Cleveland Browns

Free agent center Ethan Pocic has agreed to a one-year deal with the Ravens, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.

The Ravens lost three-time Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum to the Raiders in free agency. Danny Pinter, Jovaughn Gwyn and Corey Bullock are the other centers on the roster, and they have combined for 10 career starts, all by Pinter.

Pocic, who turns 31 next month, spent the past four seasons in Cleveland. He was recently medically cleared after tearing his left Achilles in a Dec. 7 game against the Titans.

He is entering his 10th season since the Seahawks made him a second-round pick in 2017. Pocic spent five seasons in Seattle, appearing in 57 games with 40 starts.

He signed with the Browns as a free agent in 2022 and started 57 games for the club.

Jared Verse burst onto the scene as the Rams’ first-round draft pick in 2024, winning the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year award. But he still remembers one offensive lineman who showed him the hard way that there’s a difference between the NFL and college football.

That player was 49ers left tackle Trent Williams, who physically overpowered Verse in a way he had never felt before when they locked up in the first home game of Verse’s career.

“It was against Trent Williams at SoFi Stadium,” Verse said on NFL Network. “He didn’t throw me to the ground or nothing like that. We were running a stunt game so I was going into the B-gap. They were trying to get outside of us, like a wide play. He got to my outside shoulder, and usually if somebody gets on my outside shoulder I’m able to just throw him off, move him out of the way, drop him to the ground. You can’t do that with Trent. I tried to move his hands and it was like moving cinder blocks. I move his hands — chopping, doing all this stuff to get his hands off. I literally said, like, ‘Trent, get off of me.’ Trent’s got a deep voice. He literally just starts laughing and was like, ‘You so funny, Verse.’ We’re watching film the next day. My coach was like, ‘Jared, you’ve got to get off this block.’ I’m like, ‘Coach, I tried, I don’t even know what you want me to tell you. I tried my hardest.’”

Williams has given a lot of rookies a rude awakening during his 16-year NFL career. The good news for Verse is that, now that he’s on the Browns, he won’t be seeing Williams this season.

I’ve got a theory about the Browns’ quarterback competition. It’s a simple one, which is roughly the limit of my cognitive ability.

It goes back to a clip that emerged early in the offseason program. The quarterbacks were doing a basic drill. Catch the snap, fake a pitch, make the drop into passing position, and throw the ball. Three times each.

Deshaun Watson did it crisply and cleanly. For Shedeur Sanders, it was lackadaisical, especially with the fake pitch.

Shedeur is a gamer. He performs when it counts. He has yet to embrace the process of checking various boxes in practice. And, in my opinion, new Browns coach Todd Monken is trying his damnedest to get Shedeur to do that.

And so, early in the offseason, the indications were that Watson had emerged as the leader for the QB1 role. Near the end, it seemed that Shedeur was making progress.

My guess — and it’s just a guess — is that, at some point, Monken explained to Shedeur that he can’t wait until the games to flip the switch. He needs to earn the right to have that opportunity by doing all of the little things when it’s not a live situation. If that’s what happened, it may have worked.

The test will be training camp. Every day, every practice, every rep. Focus, effort, repeat. Along the way, Shedeur will become better prepared to perform when it’s time to do so.

Watson will have a say in the process, too. If Shedeur does everything well, Watson will have to do it even better.

But that’s the key. Full commitment to the process of learning, and executing, Monken’s offense.

Of course, if Shedeur does it well enough to win the job, the challenge becomes doing it well enough to hold the job beyond 2026. The quarterback door in Cleveland has been revolving for years; as much as the team would like for it to stop spinning, they need someone who’ll play well enough, and win enough games, to get them to not keep looking for the next name to go on the back of the jersey that ran out of space a long time ago.

Shedeur has shown he can be good. Monken’s goal will be to get Shedeur to make the full commitment to being great. Which means ditching any traces of a Brett Favre-style mindset of not caring about anything but the game and caring deeply about everything else.

Center Ethan Pocic is available for work.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter notes on Wednesday that Pocic has been medically cleared after suffering a torn Achilles in December. Schefter adds that Pocic is considered “full go.”

Pocic is a free agent after spending the last four seasons with Cleveland.

A second-round pick in 2017, Pocic played his first five seasons with the Seahawks, appearing in 57 games with 40 starts.

He signed with the Browns as a free agent in 2022, starting 57 games for the club.

Whenever quarterback Joe Flacco finally retires, he’ll have a reward waiting for him in Baltimore.

Flacco will be joining the Ravens Ring of Honor.

