DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Terrelle Pryor's extension unlikely to come by season's end, Isaiah Crowell still aiming for 1,000 and more

Ok.

But why can't we offer long contracts to both?

Because we shop for our players at garage sales.

Pryor is likely to re-sign if the money is right.

We definitely can. But why would a player sign a long term contract when he is three weeks away from free agency?

Pryor and Collins are both among the best players at their positions with regards to the players that are due to become free agents. They should both just wait and get the most money possible in free agency.

I hope we re-sign one and franchise the other.

I've been saying right along that it's time to start drafting impact players instead of trading down. Well, it's also time to start spending money to KEEP some impact players. I feel we have 2, JC and TP. They both can be part of the foundation to build a winning team. No excuses. We have the cap space spend it and keep these guys. We need them for the future.

I don't understand the arguement of one or the other...we are fully capable of retaining both and I think we will...jmo

The Browns can keep both if they are able to reach an agreement to the contracts.

I think some are under the assumption that the players do not want to stay, so they can only keep one by tagging him.

Who turned down ~ $8,000,000 offered by the Browns only to end up signing for ~$7,000,000...

kinda the feeling I get as well. but I do think both wind up staying...extending Jamar is a sign they are going to try to keep our players this year...last year was last year.

*raises hand* Oooo, Ooo, Ooo pick me, pick me. I know the answer to this one

They think they know.
Obviously there is a gap. It's like buying a house or car for us "normal" folks. The owner wants top dollar and the buyer wants a deal.


What isn't known is how big is the gap?

If it isn't far, a deal could be worked out. If it is wide, one side or the other is going to have to learn the reality of things.


At this point, I don't have any idea who is off base. At this point, this is why a player agent seeks to test the market. I mean, why not? You know your guy is going to get signed. You would be doing him and you a disservice to take the first offer presented without a competitive offer if therer was a wide gap.


Same for the Browns. Why sign him for whatever the demand, before you know where the demand dictates?

Because right now they are the only team that can sign Pryor or Collins.

I was under the impression he settled for less money than we had on the table. What's with the snotty arrogance?

He did. It was reported that the Browns offer was around $7 mill a year but Schwartz and his agent thought he could get at least $8 mill a year on the open market so he chose free agency. When Schwartz started talking money with KC he and his agent found out that they had missed judged the market and came back to the Browns who thought they were just being used as a pawn to drive up the money so they pulled their offer. Schwartz ended up signing with KC for $6.6 mill a year.

The Browns blew it on Schwartz. Sashi has admitted as much off the record to Terry Pluto, the beans were spilled by Andre Knott. He wanted to stay in Cleveland. Brook Squires, his fiancee, is a grad from John Carroll University. Her family is from the Cleveland area. Regardless of the Chiefs record, Schwartz wanted to stay.

At this point, it's just another screw-up in the long line of screw-ups.

I think that screwing around with Schwartz is the biggest mistake Sashi Browns has made thus far.

I think that we can probably come to a deal with Pryor, as he really likes Hue Jackson, and he also chose to come back here at the end of 2015, when he reportedly had another offer in addition to the one from the Browns. However, we can't cheapskate a potential deal. He isn't going to sign here at a financial detriment to himself.

Franchise Pryor all day everyday before you let him walk. If Collins walks (which I don't want) at least we get the comp pick back and him being here didn't cast much.

Pryor and Coleman just need a good QB. This team has talent at many positions, QB is not one of them. The Oline is patchwork and needs attention too.

I can't help but think what Pryors numbers would have been this year if Gordon had come back and played like before... But we're the Browns so nothing ever goes as planned.

Before all the rules changed to protect players so much, I don't remember having so many season ending injuries... I don't remember this many ever as a matter of fact.

At the core of the problem with the Browns front office getting any of our own free agents signed, was this...


The Cleveland Browns have no idea how NFL free agency works

FOX Sports
Mar 10, 2016 at 1:45p ET
link

The Cleveland Browns retooled their front office after another terrible season by Lake Erie by eschewing the NFL scouting establishment and moving toward an analytics-based approach.

The Browns have been putrid since they were reborn in 1999, posting two winning seasons and one playoff appearance in 16 years. How bad has it been? The Browns started Kelly Holcomb at quarterback in that 2002 playoff game.

It’s laudable that the Browns opted to think outside-the-box in their efforts to pull the team out of perpetual futility, but so far this offseason, that plan appears to have backfired.

