5 best Cleveland Browns cap moves of the 2022 offseason

The Cleveland Browns are trying to bring the Lombardy Trophy to Cleveland in 2022 Here are 5 ways they brought themselves closer to that goal. 

The Cleveland Browns are serious about winning it all this season, which is reflected in several moves designed to take advantage of the salary cap rules — of which five of the best ones are identified here.

One action that does not make the list is cutting Austin Hooper, which may come as a surprise since this author has criticized Baker Mayfield’s over-reliance on Hooper in 2021. Two comments: one, Mayfield is gone; and two, the Browns did not actually save much money by cutting Hooper.

I did not have the heart to credit the departure of my favorite Brown, J.C. Tretter, as a great salary cap move, even though the Browns saved $8.2 million by cutting him. He put the entire NFL on his back in the Covid crisis, because the owners had no idea what to do during the situation. Thus I just don’t have it in me to write the headline that cutting Tretter. was the right thing to do from the salary cap point of view. So nothing but best wishes to Nick Harris, Ethan Pocic, and the other center candidates, but Tretter was special.

I am also a big fan of Baker Mayfield, but in his case, I am not quite as emotionally involved and can think a little more clearly about the cap ramifications of his departure.

Cleveland Browns best cap moves of the 2022 offseason

5. Trading Baker Mayfield

The Browns got back $8.5 million and a draft pick (a fourth or fifth-round choice depending on how good he is for Carolina). They wound up with $10.5 million of “dead money” for Baker Mayfield this year, and while that’s a lot of money, it’s less than $18.9 million they would have gotten stuck with had they just released him as the national media was clamoring for the Browns to do. Under the circumstances, they salvaged quite a good return from a bad situation.

Mayfield’s contract had become a “toxic asset.” That is, due to a change in circumstances, sudden his value around the league had dropped below is salary, never mind what the Browns were asking for him.

For those not familiar with the concept, it’s not that much different from the car business. If you bought a full-sized SUV with a V-8 engine on a 72-month deal a year ago, and say you paid $72,000 dollars for it (interest-free, they said). As soon as you drive it off the lot, it still looks the same, but unbeknownst to you, its trade-in value becomes less than the purchase price.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine and gasoline prices skyrocketed to $4.50 a gallon, and suddenly everyone no wants to buy economy cars that save on gas. You go to the dealer having paid down $12,000 on your SUV and you want to trade it in, expecting the dealer will buy it back for $72,000, and you can use the $12,000 as a down payment on a nice economy car. Uh, no.

The dealer informs you your SUV is worth only $40,000 as a trade-in. Your investment has lost $32,000 while you have paid only $12,000. You have to pay another $20,000 just to get the dealer to take the SUV off your hands. That’s a toxic asset.

Mayfield is still a good player, but enough bad things happened that no one was willing to pay the salary that the Browns had committed to. Perceptions change.

The value of a fifth-round draft pick can be calibrated by the Troy Hill trade. Hill was traded straight up for a fifth round pick. Hill’s deal is worth $4.5 million of total compensation for one year, though spread out over three seasons using two voidable bonus years. That tells us that a fifth-round pick is worth $4.5 million of salary cap, give or take.

Cleveland saved $8.5 million in cap space and $4.5 million in value for a fifth round pick. If Mayfield plays enough snaps for Carolina, that pick turns into a fourth round pick. Using the relative value listed in the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft points chart published by Over The Cap, the value would increase to about $5.7 million.

The Browns thus recovered something like $13 or $14 million dollars of value for Mayfield, which is a lot for someone who had lost his status as a starting quarterback.

They would have gotten good marks from this writer had they gotten an $8 million dollar deal.