3 players the Cleveland Browns must be cautious re-signing right now
By Greg Newland
Andrew Berry must be careful signing these three Cleveland Browns to extensions.
The big news this week was the Cleveland Browns and star pass-rusher Myles Garrett finalized a five-year, $125 million contract extension with $100 million of guaranteed money. With a large amount of salary cap the Browns have currently, this deal makes sense for many reasons. Garrett has proven to be an All-Pro talent player and hasn’t faced any injury concerns since his rookie year.
The Garrett signing was certainly no shock. After restructuring Olivier Vernon’s contract a few weeks ago, and the excess cap space next year, the writing was on the wall for the young man to get paid. While the cap details have yet to surface, expect Andrew Berry to give a sizable signing bonus with much of the money front-loaded to keep the Browns flexible moving forward.
To this point, Berry has been extremely strategic on how to bring talent to the Browns. He was able to sign the best right tackle free agent, Jack Conklin, to a three-year deal and not break the bank. Additionally, he paid another Pro Bowl caliber player in Austin Hooper, who luckily plays a position that is still underpaid in the NFL.
There is nothing to guarantee an injury won’t happen and all these signings will be for nothing, but it looks like the Browns will have an extremely competitive roster for 2020.
With the major signing of Garrett in the past, Berry can now sit down and really start to evaluate who his next major contract extension should be with. Over the last three seasons, the Browns have accumulated a ton of young talent, but unfortunately, with a salary cap, it is impossible to keep everyone.
It will be crucial for Berry to be accurate when evaluating who should stay to build the franchise and who he should let walk to sign the “big deal” elsewhere.
There is no doubt this will be a huge challenge, but to this point, he appears to be more than capable. But which three players should the Browns be cautious of re-signing right now?