Off-season thoughts (Vol. XX)

It has been nagging at me ever since the Browns signed Deshaun Watson to that soul-selling $230 million guaranteed contract to play quarterback for the Browns for the next half decade.

Something about it wasn't clicking. My conspiratorial self bellowed something was wrong about this. Something didn't make sense. I couldn't put my finger on it.

It wasn't that owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam squirmed and somehow justified the notion that signing Watson despite his off-the-field baggage was right. Nor was it that Watson, almost like a choir boy, absolved himself of any blame for his alleged sexual misbehavior.

All that off-the-field nonsense that led to the controversial signing has slowly been shunted to the background, although I believe it will linger and never totally disappear. That will be the Haslams' cross to bear as long as they own the franchise.

Was it the possibility of the Browns eventually losing their general manager and head coach, two intelligent men who seemingly were talked into accepting the Watson signing despite possible reservations? No evidence yet to believe that is the case.

My glass-half-empty self struggled trying to come up with a negative or two that would counter the notion this extraordinarily bold move would result in a dramatic -- but positive -- change of direction for a franchise that has wandered so long in a desert of futility.

And then along comes Mike Sando, who has been covering the National Football League since 1998, to unlock the mystery with a piece in The Athletic a few days ago. It got my attention in a hurry. It was a sort of a why-didn't-I-think-of-that moment.

In a column entitled "NFL Free Agency: Execs on the good and bad of all 32 teams' moves and strategies," Sando paints an extremely interesting scenario for the Browns as seen through the eyes, anonymously, of several executives around the league.

Sando suggests the size and guaranteed status of Watson's contract all but entitles him to do whatever he pleases, whenever he pleases and however he pleases and quotes one NFL executive to buttress that notion.

"People talk about the contract precedent and what that does to the NFL, but that leaves out the simple reality this guy (Watson) doesn't need to listen to anybody," said one executive. "If he wants Kevin Stefanski fired, doesn't like the offense, whatever it is, Cleveland is stuck."

Suggested Sando in his lead in the Browns' portion of the piece, "The Browns might as well have named Deshaun Watson their new owner, general manager,  coach and offensive coordinator . . . handing him a ground-breaking $230 million contract that was fully guaranteed at signing." He labelled the move possibly "empowering." 

In a power struggle between the team's high-profile guaranteed nine-figure quarterback and the head coach with a five-year contract, who do you think wins? That's closer to a rhetorical question than you think. 

That possibility never entered my mind. It was like constantly adding two and two and coming up with seven. And while it is being interpreted as outlandish by those who might disagree on the surface, there is, indeed, an element of possibility that exists.

Think about it. First of all the possibility exists that Stefanski, a button-down playcaller, and Watson, a gunslinger, will have to work hard to arrive on the same page. No guarantee that will happen. It didn't with Stefanski and the gun-slinging Baker Mayfield.

Stefanski is in his third season as head coach with mixed results in his first two seasons. He always preaches his goal is putting his players in the best position to win. Watson is more of a free-wheeling quarterback, not a game manager. A conundrum in its infant stages?

Mayfield twice this past season publicly criticized his head coach after a game for being too conservative. Watson never had to do that in his four seasons with Houston Texans because the Texans' passing game set up the ground game.

Sando reports two league executives questioned the Stefanski-Watson fit. "What Deshaun does is playmaking, off schedule, throwing deep, all that, which does not strike me as the Stefanski system," said one. "It may all work out, but he is not the person to give that deal and that power to. . . . I just don't understand. It reeks of desperation." Yeah, kinda.

"Giving him a fully guaranteed contract," said another executive, "they basically said it doesn't matter. If you are Stefanski, you are an NBA coach now." 

Consider the personal mystery solved. Deshaun Watson is, by far, the most powerful man at 76 Lou Groza Blvd. in Berea outside of the Haslams. They gave him all the keys.