Browns cap expert pours cold water on viral Deshaun Watson cap-credit report

Cleveland Browns fans definitely didn’t ask to kick their Monday off with more Deshaun Watson contract drama, but Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk decided to stir the pot anyway. 

On Friday, Florio responded to a fan’s question on the Browns' salary cap situation, and what potential credits the team could receive via the insurance policy it took out on a portion of Watson’s fully-guaranteed deal. Florio vowed to make some calls and report back.

Based on the reaction of some national and Browns cap gurus, it appears Florio stepped out of his lane in reporting that Cleveland will receive $88 million in combined salary cap credits from 2024 through 2029.

For Browns fans familiar with Jack Duffin’s work on 247sports, that number immediately seemed far too high. Back in May, Duffin wrote about the cap credits Cleveland has already received from injury insurance on Watson’s contract. In 2024, the Browns received $1.01 million in cap credits for Watson’s missed time in 2023. In 2025, the Browns received an additional $4.825 million in credits for his injury-shortened 2024 season.

The only thing Browns fans should care about on this topic is how much cap space Cleveland will gain this year after Watson missed all of 2025 with a re-torn Achilles tendon. Duffin estimated the Browns receiving no more than 59 percent of Watson’s $46 million salary, or about $27.1 million in total.

How Florio and his sources got to that $88 million number is anyone’s guess, but it appears to be a stretch, at best.

“If you’re celebrating the $88m Watson report,” Duffin wrote on Monday night, “I would put that on hold…”

Why salary cap experts aren't buying PFT's viral Deshaun Watson report

All Browns fans are looking for is the occasional “W.” After Florio’s report went live on Monday morning, the instant reaction was something along the lines of: So the Browns did something good for a change when it comes to Deshaun Watson?

Based on all the reporting so far from well-tapped-in sources, this appears to be an erroneous piece of reporting that doesn’t really change anything for 2026 and beyond. The Browns won’t be receiving the kind of cap savings they would need to cut ties with Watson ahead of schedule. The team has been preparing to release Watson with a post-June 1 designation at the start of the 2027 league year next March, and that remains the most likely outcome.

Zac Jackson of The Athletic covered this topic in a fan mail article back in November of 2025. His take on the situation falls in lockstep with Duffin and other cap experts, like Over the Cap founder Jason Fitzgerald:

“There’s some false information floating around the internet (imagine that!) that the Browns will get more than $40 million in cap relief through the injury insurance they purchased on Watson’s contract,” Jackson wrote. “Though NFL injury insurance is still a relatively new and mysterious concept, past examples suggest the team will receive a full cash refund via insurance, but only a small portion in cap relief. We don’t yet know the exact numbers, and the exact cap hit for 2026 depends on that insurance credit and how the existing void years on Watson’s deal are ultimately structured when the final transaction is processed.”

Unfortunately, Florio’s report only fueled some of that false information on Monday. It was likely an honest mistake. NFL teams aren’t required to make details of insurance policies public. PFT probably felt it had the right read on the situation and presented a whole bunch of numbers that, honestly, made next to no sense even after rereading the article for a fifth time. 

Hey, it made for an exciting Monday and helped a lot of people get out their Fourth of July fog. But if anything, this was a cautionary tale for everyone: When it comes to the Browns' salary cap, fans should leave it to the guys who speak that language fluently.

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