Navigating a rising salary cap bill will be one of the biggest challenges facing Browns vice president of football operations and general manager Andrew Berry this offseason.
The curse of building a playoff team is that it becomes increasingly difficult to retain everyone, even, at times, key starters. Nowadays, there are a number of savvy cap tactics a team can utilize to prolong a Super Bowl window, but those strategies aren't a simple copy and paste for every contract. Each deal with a player is uniquely different and some are easier to manipulate to create cap savings than others.
It's up to Berry to sort through those details. And as he spends the weeks ahead looking for ways to balance Cleveland's book, there's a deal he's likely to discover he regrets.
Back in December of 2022 the Browns rewarded veteran right tackle Jack Conklin with a four-year, $60 million extension after the ex-Titan bounced back from a season-ending knee injury to play 14 games that season. Still, the injury one year prior should have been a red flag.
Fast forward to 2023 and the deal almost instantly became a problem after Conklin tore both the ACL and MCL in his left knee during the Browns season opener. The team was now set to pay a nearing 30-year-old tackle, coming off two serious knee surgeries in a three year span more than $28 million in guaranteed money over the next four years.
Making the decision even more complicated was the unexpected emergence of Conklin's replacement for the remainder of the season, rookie Dawand Jones. On one hand, nobody expected Jones – a fifth-round pick – to burst onto the scene so quickly. But after taking over for Conklin in Week 1, it became evident pretty early on that he was capable of holding his own as one of the bookends along the offensive line. Unfortunately, Jones' season was done in by a knee injury as well ahead of Week 15. The difference is, Jones is much younger and much more affordable of a player going into next year.
Conklin's deal is an albatross that Cleveland is going to wish they could take back. In. perfect world, Conklin would be an ideal candidate for a cap casualty this offseason – a player who is released because the cap savings it provides outweighs their production on the field. That isn't an option for Berry in this instance though, as doing so would leave the Browns on the hook for a $21.9 million dead cap hit that would either be accelerated onto the salary cap this upcoming season or spread across the next two seasons of book keeping in $7 million and $14 million chunks.
The soonest out from the Conklin deal won't be until after the 2025 campaign, where Cleveland could opt for moving on from him to save $15 million, while still eating $10 million in dead cap charges. An even better out exists after the 2026 season, which would also provide $15 million in cap relief, while only costing the Brown $4.4 million.
Jones, meanwhile, is only expected to cost a little over $1 million in each of the next three seasons.
Hindsight is always 20-20 of course, and as much as Berry can be blamed for handing out such a deal, he and his staff also deserves credit for hitting on Jones, especially as a later round prospect. Additionally, there could be a world that exists where Conklin returns to form next season as the starting right tackle, then the team decides to move on from 2020 first-round pick Jedrick Wills – also coming back from a season-ending knee injury. In that scenario Jones could be moved to the left side of the offensive line and voila, problem solved. If that happens perhaps this all becomes a moot point. That does involve a lot of "what ifs" though.
As things stand right now, it's looking like Conklin's extension is going to be deal Berry and the Browns could come to regret doling out.
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