Mar 25, 2022 4 min read

The Browns panicked.

That’s what happened, quite simply, when Cleveland suddenly jumped back into the Deshaun Watson market after being told last week they had been eliminated.

Watson didn’t want to go to Cleveland – until the Browns offered to back a Brinks truck up to his house loaded with money.

Suddenly, Cleveland seemed like Watson’s best chance to resurrect his career and re-establish himself as an NFL superstar. It’s amazing what a five-year, $230-million contract that is fully guaranteed will buy.

The Browns also gave up three first-round draft picks, two fourth-round picks and a third-round selection to acquire Watson. Cleveland also gets a 2024 sixth-round pick in return from Houston.

Somewhere, Herschel Walker is chuckling. Walker was the last player in the NFL dealt in a trade that included one team receiving three first-round picks. Ironically, it was the Browns in 1989 who were outbid by the Vikings for Walker.

Apparently, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam didn’t want to see that happen again. He overwhelmed Watson with the compensation package he was offering.

The key? Watson’s base salary in 2022 is only $1 million. That’s key because Watson faces a suspension of some length regarding the 22 sexual misconduct allegations in Houston.

Because the Browns made his base salary – on a $230-million contract – at just $1 million for 2022, when the NFL suspends him – and it will suspend him – he’ll lose just 1/17th of $1 million for every game he sits out.

But in making sure they got their man, the Browns just might have hurt their own cause. The NFL is unhappy with the way Cleveland helped Watson game the system.

This is, after all, a player who signed a new contract with the Texans before the 2020 season, then decided a year later that he didn’t want to play in Houston any longer. Fine. That was his decision.

Then, however, all the allegations of sexual misconduct during massage sessions came out.

Watson sat out last season, while still being paid by the Texans. And though a grand jury refused to bring criminal charges against the quarterback in relation to the allegations, there remain a number of civil lawsuits that still must be settled.

Yet Watson got a huge raise out of all of this.

That’s not sitting right with the league. Nor is the fact the Browns helped Watson potentially avoid what would be hefty fines by the league by making his first-year base salary so little.

Don’t be surprised if the NFL comes down even harder on Watson because of that. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him suspended for the entire 2022 season.

n The Herschel Walker trade, by the way, didn’t work out well for the Vikings, either. While they went 10-6 and won their division after acquiring Walker in the midseason trade in 1989. They lost in the first round of the playoffs.

Minnesota went a combined 14-18 over the next two seasons and Walker was gone.

The Cowboys used all the draft picks they acquired to help build a team that won three Super Bowls.

n No, the Steelers aren’t likely to “pounce” on Baker Mayfield when the Browns release him as a report out of Cleveland surmised. And Cleveland likely will wind up having to release its former starting quarterback and the No. 1-overall pick in the 2018 draft.

Why would a team trade for Mayfield when they know the Browns aren’t going to keep him, especially considering Mayfield has an $18.5-million fully guaranteed salary?

And why would the Steelers be interested in acquiring a quarterback who has a lower career completion percentage, higher interception percentage and lower winning percentage while also being less mobile than Mitch Trubisky, the quarterback they signed last week in free agency?

The answer is that they wouldn’t. They played against Mayfield twice a year the past few years. They know his limitations as well as anyone.

n One big bonus for everyone outside of Cleveland that will come out of this whole sordid episode is that all of those “At home with Baker Mayfield” insurance commercials will go away.

Shouldn’t you have to accomplish something before you get a national commercial that’s played, oh I don’t know, seemingly 100 times per day?

n Why would the Pirates be quibbling with Bryan Reynolds over less than $1 million in arbitration when their payroll is estimated by Spotrac.com to be less than $40 million and 28th among Major League Baseball’s 30 teams?

Reynolds asked for $4.9 million. The Pirates offered $4.25 million.

Reynolds batted .302 with 24 home runs and 90 RBI last season. Nobody else on their roster had more than 11 home runs or 53 RBI.

The Pirates need to pay that man his money.