3 remaining moves for the Cleveland Browns before the draft
By Greg Newland
3. Restructures
One thing the Cleveland Browns haven’t had to worry about in past years is restructuring contracts to manipulate the salary cap. So often during free agency, you see teams restructure with players to guarantee more money and increase signing bonuses to free up the salary cap.
When you are winning 4-5 games a year, owners aren’t always willing to pony up their money for signing bonuses, but now that the Browns are competing, the Haslams may feel differently. While the Browns still have just under $10 million in cap for 2021, remember that they have yet to sign their draft class either.
The Browns have a few options to give them more breathing room in free agency. An easy one, restructure Case Keenum and give him a signing bonus. This won’t free up a ton of money, but the team could give a $4 million signing bonus and $2.5 million guaranteed salary to get him more money now and free up $4 million to spend.
Two that could be extremely beneficial to the team are a restructure of Sheldon Richardson and/or Joel Bitonio. Both are extremely talented guys and have zero dollars guaranteed in their current contract. Both have also been very consistent, so giving them a nice signing bonus has less risk than a guy who struggles constantly to stay on the field.
Berry could easily give out sizeable signing bonuses, extend the number of years on the contract, and lower the salary cap hit for the 2021 season. While this is sometimes a strategy the just kicks the can down the road, 2021 is a season for that with the cap lowering. With a new TV deal and the economy on the rebound from a pandemic, there should be a massive increase in the cap next season.