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Just to be clear since I may have been the one to start this.

. I like Higgy
. I think he is a decent player and good egg.
. If he doesn't fall in to the cap structure the team has in place, he won't be hard to replace.
. If he fits in to the team cap and stays, good deal.

I hope everybody is happy.

It'd be great if that quote included words like "we've made an offer and are in negotiations".

That said, perhaps Berry's quote says that Higgins WANTS to check the market, or maybe it just means that they are going to let the market set the value.

I can't believe you hate Higgy.
Why do you hate him??

This phrase doesn't happen this time of year nor should it. I get the vagueness of Berry's response, but when one says he has "earned the right" to test FA, they are clearly not on the same page and, as we all know, the FA market normally overpays. I feel like Berry said the same thing about Schobert. I could be wrong.

But maybe not this year, post-Covid.

I do recall him using that phrase before, and I think you are correct in that it was with Schobert.

Well, I guess we'll see. While I love what Higgins does here, if this FO feels they can replace what he does for less without messing up the locker room dynamic, then I'm good with that; but I do hope he stays here.

I don't fault Berry for not re-signing Schobert for what it's worth. That's on Dorsey. IMO, he was worth re-signing and Dorsey didn't even engage in negotiations, according to Joe himself.

But allegedly Berry engaged with Higgins and his agent in 2020. Late in 2020, but engaged nonetheless. Not coming to terms will be disappointing and I will blame Berry. He is a player that should be on the roster long-term after Beckham and/or Landry are long gone.

Higgins numbers are skewed because Hue didn't like him for some reason. Higgins rode pine.

This was also the quote used for Schobert.

It's pretty clear that they put a value on him. They have communicated that value to him. Higgins stays if his market value is less or he just really wants to stay.

you realize theres a big difference between 5'11 and 6'2 frame, especially when it comes to catch radius.. this is silly to say size doesn't matter in WR position..over half on your list over 6ft. You're forgetting quite a few true Number ones on that list including probably the best wr in the nfl Michael Thomas.. who is 6'3, Julio is 6'3, mike evans is 6'5, these are all better than just about all on your list and true game breakers. Speed and route running works great, but the truly dominant guys like i listed can do all that, and they have a huge catch radius and can abuse any secondary.

I don't think there is any doubt it is to allow the market to set the value.

In the next few days dozens of good players are going to be released. Each one is going to be seeking a job and teams are going to have multiple choices to target.

We have a fair amount of money to spend. With the influx of talent the free agent market is about to experience I see no reason to negotiate with Higgy allowing him to set the price.

That doesn't make any sense.

And of that list, the one I'd most want to add to our WR room is Tyreek Hill. Not the guys who are 6' and taller. I want the guy with solid hands, solid routes, and speed and quickness to burn most anyone.

6'5" is great, but the NFL gets burned far more often by 5'10".

not me, I'd take thomas over hill every single day and def. twice on sunday.. Thats not a knock on hill, hill is a gamechanger as well. but thomas has better wr skills.. switch QB's and you'd see how much better thomas could be. Brees is a great qb..5-10 years ago.. Mahommes is a great deep ball thrower and Hill benefits

I missed this before, but the quote for Schubert was that he "earned the right to free agency" meaning they were planning on letting him hit the open market. This Higgins quote is about him deciding between signing here or elsewhere (imo), which sounds more like they're going to offer him something, and he can take that or not.

... or I'm reading way too much into silly season snippets.

Rashard is important to this offense, I’m afraid he will not be back, we may have too many people to pay. Kareem took the first leap of faith, I feel like all we can hope is others do the same.

Yes, I mean a bit of a hometown discount.

I don't think he will have a choice but to take a discount.

It's a bad year to be between contracts.

Higgy will jump at the first offer he gets if his situation goes on much past the first few weeks of free agency.

If he really wants to stay, he will give us a chance to meet or beat the offer, if the other team even allows any time to make a decision. They might play Elvis and sing "It's now or never".

Higgy is good enough that in a "normal" year, he would probably have some wiggle room. This isn't a normal year with the lower cap. Teams have all the power. A player like Higgy has none.

Teams can wait 3-4 weeks and they will have players sweating bullets and ready to thankfully sign minimum contracts.

Hard to put a price on the chemistry he and Baker have. I agree on not overpaying him, but they really click. Higgy is a guy we've been lacking for a long time. That reliable possession/slot guy is sooo valuable.

Unfortunately for Higgins, we're already paying Landry to be that guy.

It would still be nice to have Higgins, but he's kind of a luxury/insurance option for us as our roster is currently constructed.

Landry is paid #1 money. He's something like the 14th highest paid receiver in the league. OBJ is something like 8th. ( link )That's one of the challenges of re-signing Higgins. There's a ton already invested in the room.

I don't see Higgins as an either/or with regards to Landry. Right now the Browns' depth chart shows Higgins and Landry as our two starting WR, with Higgins in Beckham's spot. Folks need to remember that Beckham most likely isn't going to come into camp next year ready to play. He might not be ready until 3-4 games into the season, given the timing of his ACL tear last season and the fact that it is reportedly a 9-12 month full recovery.

https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/team/depth-chart

Unfortunately, Higgins isn't on the depth chart at all as an impending FA. If they all played for free, I'd be right with you. With the amount we've got invested in our top 2 receivers, it makes even a mid-tier WR contract tough to fit beneath the cap with all of our defensive needs. Financially, tendering Hodge and picking up a midround rookie probably makes more sense to round out our WR room. If they can make it work with Higgins, great. I'd probably still prioritize investing elsewhere first, though.(DE, S, maybe LB/L.David) Once we get those settled (and possibly some extensions-i.e, Baker), we can hopefully still afford Higgins. I think our D needs to address DE and S (probably more...CB, etc.) to effectively function. While Higgins would be nice, I think the O can function without him.

