Cleveland Browns: Free Agency Choices Add to NFL Draft Pressure
By Peter Smith
The Cleveland Browns ended the 1st day of free agency with more questions than players, but the one thing that’s certain is the pressure on their performance in the NFL Draft has been ramped up substantially.
The Cleveland Browns opened up free agency with a loud thud, watching Alex Mack, Mitchell Schwartz, Travis Benjamin and Tashaun Gipson sign with other teams. Executive Vice President Sashi Brown’s first significant day on the job concludes down 4 players while he is criticized leaguewide for his handling of the situation. He also put a ton of pressure on himself and the Browns in general to really make the draft count.
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I never expected the Browns to make a big splash on the 1st day of free agency. In fact, with very exceptions, I think it’s a horrible strategy to drop a ton of money on opposing team’s players in a competitive market. It has an awful track record for fixing bad football teams.
And, to be fair, this year was unique in the fact that agents did not want to get deals done with teams because they were waiting on the salary cap to increase 10%. By extension, contract numbers would sky rocket since teams were suddenly flush with more cash.
Their patience and reluctance to sign early has more than paid off, signing some huge contracts, at least compared to the past. These types of contracts will be more and more commonplace as the salary cap continues to increase.
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The Browns as an organization set the tone for free agency by saying 2 things: they are rebuilding (again) and they want players who want to be here.
So, the Browns tore down the scaffolding from the last not finished construction project of a football teams and weren’t going to chase free agents that weren’t committed to being here.
In other words, goodbye Alex Mack. I could live with that. I’d have loved to keep Mack, as a top center in the NFL and finish out his career here, have his number retired and potentially be elected to the Hall of Fame after playing his entire career in Cleveland.
Nevertheless, the Browns do have someone in reserve to replace Mack in Erving. And getting a 3rd round compensatory pick in 2017 and not spending about $10 million in cap for a center is understandable, even defensible.
The other 3 free agents were 26 or younger, so they could certainly be part of any build, rebuild, or conceptual model of a build. It comes down to what they want in a player and their fit, plus the standard they set for wanting guys that want to be here.
Tashaun Gipson made it clear last year he wanted to get paid. He’d have loved to get paid by Cleveland and he (and his agent) were not exactly thrilled by Ray Farmer giving them a low contract offer in their view and were adamant about leaving when they could.
After Farmer was fired, Sashi Brown provided a breath of fresh air in terms of the negotiations. And Gipson was excited about the prospect of Ray Horton coming back to run the defense, who was very high on Gipson from his time here in 2013. Gipson went on to make a Pro Bowl in 2014. He also played pretty poorly in 2015, all things considered.
The Jacksonville Jaguars were willing to give him a 5 year deal worth up to $35.5 million. Money was a huge motivating factor for him (and more power to him for it). The Jaguars offered a good deal of it and he took it.
I wouldn’t have given Gipson that much money, so I’d have lost that negotiation. It doesn’t make me happy to add another hole to the Browns, but if the Jaguars want to pay him that much, so be it. I’ll take a projected 4th round compensatory pick in 2017.
Then there’s Travis Benjamin and Mitchell Schwartz. Benjamin opted to sign a contract with the San Diego Chargers for 4 years, $24 million with $13 million guaranteed.
Maybe he really loved the idea of San Diego’s weather and having Philip Rivers as his quarterback. I can’t blame him if he did, but that deal is extremely reasonable.
The Browns may argue that he doesn’t fit the type of offense Hue Jackson wants to build here, but that seems dubious. Jackson prefers a vertical style of passing and Benjamin can obviously stretch the field as well as use that to come back to the football. Obviously, he has added value as a dangerous punt returner. He’s not a thickly built receiver, but that’s about the only knock on him.
And the compensation for letting Benjamin go? Probably a 5th round pick in 2017.
Unless Benjamin was adamant about getting out of Cleveland, I’d have kept him, period.
Mitchell Schwart’s situation is even worse. Schwartz, who was arguably the best right tackle in the NFL in 2015, signed a 5 year deal to play for the Kansas City Chiefs. His deal was for 5 years, $33 million with $15 million guaranteed.
That’s it?
There are Schwartz skeptics out there, that question his ability to maintain his level of play because of his limited athleticism according to combine testing. Fine, but he was still fantastic in 2015 and he’s 26. He’s also never missed a snap in his 4 year career.
The Browns didn’t feel it was a worthwhile investment to keep Schwartz in the fold for an average of just $6.6 million per season? Give him $35 million over 5, keep him and Joe Thomas intact for years and call it a win.