The first episode of the latest season of Quarterback on Netflix focuses on Flacco’s Week 1 return to Baltimore in the 2025 season, where he faced the team that made him a first-round pick in 2008. During a pregame conversation, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti makes it clear to Flacco that Bisciotti is ready to put the Super Bowl XLVII MVP in the Ring of Honor once Flacco finishes his playing career.

“I’m so happy you’re healthy and still pulling this off,” Bisciotti says. “I thought I’d have you up in my Ring of Honor about five years ago.”

“You called me five years ago,” Flacco responds.

“I did, didn’t I?”

“We can delay that a little bit,” Flacco says.

It’ll be delayed at least another year, as Flacco embarks on his 19th NFL season — and his eighth since leaving Baltimore after the 2018 campaign.

And he’ll be back in Baltimore again this year, as the backup to Joe Burrow with the Bengals.

Sometimes, life imitates art. And football imitates football.

During a Vikings-Browns game in England last season, a field goal attempt by Minnesota kicker Will Reichard apparently struck an overhead wire. (The league strongly prefers that this not be mentioned. So we won’t.) During Saturday’s England-Norway game in Miami, the ball apparently struck an overhead wire during first-half stoppage time of the World Cup quarterfinal, setting the stage for the decisive goal by England’s Jude Bellingham.

FIFA apparently would also strongly prefer that it not be mentioned.

Via ESPN, FIFA claims there is “no evidence” that the ball hit a foreign object.

The rules require play to be stopped with a drop ball to resume the action, if it’s noticed. Because it wasn’t noticed, England won possession of the ball and soon thereafter scored.

“Before England’s goal in minute 45+2 against Norway, the sensor in the Connected Ball showed no peak in the ‘heartbeat of the ball’ when in the air, and therefore no evidence that the ball touched the overhead wire and changed the movement of the ball,” FIFA said in a statement.

The snafu in the Vikings-Browns game, which will not be mentioned, eventually was attributed by the NFL to an “optical illusion.” (At first, the league said there was “no clear view” that Reichard’s kick had struck a wire.)

Here’s the clip of the key moment from Sunday. The ball clearly moves in a sudden and abrupt way.

It’s a good thing that no one will be mentioning it.

On Saturday, as explained in the attached video, I nearly fell ass first into a hole in my yard that contained a nest of yellow jackets.

On Sunday, I fell into the abyss of figuring out whether and to what extent the Browns received cash — and cap credit — for up to $91,801,463 in insurance under quarterback Deshaun Watson’s $230 million, fully-guaranteed contract.

The Browns aren’t commenting on the issue. (If they’d just come out and address it, it would be a hell of a lot easier.) We obtained NFLPA records reflecting the breakdowns, and apparent cap credits, that the Browns have received for 2024 and 2025 and will receive for 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029 for injuries that caused him to miss most of the 2023 season, most of the 2024 season, and all of the 2025 season.

The numbers, we believed, added up to more than $88 million. Which made sense on the surface, given the number of games he missed and the available insurance.

The folks at Over The Cap disputed the calculation, explaining that the number is $9.834 million.

We’ll defer to their cap expertise. However, that figure seemed way too low, given the number of games Watson missed and the amount of insurance that was available.

So we went back to the drawing board. And we consulted with a very experienced and seasoned cap specialist, one who knows how to accurately (unlike me) interpret the things appearing — and not appearing — in the relevant NFLPA records.

Per the source with whom we collaborated, the actual cap credit for the games missed in 2023, 2024, and 2025 will be $25.824 million. The difference comes from the fact that, as the source believes, a credit of $3,997,386 that first appears in the 2026 breakdown following the March 6, 2026 restructuring of the deal will be (and perhaps already should be) reflected four more times.

Even that number seems low, given the available insurance and the games Watson has missed. As another source explained it, there are two potential explanations for this. Either the Browns didn’t purchase the maximum insurance that Watson’s contract permitted them to buy or they did and the policy had specific provisions that limited the payout to $25.824 million. (Generally speaking, insurance companies like to take money in but they hate paying it out, since money is their sole commodity.)

Regardless, that’s the figure that someone who is absolutely in an ideal position to interpret the NFLPA data shared with PFT. (And, yes, I should have checked with that person in the first place.)

So we missed it by that much. But we tried. Sometimes, you grab a fence at the last second before landing in a nest of yellow jackets.

Sometimes, there’s no fence.

Here’s the broader reality. High-dollar contracts routinely contain provisions allowing teams to purchase insurance. The question of whether it was purchased and the extent to which proceeds were paid (and cap dollars were refunded) isn’t nearly as easy to navigate as the basic cap calculations based on proration and other niceties of the CBA, because there’s far less transparency on such matters.

Again, the Browns could easily clarify and confirm this situation. But they don’t have to, so they won’t.

