Trading for Deshaun Watson should make the Cleveland Browns a Super Bowl contender, but the odds are it won’t happen right away. And likely not at all in 2021.
When the Browns sent three first-round picks and more to Houston to acquire the former Texans QB, it was to add the finishing touch to an already stacked roster. But there was always a problem, and potentially a huge one.
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Watson of course was facing a string of allegations of sexual misconduct (Cleveland knew this) which meant a suspension by the NFL was always looking certain. The initial suggested ruling – six games – doubtless had the Browns doing cartwheels in delight. But not so fast.
Then Rodger Goodell and the NFL appealed the ruling, looking for a longer suspension, and it got that wish. The result is an 11-game ban for Watson from August 30, which means he will not be eligible to take a regular-season snap for the Browns until the Week 13 game vs his old team Houston.
Deshaun, who has that $230million fully guaranteed five-year deal in his back pocket, was as low as -600 to be suspended at some stage, an implied probability of way over 80 percent. Everybody knew what was coming – sportsbooks included. All that was in question was how long he would be out.
While we have a ton of respect for Jacoby Brissett as a backup QB, he’s not Deshaun and the Browns now have an uphill battle to win a brutally tough AFC North division.
Latest Deshaun Watson Odds
So the odds for Watson were always going to change in a big way when the suspension came down, and so it proved. He is now almost an afterthought in all of the major 2022 futures lines.
Any chance of Deshaun landing either MVP honors or leading the league in passing yards have left the building. In a big way.
The shortest odds for Watson to win anything are for NFL Comeback Player of the Year (CPOY), for which he is trading at +25000 with PointsBet. So what does he have to do to win that?
The rationale – per the NFL – for somebody being in the running is as follows:
“A player who “shows perseverance in overcoming adversity, in the form of not being in the NFL the previous year, a severe injury, or simply poor performance.”
Well Deshaun was definitely out of the league last year, but we’re not sure about the rest….The odds tell the story.
Deshaun Watson betting – a prediction
We hope you bet this when we told you to back on July 13!
BetMGM was offering odds on who finishes in the top two positions in the AFC North – they had what is called a Dual Forecast, which means you just need to get the right two teams in any order.
If we rule out the Pittsburgh Steelers on the premise that the answer at QB post-Ben Roethlisberger is unknown right now, that left just three teams. And you know what comes next.
With Watson likely to be out for an extended period you had to throw out Cleveland too, which left just two. And all you need is two.
So the bet was to take the tasty odds of 29/20 (+145 or bet $100 to win $145) about the Cincinnati Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens occupying the #1 and #2 spots in the AFC North standings when the regular season ends. Remember the order doesn’t matter – they just need to be the top two.
Yes, you’ll need to wait a little while to collect, but this was a terrific bet opportunity. This division is so good that teams with a weakness at QB just will not survive. That’s the logic.
OddsCritic Deshaun Watson Prediction
NB: Odds correct when bet selected on July 13, 2022