Deshaun Watson’s unprecedented contract with the Cleveland Browns aged so poorly that the team remains in the latter stages of a multi-year exit plan. The Browns would probably love to move on now, with the official start of the new league year arriving on Wednesday, but the salary cap ramifications make Watson a lock to remain on the roster in 2026.
Cleveland’s plan is to finally sever ties with Watson in March of 2027, when they can use a post-June 1 designation to split what was projected to be an NFL-record dead cap charge over two years. The overall number will be about $86.2 million, with $34.6 million hitting the Browns’ cap number in 2027, and another $51.5 million hitting their cap in 2028.
That’s obviously not ideal, but the Browns left themselves no wiggle room after signing Watson to a fully-guaranteed, $230 million deal following their blockbuster trade with Houston in 2022. Next spring will mark the end of an error, and fans have been bracing for the “largest dead-cap hit in NFL history” headline for years now.
On that front, the Miami Dolphins’ new regime just eased some of that future burden.
In releasing quarterback Tua Tagovailoa on Monday, the Dolphins will eat an accelerated $99 million cap charge — somehow making Cleveland’s pending hit for Watson look more like a drop in the proverbial bucket.
Officially an end of an era in Miami. This dead cap charge even exceeds what the Browns would take for cutting Deshaun Watson next offseason. https://t.co/ygdQSJ2Od1
— Daniel Oyefusi (@DanielOyefusi) March 9, 2026
Miami just made Cleveland’s QB disaster look less painful
This is hardly something for Browns fans to celebrate, but they can at least take some solace in recent company. The Denver Broncos found themselves in a similar position with Russell Wilson at the start of the Sean Payton era, and the Browns will soon make their transition from Watson official in Year 2 of Todd Monken’s tenure.
Per Over the Cap founder Jason Fitzgerald, the Dolphins can break up Tagovailoa’s dead-cap charges in two ways, and neither of them are ideal. They’ll either carry a dead-cap charge of $67.4 million or $55.4 million on their books in 2026, depending on how they approach an option bonus in the contract.
Cleveland’s situation is much more strategic, as the Browns will carry their largest cap charge for Watson in 2028, allowing them ample time to prepare and project where the NFL’s cap number will land. The cap jumped $22 million between 2025 and 2026 alone, and the expectation is for more growth in the coming years.
The whole situation was an organization-wide blunder that will stick with owner Jimmy Haslam and the franchise well into the future, but these things happen in the NFL at the quarterback position. It happened with Denver. It’s happening currently in Miami. It’s also happening, to a slightly lesser extent, with the Arizona Cardinals and Kyler Murray.
That grouping is about as unceremonious as it gets in sports, but at least the Browns are no longer projected to be 1 of 1 in the dead-money department? Browns fans will take whatever wins they can get right now.