Deshaun Watson officially suffered a season-ending injury. An MRI on Monday revealed a ruptured Achilles tendon, which means the Cleveland Browns will likely recoup a lot of money through a secret insurance policy depending on the terms of their agreement.
The organization could get back millions of dollars in salary cap relief.
Injuries are an unavoidable part of professional sports. NFL teams understand that reality and do their best to mitigate any potential losses if one of their well-compensated stars goes down like Watson did over the weekend. According to Kalyn Kahler of ESPN, approximately 50% of the league’s 32 teams have an insurance policy on their most expensive contract.
It’s usually the teams that get absolutely steamrolled into overpaying a player [that buy insurance], and so it’s like [the front-office’s] saving grace to try to present it to ownership. It’s like, “We’ll get your money back if he gets hurt.”
— Ex-salary cap executive, via ESPN
13 of the 14 most expensive quarterback contracts in the NFL are insured. Watson’s absurdly expensive, full-guaranteed deal with Cleveland is one of them. Thank goodness!
Deshaun Watson’s contract is insured.
If Watson is indeed out for the current season, and maybe even a portion of next season, that multimillion-dollar insurance policy will be worth every penny. It already is! The Browns received $4.1 million in end-of-year cap adjustments for 2024 because Watson missed 11 games last year. They are likely going to receive an additional credit for next season because their quarterback cannot return.
NFL organizations are not required to file their insurance policies to the NFLPA or the league office, so there is no way to know exactly how much this premium might cost or what a payout might look like. However, Kahler reported in September that $58,176,466 of his 2024/25 compensation is insured.
Should that be the case, and it gets the full payout, Cleveland would recoup approximately 25% of Deshaun Watson’s entire contract. This little-known, but highly-utilized insurance loophole will be an extremely worthwhile gamble.
And… in some very twisted way… not having to pay Watson and not having to play Watson might actually be the best-case scenario. He has not played well but he was too expensive to relegate to the bench.