Browns GM: ‘If I Could Go Back, I’d Offer Deshaun Watson More Money’

CLEVELAND—Asked if he had any regrets about the fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million deal the team gave the quarterback in 2022, Cleveland Browns GM Andrew Berry told reporters Friday that if he could go back, he would offer Deshaun Watson more money. “Would I do it differently? Hell yes! I’d give him double,” said Berry, adding that, in retrospect, awarding a quarterback who had 28-26 record in his career with the Texans and missed most of his first season with the Browns due to multiple sexual misconduct lawsuits the most guaranteed money of any contract in NFL history felt like “a slap in the face to the poor young man.” “Given Deshaun’s unrivaled dominance on the field and his integrity off of it, I’m just grateful he’s willing to take the field at all. Only five years, too—that will fly by. We should have given him 20. I want to apologize to every Cleveland fan for failing to give Deshaun even a fraction of what he deserves. My hope is that, in the coming years, we’ll be able to restructure his contract to offer our face of the franchise an exponentially higher sum than the pittance we’re paying him now. There’s nobody who represents the Cleveland Browns and their fans better than Deshaun.” Berry added that he was going to speak to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about retroactively tripling or quadrupling the league salary cap to open up more room to pay Watson.