Instead, the Browns have nothing but theories to play right tackle at present. They can potentially move Cam Erving there and they do have Michael Bowie, coming off yet another injury, but those are pretty sketchy at this point.
A 4th round pick in 2017 for the best right tackle in 2015 doesn’t do it for me. Of all the free agents the Browns had, this was the one I felt the Browns had to get back. And it wasn’t a case where the money was just out of control.
In terms of total money on the contract, Schwartz isn’t even the top paid right tackle in football. Bryan Bulaga still is, despite the salary cap tax hike happening between the 2 deals. Schwartz should be the top paid right tackle in the NFL and he should be doing it as a Cleveland Brown.
Instead, the Chiefs are getting a tremendous bargain to bolster their offensive line and Sashi Brown has to explain to Hue Jackson why they are down a terrific pass protector for his upcoming rookie quarterback, because everything suggests he blew it when it came to Schwartz.
None of this makes Brown a failure in his role necessarily, but this was a brutal 1st consequential day in a job that many questioned him in getting in the 1st place. And if he ultimately fails, this day will be highlighted as a big reason for it, especially if Schwartz and Benjamin are great with their teams.
This also puts a tremendous amount of pressure for Sashi Brown, Hue Jackson and the rest of the organization to deliver in the NFL Draft. Currently, they are slated to have 10 picks in this year’s class, including an extra 4th round pick, 2 5th picks.
Unless the Browns sign unrestricted free agents that would mitigate the value of compensatory picks they’d get from this crop of free agents, the Browns are projected to get 4 more compensatory picks. Those projections include a 3rd for Mack, a 4th for Gipson and Schwartz and a 5th for Benjamin, as provided by Overthecap.com.
In all, the Browns could have as many as 20 picks in the next 2 NFL Drafts, since they sent a 7th in 2017 to the San Francisco 49ers for Andy Lee. In addition to all of the issues the Browns already had, they now have to address right tackle, center, wide receiver and free safety, be it on the roster currently or something they have to acquire.
If they kept Benjamin and Schwartz especially, they’d have far more wiggle room in terms of how well they can do in the upcoming drafts. Now, with players that critics can point to and show are potentially playing well, it adds extra pressure to these picks hitting and delivering.
Obviously, trades can happen. Moves up, down, etc in the draft can happen, but these 20 picks, however they are used, will dictate if this regime and franchise is going to succeed or fail.
The other part of this is added pressure on Jimmy Haslam, the team’s owner. And perhaps Dee Haslam, who is becoming a bigger factor in the organization. After replacing Farmer and Pettine, Haslam talked about how bad he wants to win and all the usual soundbytes one would expect after another incredible failure on his part. Now, on his 3rd handpicked regime in 4 years, they are off to a bad start.
That pressure that is on Brown and Jackson is also on him. Everything that happens with this team reflects on him (he’s not doing well). And the Browns, as an organization, receive zero benefit of the doubt (nor should they). When they make mistakes, they get crushed. When they make good moves, they are questioned.
That is epitomized today given the fact that the Browns are getting crushed both locally and nationally. The organization can try to defend this, saying they are trying to think differently about how to operate a football team. And If they succeed, they can point to this situation and crow loudly that people doubted them.
As it stands now, that thought process, however it turns out to actually work with Paul DePodesta as Chief Strategy Officer as well as having Brown with his experience as a lawyer, are now being scrutinized.
They aren’t getting credit for thinking outside the box. Critics are crushing them for letting good players walk and wondering why and how this makes the Cleveland Browns better. This regime has been here for about 20 minutes and they are already seemingly trying to dig themselves out of a hole they dug themselves.
Ultimately, nothing they say really matters until they have players on the field and results in the standings. Anything between then and now is merely spin, be it from the organization or anyone esle. It might make people feel better or serve to just make them even more despondent, but it really won’t matter until games start getting played.
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This also means that all hope is not lost with the Browns. The fact they lost 4 free agents doesn’t mean the team is doomed, they should blow the team up, trade Joe Thomas, sacrifice animals to football gods or any other of the reactionary nonsense going around in light of the day’s events.
The bottom line is that after 1 day of free agency, the Browns are down 4 starters. And 2 of them, they struggle to find a leg to stand on when it comes to why they failed to keep them. These failures only add to the mounting challenges facing the Browns and it puts so much pressure on a place where they have to win; the NFL Draft.