Cleveland Browns: Damarious Randall’s future tied to Week 8 result

The Cleveland Browns could listen to offers for safety Damarious Randall, especially if they fall to the Patriots in Week 8

Damarious Randall, who has been an outstanding safety for the Cleveland Browns in a season and a half, might be getting ready to pull up stakes and leave soon. The team can ill afford to lose a player of his caliber, but the fact is that they do not have him under contract for next season, and so the Browns may be listening to trade offers.

Randall recently deleted references to Cleveland in his social media accounts. As of Saturday, Oct. 26, his Facebook account says he is a “former Arizona State Defensive Back.” There’s no mention of the Cleveland Browns.

So that does seem to be proof positive that something is up. Maybe he believes he’s on his way out, or would like to be on his way out, or maybe he knows something the rest of us do not know.

It’s really too bad. Randall has been a spark plug, 100 percent effort guy. He has won over many Browns fans in a short time with Cleveland. But as you have heard a thousand times, football is a business.

Back in July, John Dorsey was quoted by Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal, in response to questions about a long term deal for Randall, saying,

"“With Damarious’ agent, [Dave Butz], I’ve had a lot of good conversations with him, I mean, this thing is going to take a little bit of time.”"

Now its the end of October, and it has been more than a little bit of time. It’s understandable if Randall is feeling frustrated. It may be that the two sides simply do not agree on Randall’s worth.

This year, Randall has been slowed by a hamstring injury and was also in concussion protocol for two weeks. Perhaps for those reasons he has not been at the same high level this year as last year. Yet as a former first-round pick in his fifth year, he is automatically renewed, but at a stiff price, at a cap hit of $9,069,000 according to Overthecap.com. That’s enough to make Dorsey wince.

If the Browns beat the Patriots on Sunday — and that is a very large if — then maybe the Browns will feel that they need Damarious for a playoff run. Why not? If your team can beat the world

But if they drop the Patriots game, they fall to 2-5 at the trade deadline, and adding major new payroll items is difficult to justify. Cleveland might be wise to trade him for whatever they can get, and add an additional free agent next season.

Randall has really blossomed in Cleveland where he was reconverted to safety, which he had played at Arizona State. He was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the first round, but they wanted to convert him to a slot corner. Randall was a good player as a cornerback, but performed at a very high level for Gregg Williams in 2019 as a free safety.

But despite that record of success, Randall said he would have wanted out had Williams stayed on as the head coach. That’s a bit perplexing, given that Randall’s success coincided with his new role in the Williams-led defense. It’s not known that there have been any problems with Freddie Kitchens or defensive coordinator Steve Wilks.

If there is a trade, it would probably have to be conditional upon Randall’s physical status, similar to the Duke Johnson deal, in which the Browns get a better draft pick if Johnson is available for ten games.

Randall’s currently nursing that pulled hamstring, and so it creates additional risk for the team that is considering acquiring his services

In the meantime, we do know that Randall’s Facebook account has removed references to the Browns, that he is scheduled to become a free agent, and the business vectors point to a trade if it can be arranged.

Here is hoping that the Browns can come to an agreement with a very good hustling player, though sometimes it just does not work out to the satisfaction of the team, the player and the agent. We’ll know much more by Tuesday evening, October 29, at 4 PM, at the NFL trading deadline.