Cleveland Browns: When will final 2 draft picks sign?

The Cleveland Browns are the only team in the NFL that still has two unsigned draft picks in Carl Nassib and Joe Schobert.

In 2011, the NFL and the players’ union agreed on a Collective Bargaining Agreement that slotted every draft pick into a pre-determined value in an attempt to end lengthy contract holdouts and overpaying for players before they ever set foot on an NFL field.

The process has been described as being easy enough that “a trained monkey could do these contracts” as the value of a rookie’s contract and bonus amount is set based on money allocated to each team (for the Cleveland Browns that is a little more than $10 million) and the salary cap, which for the 2016 season is set at $155.27 million.

In addition, a player’s yearly salary, including bonuses, can’t go up by more than 25 percent during the length of their rookie contact, with the minimum salary for a rookie set $450,000.

Related: 5 Questions on Carl Nassib

The process has worked out as planned, as this year 242 of the 253 players selected in the 2016 NFL Draft have signed their rookie contracts as of a few days ago.

Oddly enough, the Browns are the only team in the league with two players on the list as they have not yet come to terms with third-round pick Carl Nassib and fourth-round pick Joe Schobert.

Training camp is still a little more than a month away, so there is still plenty of time to get deals done with the two players, but both sides have been quiet as to what the holdup is with the contract negotiations.

Related: 5 Questions on Joe Schobert

Both players have the opportunity to grab significant roles with the Browns this summer as the team is rebuilding its defense under head coach Hue Jackson and defensive coordinator Ray Horton.

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Nassib will be in the mix for a role in what has quickly become a (mostly) young defensive line, joining second-year players Danny Shelton and Xavier Cooper, along with veterans Desmond Bryant and John Hughes (who is somehow already entering his fifth season with the Browns).

As for Schobert, while he played outside linebacker in Wisconsin’s 3-4 defense, he doesn’t really have the size to fill that role at the NFL level – and the Browns are loaded at outside linebacker – which means the Browns may ultimately move him inside. So it would be invaluable for Schobert to make sure his is signed and ready for the opening of training camp.

Everything has been coming up in the Browns’ favor this off-season, from the renewed enthusiasm under Jackson to what looks to have been a successful draft weekend. So there is probably little reason to believe that the contract situations of Nassib and Schobert will be what derails the momentum.

It would be nice, however, to see executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown put a check mark next to their names on his to do list during the team’s summer hiatus.

Update:

The NFL is never quiet, which was made clear when the Browns signed Schobert earlier this afternoon.

The signing leaves Nassib as the only rookie still unsigned, but getting 13 of 14 picks signed before training camp is an impressive feat by the front office.

Next: New motivation will help in 2016

Are you concerned that the Browns have not yet reached a deal with Carl Nassib?