Why the Browns are Financially Broke Now till 2028

 

Your Cleveland Browns are forced to underspend the salary cap in 2025, 2026 and 2027 compared to their AFC North rivals because of Deshaun Watson's $167 million of cap charges oer the next three seasons, plus another $92 million in dead money over the same period, and probably much more if they cut or trade overpaid players to liberate cap space. So that's at least $259 million dollars over the next three seasons, and it is going to get worse before it gets better.  

It doesn't mean that the Browns are going to be terrible. The Denver Broncos were able to succeed in 2024 despite carrying $89 million in "dead cap" charges, mainly due to Russell Wilson's contract.  Nevertheless the Sashi Brown plan to spend our way to the Super Bowl is OVER.  

It's true that the Browns have some offsetting savings from past seasons, that money is more than cancelled out by $36 million dollar charge for Deshaun Watson and $68 million for former Browns stars including Amari Cooper, Zadarius Smith, Jed Wills, Dalvin Tomlinson, and several others.  

This season, we can guesstimate the actual amount they will spend on players not named Deshaun Watson by using the top 51 salaries pubished in OvertheCap.com and adding about 15 million dollars to cover the Practice Squad, injury replacements and late free agents. It's a bit of a shell game because teams can push money into the future by restructuring contracts to a certain extent. Nevertheless the total cap spent on players who are actually playing provides us a rough estimate of what the teams are actually investing in this season. That would say our Browns will come in at $216 million for money actually spent on players who actually play this season, while the Ravens will be at $249, the Bengals at $261 and Steelers $266. Thus, the Browns will spend about $30 million to $50 million less on their active players than their Division rivals this season, and it will get worse in 2026 and 2027.  

Those sportswriters who are writing stories about the Browns being able to afford trading first round draft picks and spending money on high priced contracts like Micah Parsons from the Cowboys are living in fantasyland. Quit reading that stuff!  Face it, the Browns ability to afford players who actually play is millions less than their AFC North rivals' this year, and it will probably get worse in 2026 and 2027. They simply need to recharge all the cash and draft picks that were blown on Deshaun, plus all the future-loaded contracts that are now coming due.  

The budget shortfall has been planned since 2022 when they signed Deshaun.  The idea was that they were going to overspend for as long as possible and try to win a Super Bowl and pay for it later. Well, they didn't win, and "later" has arrived.

Still, let's not give up hope.  A number of teams have won Super Bowls with the backup quarterback, including three in a row from 1999 to 2001: 1999 Rams with undrafted Kurt Warner, 2000 Ravens with Trent Dilfer, and the 2001 Patriots with second year man Tom Brady.  The most recent backup to bring home a Lombardi Trophy was Nick Foles and the 2017 Eagles.  

So, it's not good that the Browns are overspent for the next few years, but it's not impossible to win, either.  But can we at least stop overinvesting in quarterbacks? In addition to the well-publicized over-investiment in Deshaun, the Browns have burned through $22 milllion dollars in the Deshaun era and used five additional draft picks on quarterbacks in the past three years. This is preposterous! In 2026, with two first round picks (probably good ones, since the extra one is tied to Jacksonville), the temptation will be enormous to draft yet another quarterback, this time to replace Shedeur, if he does not win the Super Bowl as a rookie.   

I did not like the process that brought Shedeur to Cleveland, but here he is. He is the quarterback of the future, and no one else.  So stop wasting additional draft picks! 

A

$22,584,000

Za'Darius Smith

$14,233,000

Jedrick Wills

$11,812,057

Dalvin Tomlinson

$7,042,000

the money that they are spending on players not with the team, plus 

S

What Should the Browns Do With Johnny Manziel?

   This is actually not so complicated. The Browns should keep Johnny Manziel on the roster as long as he is good enough to be at least the third string quarterback.  You don't cut him unless there really are three guys that are clearly better.  I doubt whether that will be the case in 2015.

    Many enraged Browns fans, some with questionable sanity, want to cut Manziel immediately, feeling that he has betrayed them by not being an immediate superstar and for having a problem with substance abuse.   

      Let's deal with that right away:   If the Browns cut Johnny Manziel, they will be penalized because of the rules about guaranteed contracts.  The Browns would not save money by cutting Manziel. Their salary cap would be reduced in 2015 and they might have to cut payroll to make their cap limit. That would be stupid.   

       Sportrac lists that Manziel's 2015 "dead money" at  $6.5 M.  This is the amount of guaranteed money over the life of his contract, that has to be accounted for immediately when he is cut or traded.  That money has to come out of the Browns 2015 payroll.  Conversely if they keep him on the roster, they will have $4.6 Million dollars more to work with in 2015.   

     What about the risk of Manziel failing a drug test?   Well, what risk is that?    Nothing really bad happens to the Browns if he fails a test, other than he is not allowed to play.  They do not have to pay him if he is suspended!

What if Manziel has a positive drug test?  In that case the Browns are not penalized.   You can argue about the logic of the rule, but it clearly favors the Browns in this situation. 

