The Browns shouldn’t have any issues with cap space this season.
Field Yates of ESPN reports that the team has restructured the contract of quarterback Deshaun Watson ahead of next week’s start to the regular season. The team converted $44.79 million of his salary for the coming year into a signing bonus.
The move creates $35.832 million in cap space and leaves the Browns with over $62 million in cap space. It also bumps up Watson’s salary cap hit for each of the next two seasons, but Watson’s fully guaranteed salaries for those seasons mean that the team already had plenty of cap exposure with the quarterback.
Should Watson’s performance not rise above what the Browns have already seen from him, those numbers will be the subject of much hand-wringing in Cleveland.