I'm rooting for them, but mainly because they are my least hated team in the AFC North. I'm really interested to see how these teams with huge cap space navigate their rebuilds. This seems to still be a relatively new phenomenon. From a roster construction perspective, if you have excess salary space in one year that was rolled over from previous years, how do you use it wisely when most player contracts are for multiple years? Do you sign players to one or two year contracts as a way to use up your cap space? Do you front load contracts so that you give players a healthy bonus to sign with you, but if so, how do you ensure that the player doesn't stop trying once they've been paid their big payday?
I feel like this time last year, both the Jaguars and the Raiders had a lot of cap space. One improved their team and made the playoffs. The other regressed in magnificent fashion.
I can't say that I agree with what the Browns have done so far, trading for Landry on the free agent tag, trading for Tyrod Taylor. They have draft capital and they have salary capital, but that doesn't mean that they need to spend both now. To me, it's the two moves in conjunction with each other seem to contradict themselves. I believe Taylor's biggest flaw as a QB is that he waits and waits and waits for the long throw. Landry's greatest ability as a WR is to run quick short routes. He led the league in catches but only averaged 8.8 yards per catch. I'm not convinced that these two players complement each other.
Anyways, if I were the Browns (or the Colts, 49ers, Titans or the Jets) I would use my cap space to extend my home-grown young players and then I would supplement the roster following the Patriots model of acquiring players with one or two years left on their contracts only with the advantage that the Browns have more money to spend than the Patriots. For free agents, I would look to spend my draft capital on young cheap players and I would look to spend my salary capital on the middle class. I would also sign multiple players to one year deals and multiple players to two year deals in the hopes that they act as a short term bridge while we develop the rookies that we draft. Then after the short term contracts for the free agent signings are up, if they resign elsewhere, I would hope to land multiple comp picks over a two year period in a sense converting today's salary capital to draft capital tomorrow.
The Browns traded the first pick of the third round (65th overall) for Tyrod Taylor. Taylor is 28 years old, and is on the last year of his contract. While I don't think he's the correct QB for Landry I do like the contract in that there is hope that they may be awarded a comp pick if he signs elsewhere after this year is over. With that being said, however, after this trade, the Bills then signed AJ McCarron to a 2 year contract. It seems to me that the Browns would have been a lot better off retaining their draft pick and signing McCarron themselves. They could use that third pick to draft a third QB similar to how the Redskins drafted Cousins after drafting RGIII or to draft another lineman or something similar and they would probably still be in line for a future comp pick. I guess I just don't believe in Taylor.
The Browns traded a 2018 4th round pick and a 2019 7th round pick for Landry, which is much more palatable than the Taylor trade, but he's due $16 million this year and is expected to sign a big extension (which hasn't been announced yet). I almost think they might be better off keeping Landry on his one year deal for the year. At the end of the year, after they have worked with him for a year, they could potentially let him test the market as a free agent (similar to how the Patriots have handled some of their recent free agents (like Hightower)), with the hopes that they get an opportunity to re-sign him to a more affordable deal or put themselves in line for a comp pick. If they extend Landry now (which I expect them to do), I like the trade less. I like Landry as a player, but he is a slot receiver and I'm not sure that he is worth as much as he is going to be paid. Certainly, the Browns can afford to pay him a lot of money, but I just don't know that it is a good allocation of resources.
If he gets extended, the Landry deal strikes me as similar to the trade for Jaime Collins who the Browns signed to a four year $50 million dollar contract. I think that Collins, like Landry, is a very good player. I just don't know that from a resource-allocation point-of-view either Collins or Landry is the player you build your team around.
Anyways, I'm really curious to see how these teams build their rosters and how they turn out in a couple of years.
