NFL insider shares wild trade scenario involving Browns' Myles Garrett, Deshaun Watson

Multiple individuals who cover the Cleveland Browns and the NFL have insisted since Super Bowl week that the club will not trade Myles Garrett this offseason even though the All-Pro pass-rusher made it clear he wants to play for an advertised Super Bowl contender.

On Friday, NFL insider Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk offered a suggestion that could get the Browns to part ways with Garrett before the 2025 draft gets underway. 

"'If you want Myles Garrett, you have to take Deshaun Watson,'" Florio wrote about a message Cleveland could send to clubs looking to acquire Garrett. "It would amount to an extra $92M commitment, with the new team getting Garrett and owing Watson the balance of his five-year, $230M, fully guaranteed contract."

It was learned before Watson suffered a re-tear of his Achilles tendon that likely will sideline him through all of next season that Cleveland can't escape what's left of the contract he signed in March 2022. As Florio noted, however, the Browns could ask a club interested in Garrett to essentially eat the rest of Watson's deal similar to how Cleveland absorbed $16M in guaranteed salary while acquiring quarterback Brock Osweiler and a second-round draft pick in March 2017. Osweiler never played a meaningful down of football for Cleveland. 

"The three-pronged negotiations could include an effort to get the Browns to eat some of the $92M," Florio continued. "That would impact the draft picks and the Garrett contract. But if step one focuses solely on the Watson contract and the draft picks given to Cleveland, it would be for the finalists to then make their best financial case to Garrett."

Garrett likely will become the NFL’s highest-paid defensive player whenever he puts pen to paper on an extension either with the Browns or a different team this offseason, Meanwhile, the Washington Commanders, New England Patriots, Los Angeles Chargers and Detroit Lions are among noteworthy clubs that could afford to complete the proposed Garrett-Watson transaction. The Minnesota Vikings could become a potential landing spot for Garrett depending on how they handle their unsettled quarterback situation by the start of the new league year on March 12. 

"Watson has a no-trade clause," Florio added. "But if he still gets his money and if it gets him out of Cleveland and ultimately to free agency in 2026, he’d surely consider it."

By all accounts, people within the Browns consider the Watson era a failed experiment to the point that it allegedly "felt like a cloud had been lifted" inside the locker room with him absent after he went down with a torn Achilles on Oct. 20. Cleveland doesn't seem to be in any rush to trade Garrett since he is under contract through the 2026 season, but somebody within the organization may be considering any and all scenarios regarding the 29-year-old's future.