Yup, this is a very non-shocking development that basically everyone predicted. They are clearly done with him and want to get what they can out of him in trade.
Which would suggest that they would be looking to draft a QB next year: journeyman Jacoby Brissett isn’t their future (and he turns 33 next week), and the only two other quarterbacks they have under contract (Kedon Slovis and Jeff Driskel) are similar backup/practice squad journeymen.
At 3-9, you would think that the Cardinals would be headed towards a high draft pick, but there are a bunch of lousy teams this year (a number of whom are also in need of a QB), and if the draft were held today, Arizona wouldn’t pick until #8.
So it’s smart to get what they can. This season is lost and if they can get some extra picks, maybe they can trade up to grab someone with promise next year.
Gannon inherited Murray, and I’m sure he’d love to have a say in a replacement.
I hear Aaron Rodgers may be available.
I doubt he will be, and hope he won’t be for all our sakes. He already said he was planning to retire at the end of this year, and the way this season has developed, I doubt he has changed his mind.
Maybe the Browns will be willing to trade Watson though? 
It’s a hedge.
Murray can still be a bridge QB next season for Arizona if nobody offers sufficient value. They’re probably looking for a 1st rounder or a couple 2nd rounders. Not unreasonable given the QB market at the moment. He’s probably near the top of the list of available QBs.
I think Rodgers might want to play. The problem is that any team desperate enough to give him a shot isn’t a team he’d want to play for
This SI article, from earlier this week, ranks who they consider to be the top 50 free agents for next year (pending guys getting re-signed by their current teams, of course). There are only two QBs on their list:
- Daniel Jones is listed at #1 (though it seems likely that the Colts will try to keep him, either through a franchise tag for one season, or a multi-year contract)
- Rodgers is at #36
Given that, there might well be a good trade market for Murray.
My comment about Aaron Rodgers being available was facetious. He’s old, no longer mobile, and lost some steam on his throws. He won’t come back (shouldn’t say that, his ego is still All-pro).
Murray out makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is Washington Commanders head coach throwing Daniels out there again. Quinn already admitted it was boneheaded keeping Daniels in during a lost game. Daniels suffered a dislocated non-throwing elbow in garbage time. Luckily, it didn’t need surgery. Quinn’s rational is, Daniels need work with his receivers??? I suppose. With the Giants, Titans, Raiders, Jets, Cards… already stealing/battling for the number one draft slot; it’s too late to tank. Edit: Forgot my Brownies in race to mediocrity.
the team that had Belicheck AND Saban at the same time
Speaking of that…
Those numbers confuse me. If they cut him after June 1st, does that mean his cap number next year year would be around $130 million? (The ~80 they owe him plus the ~50 dead cap money?) Or does it mean if they cut him they can save ~30 million and only suffer ~50 million against the cap?
If the former, then I don’t understand why there’s a distinction between cutting him before June 1st and after June 1st. Sounds like it would be around $135 million regardless when they cut him.
EDIT: And if the latter, why would they bring him back if they could save $30 million by cutting him?
Nope; as the last quote I shared states, his actual cap number next year (if he’s still under contract with the Browns) would be $81.7M. “Dead” charges come about when you cut a guy who received a signing bonus, or guaranteed salary, but the entirety of those had not yet been counted against the team’s annual cap numbers. Those “dead” charges get accelerated when he’s no longer on your roster.
The June 1st date impacts in which years the team has to account for dead cap money in their annual cap calculations. Cut a guy before June 1st, and all of the dead cap money hits during that year. Cut him on June 1st or after, and the team can spread that dead-cap hit over that season and the next.
As this article explains it:
https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/1160/understanding-nfl-dead-cap
Too late to add: the issue is that Watson’s contract has him getting paid through 2029, even though the contract itself makes him an unrestricted free agent in 2027. Plus, the amount that the Browns currently owe him for 2026 – even if he’s on the roster, and we aren’t worrying about a dead-cap hit – is much higher than it had been in 2022-25, because they had been regularly restructuring his contract to reduce the cap hit over the past few years, in order to stay under the cap.
Hindsight is 20/20, but a contract with such huge balloons in the out years is now going to bite the Browns in the ass, hard.
Here’s the details on Watson’s contract, and the cap hit (and potential dead cap) by year:
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/player/_/id/21753/deshaun-watson/contract/cap
Is that the worst move ever made by a team?
Meaning if they cut him after June 1st, it’s “only” $50 million against the cap vs $80 million if they keep him?
I’m specifically looking for the cap hit if they cut him after June 1st compared to the $80 million it costs (against their 2026 cap) to keep him. It has to be more than $80 million if they plan to keep him because of the cap hit.
Three scenarios:
- Keep him for 2026; his cap number is $81.7 million, because that is what the current wording of his restructured contract says…unless they try to restructure his contract again.
- Cut him prior to 6/1/26, and all of the payments that they owe him up through 2029 (because his contract is 100% guaranteed), and the pro-rated signing bonus, all count against their 2026 cap: a total of $135 million in “dead cap” space.
- Cut him on or after 6/1/26 (but presumably before the 2026 season starts), and they have to count $53 million against the cap in 2026, and (I am guessing here) $82 million against their 2027 cap.
Waiting until June 1 to cut him lets them spread the dead-cap number over two seasons, and spread out the pain, rather than having to eat it all in 2026…but they still have to account for all of that in the cap space, it’s just a matter of when they do it.
FWIW, this season, the Browns have $61 million in dead money against their cap (primarily from Amari Cooper, Za’Darius Smith, and Jedrick Wills);
Ah, okay, I think I get it now,
I also stumbled upon this when I googled how much money was left on his contract:
the team will receive significant cap relief through insurance on his contract if he misses games
This was also probably in the article you linked. You’d think if I was this curious I would have read the article, but laziness won the day.
The trade made sense at the time. Watson showed Mahomes-level upside in the first two seasons as a starter. Signing him to a fully guaranteed contract was definitely the worst move ever.
To add to the confusion, they can effectively cut him before Jun 1 but designate him as a post-Jun cut for cap purposes, i.e. not finish processing the cut but letting everybody know otherwise.
This is what happened with Aaron Rodgers this last offseason. He was “designated” as a post-Jun cap cut by the Jets back in March but the Jets still had to carry his costs on their books until June, effectively letting Rodgers and other teams start the process of figuring things out. And that’s what happened - the Steelers got the formal bits done and contract signed with him by early June. They did all the thinking and negotiations and so on before that.
Salary cap math can be byzantine and nonsensical sometimes
Ehhh, maybe.
It’s true that he’d played very well in his three-plus seasons as a starter with the Texans (2017-2020); he was a finalist for the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award in 2017, and was named to the Pro Bowl in each of the next three seasons. The sexual assault allegations against him started coming to light in early 2021, and though he wasn’t formally suspended in 2021, the Texans kept him on the reserve list all season, and he didn’t play at all.
A week before the Browns traded for Watson, a grand jury declined to indict him on sexual assault, but he was still facing 22 civil suits. So, the Browns absolutely knew that they were trading for a guy who had a serious off-the-field issue, as well as a serious character issue. And, yet, they mortgaged their future (their next three first-round picks) for him, and signed him to a massive, 100% guaranteed contract…and got almost nothing out of him in his first year with the Browns, as the NFL suspended him for the first 11 games out of the '22 season.