Browns Don’t Want Deshaun Watson to Play This Season? Mike Florio Lists Down Two Reasons

The Cleveland Browns paid a premium price to purchase what they thought was a limited edition Ford Mustang in 2022, but instead received a Tesla. The team paid $230 million, fully guaranteed to acquire Deshaun Watson from the Texans, but in three years of his playing, the quarterback has 3,365 passing yards and 19 touchdowns.

Note that Watson finished his final season in Houston with 4,823 yards and 33 touchdowns.

Watson has been plagued by controversy and injuries since he joined the Browns. The quarterback got off to a terrible start in 2024 until he tore his right Achilles tendon, just a year after he had recovered from a season-ending shoulder injury. Disaster struck once again after the quarterback tore the right Achilles once again while rehabbing.

Cleveland understands that the team’s big gamble on Watson has backfired on it. They lost capital, and no team in the NFL would be willing to hear a trade offer for Watson, considering his off-the-field adventures.

As Watson continues to recover, he will probably miss most, if not all, of the 2025 NFL season. In the interim, the Browns continue to hold an intense quarterback camp to choose the team’s next starting quarterback.

With Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel, and Shedeur Sanders battling it out for the top job, there is a possibility that fans have seen the last of Watson in a Browns jersey. If all Cleveland needed was a quarterback to hold the fort down until Watson returns, they wouldn’t have drafted two quarterbacks. They would unanimously consider Joe Flacco as the starting QB for the upcoming season.

Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio’s recent comments all but confirm that Cleveland hopes its $230 million quarterback will not play this season.

He sure as hell wants to, and if he gets a clean bill of health, that’s gonna complicate Cleveland’s plan this year. They’d love for him not to play, they have an insurance policy if he’s unable to play because of his twice torn Achilles tendon, they get back a lot of cash, they recover a lot of cap space, and they really don’t need him…

Florio was responding to a fan asking him if Watson would ever take another snap in the NFL.

The Cleveland Browns may be reluctant to clear Deshaun Watson medically this season

The Browns have all the incentive to keep the quarterback on the sidelines. As the analyst mentioned, the team has an insurance policy against Deshaun Watson, which means if the quarterback cannot play the 2025 season due to a legitimate medical cause, then Cleveland will cash in on a sizeable amount.

Interestingly, Florio warns of a likely scenario where the team will keep Watson sidelined and delay clearing him medically. Such an incident will result in a conflict, as Watson will get frustrated if he is not allowed to play despite being healthy. The Browns are likely to cut him in 2026 because they will incur a lesser dead cap charge compared to if they cut him this season.

Florio expects to see Watson continue playing in the NFL, but as a backup.

It’s going to be most likely with a different team, probably somewhere as a backup who ends up in a game at some point, and having a chance to prove that he’s still got some of that magic that made him the guy that looked like he could have been the MVP, not just rookie of the year, but MVP…

Florio concluded, expressing optimism that Watson’s NFL career is not done yet. He expects to see the quarterback in a backup capacity with a competitor in the NFL. For now, Watson continues to recover, and the near future carries a lot of uncertainties for the quarterback.