The opening of the NFL’s free agency period Wednesday coincided with an exodus of players from Cleveland. That’s a fairly normal occurrence around those parts, but the Browns’ front-office braintrust of Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta (yes, that Paul DePodesta) should be taking plenty of blame.

According to several NFL insiders, Brown and DePodesta were completely unprepared for the start of free agency, which, no matter which way you look at it, is an event as important as the NFL Draft.

Browns players left, posthaste, in part because even if Brown and DePodesta were interested in keeping them, they weren’t prepared to negotiate.

It’s not a huge surprise that the Browns weren’t meeting agents and players at the table — neither Brown, the team’s "Executive Vice President of Football Operations", nor DePodesta, the team’s "Chief Strategy Officer", ever has been a chief personnel man.

These were two guys who found market inefficiencies on spreadsheets — they’re researchers — they never had to negotiate a contract.

Brown was previously the team’s salary cap guru, which put his memos, not him, at the table in contract negotiations under the last Browns regime.

DePodesta, who is best known for being one of the chief characters in "Moneyball," had never worked in football before being hired by the Browns. Did they expect him to square off with an NFL super agent?

As two men who should be able to point out weaknesses with ease, it’s equally surprising that they hired a 28-year-old, former Colts scout Andrew Berry, to be their top talent evaluator.

It doesn’t take a spreadsheet to add up the problem — of the top three people in the Browns’ front office, not one has ever negotiated an NFL contract.

Analytics are a tremendous thing, but it is only information. It’s a useless commodity to be rich in if you have no idea where, or how, to use it. There’s a reason it’s called a personnel department — there’s still a human element to it.

So gone are Tashaun Gipson, Travis Benjamin, Alex Mack and Mitchell Schwartz. But Johnny Manziel is still inexplicably on the team, and, hey, they have reported interest in Colin Kaepernick.

"To everybody that’s on the outside looking in, how do you lose two Pro Bowlers and an up-and-coming right tackle and one of the best returners as well as an up and coming receiver in one free agency class?" Gipson, who received a five-year, $35.5 million deal from the Jaguars, said at his press conference Thursday.

"I don’t know. But, for me, it’s not my job to know."

Hopefully, analytics can give the Browns an advantage so significant it can pull the team out of this failure of its own making.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Let's hope that The Harvard Boys took the criticism they received over their lack of understanding of how free agency works, as "constructive criticism".

I do not want to see a repeat performance from the Browns front office and their failure to get any business done.

Just don't screwup and allow Pryor to get away.

A million bucks to NOT be here? That's a deal most of our higher paid would take...

What did The Harvard Boys offer Schwartz?

Below is the contract Schwartz signed with KC. No need to guess!

Mitchell Schwartz signed a 5 year, $33,000,000 contract with the Kansas City Chiefs, including a $7,000,000 signing bonus, $20,700,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $6,600,000.
link

I'm not very confident that the FO will keep both Pryor and Collins. I hope I am wrong. It is, after all, just a feeling.

Not sure what will be worse: Losing two more good players or listening to all the excuses/justifications by the homers for another year.

...and Sashi and Hue are able to convince him that it is in his best interest to stay in order to be part of a championship caliber team in 2-3 years.

I would think the Browns will have to overpay anybody to stay here, or to come here. The good news (?) is we are reportedly $50M under the cap, and the cap is going up. We can afford it, and we can't keep losing viable players for nothing. If we do it'll just be a continuation of 1 step forward and 2 steps back that has kept this team in an ever-deepening rut.

J/c ...

A few things ...

- if we don't re-sign him just like with Mack it may not be the FO's fault ... or just like Schwartz it may be 100% on the FO ...

The FACTS are there in both cases but most on both sides of the debate only seem interested in advancing there agendas as opposed to accepting the conclusions the facts clearly point to ...

- everyone except tab and I seem to want to re-sign Pryor at pretty much any cost ... that clouds the fact that his choice of agents gets every penny he can for every client he has ...

A choice of an agent by a players tells u alot about them .. anyone picking Drew KNOWS what there signing an agent for .. and thats to get every single penny possible regardless of what it takes ... players that choose Drew aren't looking to do "hometown" discounts or settle for a few less dollars ...

UNLESS we put a deal on the table that exceeds what Drew thinks the market will pay there's no way in hell he lets Pryor sign w/o hitting FA ... NO WAY ... its simply not how he does business ...

Just look at Drew's history ... its right there for all to see ...

Its going to be interesting to see what happens this year in FA ... both in re-signing our own and who we go after when FA opens up ...

