The Texans and Browns pulled off one of the biggest trades in NFL history on Friday with Houston sending Deshaun Watson to Cleveland in exchange for a hoard of draft picks.
When the deal was officially announced by the Texans on Saturday, it appeared that they were going to walk away from the trade with five new draft picks, including three first-rounders. As it turns out though, the Browns actually ended up sweetening the pot for the Texans before the trade was officially finalized with the NFL on Monday.
The two sides ended up making some last second changes to the trade and the changes definitely ended up benefiting the Texans. Under the new — and finalized — terms of the deal, here’s how things will break down (The changes are in bold):
- Texans receive: Three first-round picks (2022, 2023, 2024), one third-round pick (2023), two fourth-round picks (2022, 2024).
- Browns receive: Deshaun Watson, 2024 sixth-round pick
Here’s what the old terms of the deal looked like as announced by the Texans on Friday:
- Texans receive: Three first-round picks (2022, 2023, 2024), one third-round pick (2023), one fourth-round pick (2024)
- Browns receive: Deshaun Watson, 2024 fifth-round pick
The finalized deal has two big changes. First, the Browns will now be including an extra draft pick in the deal. Instead of sending one future fourth-round pick, the Browns are sending two of those to Houston with the Texans now getting a 2022 fourth-rounder to add to the 2024 fourth-rounder that was already included in the trade.
Also, the Browns will no longer be receiving a 2024 fifth-round pick from the Texans. Instead, Houston will now be shipping a 2024 SIXTH-ROUND pick to Cleveland. At some point between March 18 and March 21, the two sides decided to modify the deal with both modifications favoring the Texans.
To make the deal happen, the Browns also had to give Watson the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history. The quarterback will be heading to Cleveland with a five-year, $230 million that’s fully guaranteed, which is the most guaranteed money ever given to an NFL player.
The deal definitely comes with some risks for the Browns. With Watson facing 22 civil lawsuits over sexual assaults, there’s a chance the quarterback could be suspended to start the 2022 season. Based on the structure of his contract, Watson’s camp seems to be expecting some sort of suspension. The quarterback will make a base salary of just $1.035 million this season, which means he’ll miss out on just $57,500 for each game he’s out.