If Manziel is as good as Seneca Wallace (a short third string qb who made some contributions to the Browns), he is worth keeping on the roster for another year.  How good do you really have to be to be a third string quarterback?  

       Suppose Manziel is not a superstar, but is good enough to be third on the depth chart for the Browns; say, as good as Seneca Wallace.   Yeah, he would be overpaid, but again that should be noted on Mr. Farmer's report card.  It's not the player's fault if the team gave him too much money.  But to reiterate, nothing bad happens to the Browns if he is second or third on the depth chart.   There is no reason why the Browns have to give him away if he doesn't establish himself as the starter in 2015.  

       Many Browns fans love to hate the second and third string qbs of the Browns.  But I'm calling into account the "Superstar or Bust" mentality of many Browns fans.  Who says every quarterback has to be a superstar?   This is not Fantasy Football where you have three quarterbacks and they are all Pro Bowl candidates.  Every team in the NFL has a backup quarterback who they think is good enough to win a couple games, and about half the teams have a third string quarterback at close to the league minimum.   You cut a guy if he is fourth string and you only have room for three guys. You don't cut a guy just because you're disappointed after two games or because you thought he would make the Hall of Fame his first year.   Right now the Browns have Josh McCown, Thad Lewis and Connor Shaw, and remember Shaw is eligible for the Practice Squad if he can clear waivers, and my guess is he can.  

Is two games really enough to conclude that Manziel can not play in the NFL?  No.  We don't know what we've got yet.  

     It might be that the Browns drafted Manziel too early. They definitely expected way to much out of a kid entering the NFL after his sophomore year of college.  So blame that on the Browns brass, probably Jimmy Haslam who wanted him the most.  But that is not Manziel's fault. 

     The fact is that we don't know what he can do.  We know that he is one of the shortest qbs in the NFL (along with Russell Wilson of the Seahawks) and that he has a substance abuse problem.  We also know he failed to pick up the Browns' offense last year.   But he also has a first round caliber arm, and he has better than average speed and very good improvisational skills.    Let's see what he can do. Maybe he be a flop.  Maybe he'll be a star.  More likely he will be somewhere in between.  But we will never know if we don't keep him for another two years.  

    At the same time, we are not giving him the keys to the car automatically.  He is going to have to earn that by first proving that he can practice better than Josh McCown and the other challengers.   

    In previous years the Browns would create a number one quarterback by trading away the other candidates.  I think Farmer is going to bring some additional talent via the draft or trade. Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota may be out of reach, but if either slips to about nine or ten, I could see the Browns moving up.   Alternatively Bryce Petty, Sean Mannion or Brett Hundley are  also candidates.  I would be surprised if we don't select at least one of them in the draft.   

     I think the Browns will ultimately form their depth chart with McCown at the top (for now), with Manziel, and a draftee competing for two additonal spots.  Thad Lewis has a a small chance of dislodging Manziel if Manziel does something completely awful, but my guess is that Manziel will survive that challenge.   Connor Shaw is eligible for the Practice Squad one more year, and I think the Browns will be willing to expose him to waivers.   

     From here on out, Manziel will be treated like everyone else with a uniform number.  Hustle like hell if you want to earn a roster spot, my man.  I think it's very likely he will do so.  

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How many wins is a high priced QB worth?

     Does getting a high priced quarterback correlate to extra wins in the NFL?   Yes, it does, sort of, but perhaps not as much as you might think.   I made a graph of the salary of the highest paid qb on the team in 2014 and compared that to the team win totals.  The results show that the teams with pricey quarterbacks usually do a little better than the teams with bargain basement quarterbacks, but still there are losing teams with very high priced qbs, and winning teams with low priced quarterbacks.  

       The main conclusion is that it depends on the team. You can't just spend money on a quarterback and create a winning team.  As the Chicago Bears about that one.  Or the New York Giants or Atlanta Falcons, both of whom weighed in with only six wins last year.     

   On the other hand some teams with low priced quarterbacks still excel.  Seattle is one such team that succeeded with Russell Wilson at quarterback.  The Eagles won 10 games with Nick Foles as their highest paid qb (and actually backup Mark Sanchez played a lot after Foles was injured). The Browns had a very low priced quarterback in Johnny Manziel (yes he was actually higher priced than Brian Hoyer), but the Browns were quasi-respectable with seven wins last year.   

       This year the Browns have moved up to the 27th highest paid quarterback in the person of Josh McCown, pending the probable addition of at least one other serious contender for starting quarterback position.  Many fans assume that that dooms the team to another season of mediocrity.  Maybe so, but there is more than one way to win a football game.  By not signing a high priced quarterback, there is more salary available, say for two Pro-Bowl calibre players at other positions.  Which is better to have?    A serious case can be made that it may not be worth spending eighteen million dollars for a single player, no matter how good he is.   

    Still the small data set for 2014 is consistent with the view that there is a payoff in having a top quarterback,and that he might be worth an extra win or two compared to a team with a below average quarterback.