I for one don't think moneyball will work in football .. i actually think its MORONIC ... it will be interesting to see how they see it now after this season and the fact that the honeymoon is over ...

What will win .. MONEYBALL or the REALITIES OF AQUIRING TALENT IN FOOTBALL ....they just don't mesh together ... why? ... because:

FA in the NFL and MONEYBALL are diametrically opposed business models ...

Like i said .. this will be an INTERESTING FA season starting with signing our own and then when the market opens up ..

The facts are that they are not on the team and our team is worse off for it. I am so tired of the spin.

And I'm already dreading the spin that will occur if we lose Pryor and Collins.

The spin is starting up already for Pryor's exit. He's a diva, a primadonna, he acts out too much on the sideline, he had an apparent shouting match with Griffin when they had to use a time out because they couldn't get the play called in time. These are all narratives I've heard and read in local media "reporting". We have a guy who actually cares about LOSING. It bothers him - oh, the horror.

Me too ... from BOTH SIDES! ...

U see Dave ...there's a difference between caring about losing and acting like a 2 year old before, during or after a game ... HUGE DIFFERENCE ...

I say go ahead and overspend for guys.

We should be the golden standard that having the most cap space isn't always a good thing.

The presence of one doesn't necessarily mean an absence of the other. Being demonstrative could mean he thinks some of his teammates are a bit too philosophical about being 0-13. IMO, 0-13 means too many guys don't care enough about the losing. But, sure as I'm sitting here, they'll be out there on the field after the game yukking it up and trading jerseys with the guys that just kicked their asses.

He did sign for less if you look at the total amount of the contract. But the total amount of the contract is never guaranteed. What players look for is the amount of guaranteed money. That's all a player can actually count on recieving. And Schwartz got more guaranteed money in the contract he signed.

Pryor has great upside, but he is nowhere near franchise tag caliber.

If it comes down to not be able to sign either before FA, you tag Collins and let Pryor test the market.

I doubt Pryor gets any offers more than $12-13 mil a year. If we match what other teams offer, I think that Pryor will stay with Hue and the offense that he knows rather than have to learn a new one while still learning to be a WR.

This shouldn't be the most difficult thing in the world.

J/c ... i don't get it ... what am i missing ....

What part of ... WE PULLED THE OFFER do u guys not understand ... everything i've read says this is the proccess and those pesky DETAILS on this one ...

- we made Schwartz the offer before FA started ...

- Schwartz tested the market ...

- we pulled the offer ...

- Schwartz found out we had the best offer ....

- schwartz came back and the original offer was no longer an option ..... and as far as i know we didn't EVEN MAKE ANOTHER OFFER ...

- Schwartz went to KC ...

Thats what i read back then ...

If i'm missing somehitng please let me know .. i HATE being MIS-INFORMED ... HATE IT!!

If what it posted is true ... why is anyone comparing offers ... we didn't have the original offer on the table and i'm pretty sure we never even were an option for him as we didn't offer him squat when he came back after FA started .... \

What am i missing guys? ...

I don't disagree with a thing you said. It was a moronic "Trump like" power move that came back to bite us in the butt.

I don't think you are missing anything. That seems to be the most-quoted story. In the end, none of us REALLY knows what happened or why.

Losing Schwartz was a bad move and Mack wasn't going to stay regardless. It appears they may have boned it up by cutting Gabriel too, but they nailed letting go of Gipson and Benji - due to performance and the ridiculous contracts they landed. They have worked the waiver wire well...the '16 draft report card can't be graded yet.

We are what and where I thought we'd be back in the summer.

"Schwartz went back to the Browns in the hours before free agency and ultimately planned to accept their pre-combine offer. But they were informed by Cleveland that the offer no longer stood, at least not at $7 million a year. "

Bottom line: It didn't have to come to this. The Browns were willing to pay Schwartz $7 million a year, more than he's getting from the Chiefs. His $15 million guaranteed from Kansas City is more than what the Browns were offering, but a deal could've been struck had things not gotten ugly on Wednesday. It's unfortunate for both sides.

Diam...........how can you say it is a FACT that there was absolutely no way that Mack would re-sign w/us when the real fact is that he flew back from California to meet w/Haslam in the FO about re-signing w/the team?

Also, how smart was it to lose Gipson? It sounds like they never even made a serious offer for him.

NRTU

Very smart. He's JAG who wanted a big contract and he got one. Good for him...good for the Browns. He's been every bit as non-descript this year as last...but with a boatload of money.

There are plenty of reasons to bash certain moves by the FO. Not offering Gipson that stupid money isn't one though.