There are those that come prepared, then there are the minority of functioning adults in society who have gone full doomsday prepper. Yes, if the world did explode in a week, buying emergency supplies is worth it. But to actively hunt for preserved food and contract the building of a bunker are actions that denote anxiety -- or at the least, a very poor handle on money and spending.
Thus are the Cleveland Browns, the overspending doomsday preppers of the NFL. And if the mind-boggling eight quarterbacks currently on their payroll mean anything, the supplies they got aren't even that great.
These are the eight QB's that Cleveland still has damaging its cap space on the payroll, ranked in order of how much Cleveland regrets their contract.
1. Deshaun Watson, $35.9 million
Let's be honest, this list exists for two reasons: the insane number of quarterbacks on Cleveland's payroll, and this specific contract. Because Deshaun Watson's then-record-breaking deal with the Cleveland Browns is not just the worst contract on the roster. It's not even just Cleveland's worst contract ever. It is, canonically, likely the worst contract in NFL history. Until Josh Allen's 2025 re-signing with the Buffalo Bills, Deshaun Watson's $230 million deal held the title as the most money guaranteed to a player in league history. And not that it matters for this list, but Cleveland also gave up three consecutive first round picks to get just over a season's worth of games over three years. And in those three years, Watson has completed 61 percent of his passes for a near 1:1 TD/INT ratio. For reference: going forward, Watson's cap hit is over 50 percent more than Myles Garrett's. We don't even have to get into the allegations towards him to know that the Browns were idiots to throw any amount of money at Deshaun Watson.
2. Jameis Winston, $2.2 million
Attention, there's now a steep drop-off from the worst deal of all time. Of the eight QB cap hits on Cleveland's books, Winston's is the biggest -- but that's not why he's all the way up here. He's up here because in an offensive culture as desolate as Cleveland's, Winston has clearly proven elsewhere that he would at least be a great locker room guy. Even if he's put up zero stats or snaps in New York, Winston's bond as a friend to the entire roster, and as a mentor to rookie Jaxson Dart would have been so useful in the Browns' locker room, where the tension between Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders is inevitable, if quiet. Yes, his tenure as Cleveland's starter was the quintessential Jameis experience (13:12 TD/INTO ratio, 2,121 passing yards), but letting him go was a mistake if they were already planning to move on from Dorian Thompson-Robinson after 2024. Speaking of which...
3. Dorian Thompson-Robinson, $171k
This entry will be short, as was DTR's stint not just in Cleveland, but in the NFL. He logged minutes in 15 total games in a Browns uniform, in which he threw for 1 touchdown and 10 picks on a 52.7 percent completion rating. Then Cleveland traded him and a fifth round pick to Philadelphia for...Kenny Pickett. A year later, DTR is out of the league. Philly's cap hit on him?
$8,000.
4. Joe Flacco, $999k
It's not just Joe Flacco that earns this spot in the rankings, but what the Browns also gave up to get rid of him (this will make sense just a little further down). Now, Cincinnati had the pick of the litter after Jake Browning proved to be a poor replacement for the injured Joe Burrow (we're sugarcoating how bed he was). There were at least three quarterbacks that the Bengals sincerely pursued: Davis Mills, Sam Howell, and Flacco himself. By the way, this doesn't include a post-benching Russell Wilson nor Jameis Winston, either. And kudos to Cleveland for basically trading up a whole round from their 6th-round pick in exchange for a quarterback they'd already benched. But Flacco is still on the books for nearly a million dollars, and is now on a division rival. Not a great look when you put it that way.
5. Kenny Pickett, $8k
Think the Joe Flacco thing, but instead the Browns didn't even have to swap picks when they got rid of him. Pickett went in exchange for a free 2026 fifth rounder, and left ten times less the money Flacco left on the books.
6. Dillon Gabriel, $1.1 million
Of the two quarterbacks that remain in the starters' conversation, Dillon Gabriel's contract and draft position remains the more anomalous. Even if Shedeur Sanders was a flier taken when no one else would, it is easy to see that Gabriel should have been treated as such as well. No quarterback was taken between Gabriel and Sanders in the third and fifth rounds, meaning that Cleveland realistically could have waited to have both on their roster if they'd truly wanted to.
7. Shedeur Sanders, $955k
Shedeur is the flip side of Dillon Gabriel. If the Browns really stretched and stuck their necks out unnecessarily to make certain that Dillon Gabriel landed in their laps, they basically found free money on the street when they picked up Shedeur Sanders in the fifth. No matter what the narrative on Sanders was going into the draft itself, he should not have been taken after Tyler Shough
8. Bailey Zappe, $315k
And if both Sanders and Gabriel flame out early and prove unable to helm an NFL team, Zappe has already proven he can at least functionally do the job without detonating under pressure. Initially signing for practice squad-level money, Zappe has already been hinted at as the primary backup if Dillon Gabriel goes down, rather than Shedeur -- and that's for a third of the price, too.