The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.

Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.

NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.

Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.

Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders is battling with Deshaun Watson to be the Week One starter, but he says he plans to win a lot more than a training camp competition in his career.

Sanders said on his YouTube channel that his goal is to be among the greatest quarterbacks in football.

“I’m not content just being on no team,” Sanders said. “I’m trying to be one of the greatest. You’ve got to be thankful, but know there’s still more. There’s still more.”

Sanders reflected on his rookie year by talking about a Week 17 win over the Steelers in which he felt like, after being a bench warmer for the early part of the season, he accomplished something by the way he kept getting back up.

“We were playing the Steelers. Their linebackers were hitting that game. I’m on the pine the whole year,” Sanders said. “You get out there you’re like, ‘This is something. I could do something like this.’”

Sanders took some criticism in that game for getting up and flexing after a third down run that failed to pick up the first down.

“To me that’s an accomplishment,” he said. “This dude tried to knock my head off . . . That’s the whole thing I’m celebrating. I know it’s fourth down, but I just evaded this tackle. I just got away.”

Sanders and the Browns didn’t have a lot to celebrate last year, but he believes he’ll have plenty to celebrate over the course of his career.

During Thursday’s #PFTPM, I addressed this question from Twitter: “How much cap space did the Browns save due to the insurance policy on Deshaun Watson for him missing the entire 2025 season?”

The answer, as contained in the attached video, was simple: I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out.

Here’s what I found out, so far.

And I’ve broadened it beyond 2025, to include all cap space the Browns have saved.

In 2022, he missed no games due to injury; he was suspended for 11 games and played in the remaining six.

The March 2023 restructuring of Watson’s original five-year deal with the Browns contains an “Insurance Addendum,” which permits the Browns to purchase: up to $91,801,463 in insurance covering 2023, 2024, and 2025 for an injury occurring between the signing of the contract and the start of the 2023 offseason program; up to $82,451,463 in insurance covering 2023, 2024, and 2025 for any injury occurring from the first day of the 2023 offseason program to the beginning of the 2024 offseason program; up to $58,176,466 in insurance covering 2024 and 2025 for any injury occurring from the start of the 2024 offseason program to the start of the 2025 offseason program; and up to $33,901,460 in insurance covering 2025 for any injury occurring from the first day of the 2025 offseason program until the final game of the 2025 regular season.

The Browns declined to comment on the matter.

Enter NFLPA records, which PFT has obtained. The records contain Watson’s full contract and cap breakdowns from 2023 through, ultimately, 2030. They show — in multiple locations — a “return of [signing bonus] from insurance policy.”

Under the breakdown of Watson’s March 13, 2023 renegotiation, NFLPA records show an $8.79 million credit in 2024 for the return of signing bonus from insurance.

For Watson’s August 28, 2024 renegotiation, NFLPA records reiterate the $8.79 million credit in 2024.

Under the breakdown of Watson’s December 27, 2024 renegotiation, NFLPA records repeat the $8.79 million credit for 2024, along with an $8.79 million credit for 2025, and $8.781 million credit in 2026, an $8.755 million credit in 2027, and an $8.755 million credit in 2028.

Watson’s March 5, 2025 renegotiation adds another $7.983 million credit for 2025, another $7.992 million for 2026, another $8.018 million for 2027, another $7.983 million credit for 2028, and a $7.983 million credit for 2029.

The most recent renegotiation, from March 6, 2026, adds another $4.951 million credit for 2026.

Confused? We certainly were.

It took a little while to figure it out. As best we can tell, it appears that the Browns will have received, from 2024 through 2029, the following cap credits: $8.79 million (for 2024), $8.79 million (for 2025), $7.983 million (for 2025), $8.781 million (for 2026), $7.992 million (for 2026), $4.951 million (for 2026) $8.755 million (for 2027), $8.018 million (for 2027), $8.755 million (for 2028), $7.983 million (for 2028), and $7.983 million (for 2029).

That’s a total in cap credit for 2024 through 2029 of $88.781 million. Which also reflects, presumably, the insurance benefits received by the Browns on Watson’s five-year, $230 million deal.

The payments flow from the shoulder injuries Watson suffered in 2023, and the torn Achilles tendon he sustained in October 2024. (The Achilles tendon was re-torn later.)

In all, Watson missed 11 games due to injury in 2023, 10 in 2024, and all 17 in 2025.

Thus, while the trade for Watson and the five-year, $230 million, fully-guaranteed contract combine to create one of the single worst transactions in NFL history, the Browns’ decision to purchase insurance (the premiums for which surely weren’t cheap) resulted in more than $88 million in refunds for the games Watson missed due to injury.