Trading for Deshaun Watson would make the Cleveland Browns worse

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And then we have the issue of draft capital. Cleveland has nine picks in 2021, which is great. Sending two first-rounders is almost always a bad idea, and throwing in the fourth-rounder is just adding insult to injury.

When trading for a player, you never want to pay twice. This is what the Browns did with Beckham, and it hasn’t worked out too well (at least not from a production standpoint, but is that his fault, or Mayfield’s?).

They parted with a first-round pick and Jabrill Peppers, a key part of the secondary, for Beckham and his five-year $75 million contract. The team gave up valuable draft capital, a good, young, and cheap player, and a significant amount of cap space. Even if Beckham had continued the production from his first three campaigns, that would have been a high price.

Trading for Watson would tie Cleveland’s hands and force them to go all-in for 2021, which is not what the plan has been. The Browns can contend for a Super Bowl in 2021 with Mayfield. Does Watson make them a better team next year? Probably. Does he put them in a better spot beyond? Absolutely not, and with the talent this team would be forced to move on from, the Browns could easily find themselves in the purgatory that Houston has been in for the past four seasons.

1-31 didn’t happen so that this organization could have one good year and then blow everything trying to win a Super Bowl once. The goal has always been to build a sustainable contender, and that can be done by sticking with Mayfield. The difference between Mayfield and Watson is not big enough to justify the cost to make that change. And Mayfield is nowhere close to reaching his ceiling.

Would the Browns accept a straight-up Mayfield-for-Watson swap? Probably. Does adding what it would take to make a reasonable offer make any sense? None whatsoever.

Baker Mayfield is a franchise quarterback, and he’s the guy for the next 15-plus years ideally. He’s here to stay, and he’s here to win.