The Cleveland Browns reworked Deshaun Watson’s contract for the third time in less than two years Friday. As usual, nearly everything about it has been misreported, misinterpreted and misunderstood. In order to determine the impact, let’s quickly but clearly define the term being used. Otherwise we’re just painting by number in a dark room.

“Restructure” is a very specific term with a specific meaning, not a catch-all to describe the maneuvering that occurs every time alterations are made to a contract, as it’s frequently seen used as.

A contract which undergoes a simple restructure is one that has Paragraph 5 salary (base salary which is earned weekly) converted to bonus money that is paid immediately to the player. But for accounting purposes, that money is spread out across the remaining years of the contract, meaning that for a five-year contract only one-fifth of that “restructured” money counts against the cap in the current league year.

The process of that type of restructure can be done unilaterally by a front office without cooperation from the player. And so it is often inaccurately reported that a player has worked with the team to reduce their cap burden through a renegotiation (which is defined differently) when many times the player has nothing whatsoever to do with the contract being restructured.

When void years are added (which are needed for a maximum restructure when fewer than five years exist on the deal), the club needs the player’s participation in that type of renegotiation, though there never is any downside for the player in doing so. Bonus money can be prorated over a maximum of five seasons, whether void years are required to reach that total or not.

So how has Watson’s current contract been changed? And how will it affect the Browns upcoming seasons?

We’re headed there right now in Part 2.

—@PoisonPill4