The Cleveland Browns have done a lot of business over the last couple of seasons. Extensions for Myles Garrett, Joel Bitonio, Nick Chubb and Denzel Ward kept the homegrown talent in place and well paid.
David Njoku is sitting on the franchise tag currently, which would pay him over $10 million for one year while awaiting a long-term deal as well.
The team also has highly compensated players they didn’t draft but acquired either through trade or free agency. Deshaun Watson, Amari Cooper and Wyatt Teller were acquired in trades while John Johnson III and Jack Conklin were big free agent signings.
There has been a lot of talk about the salary cap around the NFL this offseason. While “the salary cap isn’t real” is an invalid statement, it can be manipulated. In the end, teams can kick cap hits down the road almost as long as they’d like until a player is no longer on their team.
The cap hit comes due at some point but when that is, often, is up to the structure of the contract.
Here is a great visual of what Cleveland’s salary cap looks like and could look like moving forward:
A new addition to my cap viz!
Here, I'm showing the scheduled cap hits for a single team over the next five years. Importantly, this doesn't give a sense for how flexible any of these hits are, so remember that teams may be able shift these around.
Data: https://t.co/Z91lhA0BAP pic.twitter.com/GdeTkzXUyY
— Anthony Reinhard (@reinhurdler) May 21, 2022
A larger version of the picture for easy reading:
The first thing you will notice is that Austin Hooper is still listed as a $13.2 million cap hit. While Hooper was released already, he was released as a June 1st designated player which spreads his cap hit out but the team doesn’t receive cap relief from his contract this year until then.
Baker Mayfield’s contract, a big sticking point in trade discussions, being the biggest salary cap hit in 2022 is also interesting to note.
Andrew Berry and company have the flexibility to restructure contracts while assuming the salary cap will have big jumps in the next couple of years. For now, a lot of big cap hits for the Browns in the upcoming seasons.
What stands out to you looking at the above visual of the Browns salary cap situation?