The Deshaun Watson saga has been absolutely exhausting, but the controversial Cleveland Browns quarterback was finally given a six-game suspension earlier this month. Whether or not that punishment fits the crime is highly debatable – the NFL is still pursuing a one-year suspension for the former Houston Texans superstar – but we're not going to get into that here. Instead, we're looking at the on-field implications of what his absence will mean to the Browns from a betting standpoint.
In case you didn't already know, our predictive analytics model, DimersBOT, runs 10,000 simulations of every game in every NFL season. This allows us to really get a good look at how each season will go, but our talented group of data scientists actually ran this seasons simulations twice.
The first time was with Watson playing a full 17-game season with Cleveland, and the second factors in his six-game suspension. The results of the exercise probably aren't what you'd expect, which is why we feel the need to dive into it. Here is what the Watson suspension really means as far as betting on Cleveland futures:
How Deshaun Watson's Suspension Impacts Cleveland Browns Futures Betting
Before we knew how long Watson would be out for, DimersBOT gave the Browns a 46.0% chance at making the postseason. That's the 18th-highest probability out of all teams to make the playoffs. With the six-game suspension factored in, that percentage only went down to 43.9% and was still the 18th-highest probability in football. “Now why is that?”, you might be asking in your best Brian Windhorst voice (he coincidentally happens to be a Cleveland legend). Well, there are quite a few reasons.