Sportsbooks Appear To Expect An 8-10 Game Watson Suspension

• Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson is likely looking at a suspension according to online sportsbooks.
• Watson has -1000 odds to not play Week 1 for the Browns.
• However, he has -240 odds to play at least one game for the Browns in the upcoming NFL season.

CLEVELAND – After being accused of more than 20 sexual assaults in a variety of civil suits, it is becoming more and more likely that Browns QB Deshaun Watson will be suspended for some portion of the 2022-2023 NFL season.

The NFL sportsbooks seem absolutely certain that Watson will not be playing Week 1 for the Browns, which implies that a suspension from the NFL will be coming before the season starts.

However, they are also fairly sure that Watson’s suspension will be less than a year – and they seem to think that it will be significantly less than a year.

Based on these odds, it seems the sportsbooks are expecting something in the range of an 8-10 game suspension, with an outside chance of a year’s suspension.

The Browns, it seems, anticipated a possible suspension in the 2022-2023 NFL season when writing Watson’s contract.

Under the terms of his Texans contract, his base was $35 million, which means he would’ve lost $1.94 million for every game he was suspended. Under the terms of his new deal, he’ll lose $55,556 for every game he’s suspended.

Pretty massive difference. https://t.co/z0RtrFKe78

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) March 18, 2022

Per Ian Rapaport, the Browns set Watson’s base salary as $1,000,000 in 2022-2023, but his whole contract has a $230m value over five years. Albert Breer of SI noted that this would limit Watson’s downside in the event of a suspension, as he’d be missing out on game checks of $55,000 instead of much larger game checks if the big money kicked in earlier.

Watson is currently facing 24 civil lawsuits alleging sexual assault and sexual harassment, with two more allegedly set to file lawsuits in the near future, bringing the total up to 26 separate women alleging various forms of sexual assault and harassment.

A recent New York Times investigation revealed that Watson’s claims of having hired about 40 different massage therapists over his half-decade Houston Texans tenure were incorrect, and that the QB had actually hired more than 60 over only 17 months of that tenure.

Multiple online sportsbooks have taken odds on the Browns  off the table, presumably in response to the increasing heat on Watson, and the increasing likelihood of a significant suspension.

Both DraftKings and Bovada do not have odds on the Browns’ team O/U at this time, although the Browns are included in various futures wagers.

The Browns are already unlikely to win the AFC North in 2022-23, but a Watson suspension makes that even less likely – and it seems more and more likely that he will be suspended, based on these odds.