Could Damarious Randall return to the Cleveland Browns in 2020?

Cleveland Browns unrestricted free agent defensive back Damarious Randall has yet to sign elsewhere in free agency. Could a potential return to Cleveland be in store for him?

There is no doubt that the Cleveland Browns still have a big need at safety. Even though they have signed two so far in free agency in Andrew Sendejo and Karl Joseph, neither is really a true free safety like Damarious Randall. Randall on paper is the perfect candidate to be signed by the Browns.

Despite expectations of having a large market for his talents, he has yet to find a home in free agency. This is likely disappointing to him.

Players in his position who have not found the market in which they had hoped for usually sign one-year “prove it” contracts to get paid in the short term and try to prove they’re worth a long term deal.

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The Browns still have around $45 million in cap space according to Spotrac.com, so they would have more than enough money to give Randall a one-year contract worth however much they could settle on.

It likely wouldn’t be cheap, but wouldn’t be nearly what Randall thought he could’ve gotten on the open market. If the Browns offered Damarious Randall on a one year, $7-$8 million contract, that could be enough to entice him to return to Cleveland for one final run.

Randall has not expressed interest in returning to the Browns at this point, and it doesn’t seem the Browns new regime is too interested in bringing him back. However, the two seem to be on paper a perfect fit for each other.

The best season of Damarious Randall’s career so far was in 2018, his first year with the Browns. If Cleveland can get one more year of that level of production out of him while they groom a mid to late-round draft pick safety to take over for him, that would be a perfect scenario.

Randall has openly expressed interest in signing with the Redskins and teaming up with strong safety Landon Collins on twitter. Unless the Redskins offer him a multi-year deal to become their starter, it’s hard to see Randall landing there. Especially since the Redskins just signed safety Sean Davis to a one year, five million dollar contract to be their free safety.

The market for Randall seems dead outside of Cleveland, so a one year deal in Cleveland makes sense for him in the long term. Bringing back Randall would add to the Browns shaky safety room, and would even allow the team to experiment with running a 4-2-5 defense, which would help cover up the lackluster linebacker room.

This move makes too much sense to me and would be a best-case scenario for both parties involved, but still seems unlikely.