either a permanent guest at rehab or, on the rare occasions when he is able to be on the field, he plays like a mediocre backup quarterback.

Reason enough for superstar Garrett, who was drafted first by the Browns in 2017, to ask for a trade. It’s the logical consequence. Why should one of the best pass rushers since the turn of the millennium spend his best time with such a – once again – wreck of a franchise?

Cleveland Browns: No money, no players, no prospects

Because what should improve in Cleveland in the short term? Nick Chubb’s knee has been patched up more often than a Trabant with exactly as many kilometers on the clock as Watson gets in a year’s salary. Realistically, it is out of the question that Watson will ever reach the form he was in during his time with the Texans again.

At least the Browns have a first-round pick again this year – for the first time since 2021. And even though they are gaining tons of talent with it, there won’t be a player who turns the franchise around all at once. Accordingly, the Browns have no choice but to give up their nominally best player. Because the market for Garrett is there. Anything less than two first-round picks as compensation for the one-man wrecking ball is hardly conceivable.

To make matters worse, the Browns not only have no money, they also have to address their cap space problems first. Currently, they are over $30 million in the red. Trading away Garrett alone wouldn’t even be enough. A certain Deshaun Watson alone will eat up over $70 million of the salary cap in 2025.

If the Browns don’t land multiple home runs in this and probably the next draft, then the franchise is destined to be stuck in mediocrity in the medium term.

The snowball that is Deshaun Watson has now become a veritable avalanche.