The point is, If Depodesta is whispering to Haslam that the Browns are just a Watson away from being “a SB contender”, then his analytical skills are below average.
The Bills paid less and didn’t have to guarantee all of it to get rising star. Browns got a guy at his peak who decided to hold his last team hostage for a year (after recently signing a huge contract with them).
Watson better than Mayfield, but he’s not close to Mahomes and Allen. And The Browns roster isn’t close to the Bills or Chiefs. Bengals either.
If fully guaranteed contracts were needed to get top trades (recall the other cost paid for Watson) to happen, they would be commonplace. Obviously they aren’t.