In 2020, Cleveland Browns They finished 11-5 and won the playoffs despite having the most unused cap space in the NFL. A few years later, they’re facing a self-inflicted salary cap cliff with few options to actually tighten their wallets.
The Cleveland Browns roster is lacking in cheap, young talent.
The Browns are almost completely lacking young talent playing on rookie contracts due to a series of trades in 2022 and 2023.
First, the Browns went all out, trading for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson in 2022. In exchange for Watson, Cleveland sent a 2022 first-round pick, a 2022 fourth-round pick, a 2023 first-round pick, a 2023 third-round pick, a 2024 first-round pick, a 2024 second-round pick and a 2024 fourth-round pick.
After trading capital to acquire Watson, Cleveland gave up a 2022 second-round pick and used three third-round picks instead.
In 2023, the Browns traded a second-round pick for WR Elijah Moore and a third-round pick. (Moore is still on his rookie contract and played more snaps than any other Cleveland receiver in 2023.)
The core of the team is made up of players selected on the first two days of the draft, but Cleveland did not pick in the first or second round in 2022 or 2023. Cleveland’s past two first-round picks (Jedrick Wills, Greg Newsome II) have been excellent, but they are about to sign big-money second contracts. The same can be said for their 2021 second-round pick. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah is the only Browns Pro Bowl player with a rookie contract in 2023 and will be a free agent after this season.
The Cleveland Browns have taken advantage of big contracts
Dead cap is money already paid to a player that hasn’t yet been counted against cap space. All cash eventually counts against the cap, but the payment method can change when it counts, and if a player retires, is released, or is traded, any money owed must be counted immediately. The Browns use void years, years beyond the actual payment period, to spread out their dead cap as far down as possible, but then they’re in a bind when the player inevitably leaves the team.
After acquiring Watson in a trade, the Browns gave him the first fully guaranteed five-year contract in NFL history, signing him for $230 million. Cleveland can’t walk away from the contract even if they wanted to, because they’d be obligated to pay him the remaining $138 million in cash unless they could find a trade partner willing to take on the $46 million per season he’s owed. Even if they did, they’d still have nearly $63 million in dead cap left because of the cap deferrals already in the contract.
The Browns paid wide receiver Amari Cooper, whom they acquired in a trade in 2022, $40 million over two seasons and deferred a $22.6 million dead cap hit after his contract expires in 2024. They did the same after acquiring wide receiver Jerry Jeudy in a trade this offseason, signing him to a contract extension that featured a ton of deferred dead money into the future.
The Browns followed that trend, adding more than $5 million in void years and dead cap hits each to David Njoku, Joel Bitonio, Wyatt Teller, Jedrick Wills, Myles Garrett, Dalvin Tomlinson, Za’Darius Smith, Ogbonnia Okoronkwo, Juan Thornhill, Grant Delpit and Dustin Hopkins. With a significant salary cap increase over the next few years and contract extensions with some of these players, the Browns are hoping they can defer cap charges even further into the future.
The 2025 season could be a powder keg for the Cleveland Browns
With money deferred to the future, the Browns are currently estimated to be $85 million over the NFL salary cap in 2025. As things stand, they would carry over $28.8 million in cap space into 2024, reducing that amount to just under $60 million.
About $22.6 million of the cap commitment is the dead cap hit from Amari Cooper’s expiring contract. Cooper will be 31 at the start of the 2025 season, so if an extension is signed, only $7.5 million of the dead cap would count in 2025. But the team would likely have to pay Cooper more than $22 million in salary, which would ultimately count against the cap.
Currently, Cleveland has nine players (including Cooper) with cap commitments of more than $19 million in 2025. Their strategy is to convert base salaries into signing bonuses to spread the hit, but that would mean continuing to push cap commitments further into the future (and further escalating the dead cap figure). Pushing back is risky, since seven of those nine players will be over 30 by the time 2025 begins. Players over 30 are more prone to injury than younger players, so if they are released or retire, they will be owed money immediately.
Looking forward, the Browns rank 31st in projected cap space in 2026, 2027 and 2028 due to their current contractual obligations. They have no players under contract in 2028, so all of their cap is dead cap.
