Cleveland Browns: Managing the salary cap for a 2018 run
By Joel W. Cade
Browns reducing cap hit
The Browns are currently in reducing-the-salary-cap-hit mode. Following the lead set forth by the Raiders and Jaguars, the Browns are reducing the amount of large contracts hitting the cap. The purpose of getting out of large contracts is to free cap room for when their new draft picks are ready to compete.
The Browns have embraced a full-on rebuild mode. Much like a baseball team’s rebuild, the Browns are letting their established veterans leave and replacing them with inexperienced rookies. Rebuilding mode means players with large cap numbers will either be traded or released.
Not surprisingly, the Browns let all of their major free agents leave. A lot of ink has been shed describing how terrible it was for the Browns to let Alex Mack and Mitchell Schwartz leave. However, neither player fit the power run scheme Hue Jackson will use this fall. Travis Benjamin would fit Jackson’s West Coast scheme but, in a rebuild, the production versus cost is prohibitive to the cap. Safety Tashaun Gipson left via free agency for Jacksonville.
The Browns let those players leave. In return, they gained cap flexibility and compensatory draft picks next spring. For a team rebuilding around the draft, this is a win-win situation. They win by gaining cap flexibility. They also win by getting draft picks to contribute to the core of the rebuild.
The Browns continued the trend by releasing every player whose contracts ended after the 2016. They released Donte Whitner, Karlos Dansby, Dwayne Bowe, Brian Hartline, Randy Starks and others. The result was almost 19 million in dead money that will come off the books in 2017. These veterans stood in the way of developing young players plus created a significant cap hit. Under a rebuild, releasing them was a smart move.
According to Dan Lavoie of SB Nation’s Buffalo Rumbings, the Browns are setting themselves up for the 2018 season. At that time, the young cheap players should be hitting their window of opportunity. As Lavoie points out:
"Right now, they [Browns] only have $69 million committed to the cap for that [2018] season. Add in a couple free agents and some draft picks, and you could bump that up to $90 million. Well, the salary cap will probably be around $170 million by then. Also, they’ll have around $50 million in cap space to carry over. Yeah, this will be a team with money to burn in a couple of years."
Once in the window, look for the Browns to sign their younger players and to be aggressive on the free agent market. But the Browns already signed several free agents this offseason. How do those players fit within the money-saving scheme?
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