Cleveland Browns will benefit from upcoming free agent glut

The Browns are overcommitted in 2021, but have viable remedies

As for your Cleveland Browns, they are slightly overcommitted for 2021, though this situation is fixable. Their Top 51 salaries amount to $185 million, which is some $10 million over the estimated Annual Salary Cap Allowance. Don’t be alarmed, it is not uncommon at all to be over the cap in the off-season.

First, of all, they have $29 million worth of Carryover Dollars, so even if they did nothing to help themselves, they would still have a maximum of $19 million to spend on draft picks and free agents.

However, they don’t need to blow all of their savings on only one Super Bowl run and then fold next year. Instead, they are much more likely to create additional salary cap room by making some cuts and renegotiating contracts with other players, usually extending them at a lower rate and obtaining a first-year discount in the process. Through it all, they are going to leave bucks in the vault to pay Baker Mayfield and Myles Garrett when their pay escalates around 2023.

There are several contracts with large non-guaranteed dollars that could be renegotiated to a lower dollar amount. These players include, according to overthecap:

Player            2021 Guaranteed Non-Guaranteed     Total

David Njoku                       $0.0                    $6.0               $6.0

Jarvis Landry                     $3.0                  $11.8             $14.1

Odell Beckham Jr.          $12.8                    $3.0             $15.8

Joel Bitonio                        $0.0                 $10.0             $10.0

J. C. Tretter                        $3.3                    $7.8              $11.1

Sheldon Richardson       $1.7                  $12.7             $14.4

Chris Hubbard                  $1.3                     $3.7               $5.0

Adrian Clayborn               $0.5                     $3.0               $3.5

TOTAL                               $22.5                  $57.3              $79.8

The non-guaranteed money can be partially deferred to future years, but also reduced overall in this case. As an estimate, the Browns will probably make three or four cuts and re-negotiate the majority of the deals listed, and the 2021 cap charges will probably be reduced by $30 to $40 million. That’s an absurd prediction, but this is an absurd year.

For those who are curious about how the salary cap math works, a simplified example is shown below. The basic concept is the guaranteed money is paid up front, but it is charged over the lifetime of the contract.

The reason why they hire the analytics guys like Andrew Berry is that they want to continue to have Myles Garrett and Baker Mayfield on the team, and not have to give up, blow it up and rebuild when the piggy bank is empty. The Browns will be just fine. Okay, so without further ado, let’s move on to some salary-cap math.