Falcons owner Arthur Blank is fond of Deshaun Watson from the days when the former Gainesville (Ga) High quarterback worked multiple years as a Falcons’ ball boy and developed a relationship with Blank's family. https://t.co/EypxrnF9ma
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 15, 2022
Here’s another team working to recruit Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson: the Atlanta Falcons, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Schefter characterized Atlanta as a “sleeper” in pursuit of Watson, who has also been linked to the New Orleans Saints, Carolina Panthers, and Cleveland Browns. He also noted that Falcons owner Arthur Blank is personally a fan of Watson, who worked with the team as a ball boy in his youth and starred at nearby Gainesville High School in Georgia. Watson grew up a Falcons fan.
That matters in a situation like this, where the player has a no-trade clause written into his contract. If Watson wants to be a Falcon badly enough, he can put his foot down and demand to be traded to Atlanta and tell the Texans to figure out the math. At that point things are out of everyone’s hands: Houston, Carolina, Cleveland, and New Orleans.
And that would be complicated. The Falcons recently agreed to restructure their contract with franchise quarterback Matt Ryan, which would leave a $55.5 million salary cap hit on their books in 2022 while Ryan plays elsewhere (almost certainly being included in a trade for Watson). Well, sort of. That restructure was negotiated but not formally processed on the NFL transactions wire, meaning Ryan being traded out would leave just $40 million behind. That’s still substantial, but it’s the difference between paying 19% of your salary cap commitments to someone not on your team and paying 26% if the restructure had been finalized already.
There is a loophole, of a sort. The two sides could agree on a trade now but wait to complete it until after June 1, at which point Ryan’s dead money accounting would be split in half and paid out over this year and the next. Spending 9.6% of your cap allotment this year on a player not on your roster wouldn’t be easy, but teams have done it before. It’s similar to what the Saints did with Drew Brees once he retired. But asking Houston to hold onto Watson, his salary cap charge, and go through the 2021 NFL draft without any picks from Atlanta is a hard sell.
The Falcons would be getting a new franchise quarterback in return, even if Watson is likely to start his career with his next team on a suspension stemming from the 22 allegations of sexual misconduct made against him. Any meetings he schedules for Tuesday with the Browns and Falcons have to work around his civil deposition in response to those claims. The Saints and Panthers held last-minute meetings with Watson in Houston on Monday evening to get out ahead of it.
