Roughly $4 billion

[George Cantstandya]

(3 hours ago)J24 Wrote: Its debatable that escrow is even a thing according to Mike Florio from Pro Football talk!

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/nfls-funding-rule-isnt-mandatory-did-the-browns-make-escrow-payment-for-deshaun-watson-deal

I've seen this article brought up several times.  But Florio never followed up on it as far as I know.  See near the end of the article:

Quote:For now, the question is whether the NFL required the Browns to do it for Watson. If the league didn’t, some may wonder whether the funding rule is, at this point, nothing more than a phony device used by teams as an excuse to not give full guarantees.

And it would seem to strengthen any argument that teams and the league are colluding to refuse to fully guarantee contracts.

Then nothing more on the topic from him that I saw which seems odd as that is the kind of thing he tends to get obsessed over IMO.

Edit:  After more digging I did see this posted by him the next day.  But can't find any more on the topic. 

It just seems odd to me if there is not an escrow requirement that it hasn't been discussed more by the sports media outside of a few posts on PFT.