For years, the perpetually rebuilding and restarting Browns were just in the talent acquisition business. Or at least trying to be. Business was generally not good, but times have changed and now a loaded Browns roster is more in the refining stage.
And the team might be in the luxury purchasing business.
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The Buccaneers and six-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Gerald McCoy have mutually parted ways, making McCoy a free agent. McCoy, 31, has a reputation as a good player and a good teammate, but the Bucs are changing defensive schemes, and McCoy was due to make $13 million in 2019.
That salary is probably the biggest reason the Bucs couldn’t find a trade partner, and the Browns for months have been rumored as a potential landing spot for McCoy. That’s probably mostly because the way John Dorsey has gone about acquiring talent in the past 14 months has outside observers thinking that every notable free agent might end up with the Browns. The Browns are built like they’re going to be contenders, now and into the future, and there’s little doubt that McCoy would make the defense better.
But the Browns just signed Sheldon Richardson in May to a contract that includes $21 million in guaranteed money and makes Richardson one of the team’s starting defensive tackles. McCoy, who has played his entire career in 4-3 defensive schemes, is a proven interior pass-rusher. But so is Richardson. If the Browns want McCoy, they’d be spending significant money for a player looking at a limited role, at least as of now. The Browns signed Richardson to play next to Larry Ogunjobi, an emerging third-year player who played a ridiculously high number of snaps last season — and continued to play through a torn biceps late in the season.
More depth and more talent are good things, of course, and the Browns are thin at defensive tackle beyond the starters. But fit matters, too, both at the negotiating table and in the locker room. Speaking at a community event Tuesday, Myles Garrett offered a prediction that Ogunjobi would join him in the Pro Bowl this season. The Browns were willing to make significant investments to add Richardson, Olivier Vernon and Odell Beckham Jr. in March, and well past the first wave of free agency they guaranteed safety Morgan Burnett $3.5 million.
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But Burnett is going to be a starter, and McCoy wouldn’t be — but almost certainly would demand significantly more money for 2019 (at least) than Burnett did. Make no mistake: McCoy’s release was about money, and his next landing spot will be determined at least in large part by money.
What’s the Browns’ budget? What’s the starting point for a potential McCoy negotiation? Is there another option at another position that might make the Browns hesitate from more big spending? All of those are valid questions, and none can be answered with any certainty right now. For the conspiracy theory crowd, Dorsey did not attend the community event that Garrett and a handful of team officials attended Tuesday afternoon after Dorsey was initially listed as a tentative guest speaker. Perhaps the head honcho was busy in the office with some pressing business.
The Browns still have more than $33 million in free salary cap space for 2019, per Spotrac.com. The Colts have the league’s most cap space, at almost $60 million, and also seem to be a potential fit for McCoy. The Saints, Seahawks, Titans and Ravens also figure to at least explore the possibility of signing McCoy. Dorsey has been busy but has said publicly he’ll continue to be prudent with the Browns facing some major financial decisions in the coming six to 16 months, most notably with Damarious Randall entering the final year of his current deal and Garrett a season away from being eligible to become one of the league’s highest-paid players.
If the Browns are still looking to add to the roster in late May or early June, the defensive front seven is probably the most likely area where an upgrade would come. The team started its second week of organized team activity practices Tuesday, and those practices give young players a chance to get comfortable with their coaches and make impressions, one way or another, on the team’s decision-makers. Though McCoy just officially became free, it’s safe to bet he’s been discussed in meeting rooms across the league for months now. The Browns did not draft a defensive lineman despite having mostly unproven players on short-term contracts behind the starters on their offseason depth chart.
McCoy is worth a look. He’d make the Browns better. But we don’t know whether the Browns would have to act fast to get McCoy, or whether McCoy wants a starting role and/or a multiyear contract. We just know that Dorsey only knows aggression and that adding a six-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle to what appears to be an already loaded defensive line is something the Browns will at least explore.
(Photo: Kim Klement / USA Today)