The business side of football sucks. Good mid-tier vets get squeezed out.

True point.

I still don't think that is a good reason to make a strong play for Higgins at this point. There are a lot of FA receivers and looming is a very strong class of receivers in the draft.

Higgy's price is as high as it will get right now. In a few week it will drop maybe 25% or more.

If we are signing guys because they are good guys and we like them, sign him up. If we are signing guys because of those mentioned as well as production compared to other players and the salary cap with an eye on the future, we wait.

My choice is wait.

I like insurance..LOL

All of that is very true, but there's also something to the idea that when you find a guy that just "clicks" with your QB, you do what you can to keep him around.

Peyton & Marvin agree.

It helps when that guy is also a hall of fame player instead of the third or fourth guy in the depth chart.

How long will Odell Beckham Jr. be out?

The Sporting News

Beckham is out for the remainder of the 2020 NFL season after tearing the ACL in his left knee in Week 7 against the Bengals (Oct. 25). It's an injury that's often given a 12-month timeline but occasionally sees players beat that by a few months, so Beckham's probably got an outside chance of returning for Week 1 in 2021.

The surgery itself took place on Nov. 10, about two weeks after the injury, so at this point it seems safer to speculate Beckham will return early in the 2021 season but maybe not by Week 1.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news...vx1jaofuttu2cq1

**********

As long as Beckham is out, or even if he's not quite ready for full-time duty, Higgins is our WR2. This gives Higgins some leverage, imo. The salary cap issue will probably deflate his market value, which gives the Browns some leverage. It seems to me they should be able to come to an amicable compromise on a one year deal. I don't know the number, but $2.5-3M sounds reasonable.

Unless you have to pay for it

OBJ should be fully ready for the season.

I would still try to sign Higgins. He's reliable and his chemistry with Baker is undeniable.

Especially if you have inflated (just by the nature of Higgins being a veteran) monthly (/seasonal) premiums and subsequently never (/rarely) end up using the coverage. Throw in that the insurance premium makes it so you have to put off the remodeling that would really take your house to the next level and fix a lot of the problems that had been plaguing you (defense, defense, and more defense), and you have to weigh the pros and cons. Once you find a QB, depth WRs are relatively easy to find. It's not like we're lacking pass catchers. Some of ours just play TE and RB.

Fix the holes, then worry about insurance is all I'm saying.

I get what Dave was saying about Higgins effectively plugging in as our #2 until OBJ is ready to go, but I feel like, if OBJ isn't ready to go, we'd ideally pair more of a speed guy with Landry. We've got lots of "reliable" options in Hooper, Hunt, Chubb, Landry himself. Getting more explosive on offense seems to have come up a lot in the press conferences.

Higgins is good, just kind of redundant. There's nothing wrong with redundancy, except for the cap.

It'd be nice to have Higgins back, but something has to give somewhere. That's the nature of the business.

Many forget that Hodge was playing in front of Higgins until he was hurt. IMO, Hodge will be here, and Higgins will get paid well by another team.

Problem is we have so much money tied up in our wr's. With that being said I think letting Higgins walk is a huge mistake. Especially since I have a feeling he will sign with the ravens or Bengals

Love Higgy, but I think it's more of a case of Baker making him look good instead of vice versa. "Let it go..."

Won't be hard to replace? That line is such a crock of manure I don't know how else to describe it.

We Browns fans suffered through 25-26 ish has been, also ran experiments of trying to get someone to excel at wideout for upwards of 10 years, from 2006 on, and before,
that saying he could be switched out with the likes of more Donte Stalworths, and other failures, (won't be hard to replace)
is uncool.
They moved 3+ major assets to try and get OBJ and he hasn't produced, largely, in a Browns uniform, up to expectations of his reputation, deserver or not, given by some.

Fact is, Any Wide Receiver, who regularly helps the team Win, has proven EXTREMELY HARD TO REPLACE, for the Browns, because the Browns have failed at attempts
SOO-----> OFTEN! So often.

If the Browns can't recognize winners on their own team, they're doinked.

We agree and disagree.

I know Higgy is a good player. He also has to fit in to the framework of our cap.

If he can't, he can be replaced from a production standpoint. He wasn't even a starter on the team until people got hurt.

When in your life did you not have to pay for insurance...

Maybe he'd be a starter if he had the benefits of having a good coaching staff. Hue did him no favors. I still don't think we've seen the best of Higgy. He rode the bench unjustly for what felt like forever. He has earned the right to prove himself even more than he already has.

I agree. We kinda hold the leverage with him. If he wants to be here for cheap, then he will. If he wants to sign elsewhere for more (if he can) then good luck to him!

I think he’d be wise to stay given Baker and his chemistry

Don't get me started on what a scam most insurance is. Pretty much just license for the industries that it's used to cover things in to inflate prices. Another one of those good in theory systems that we've, for the most part, managed to completely corrupt in practice. It's turned into just another way the rich elite can siphon money away from the public.

But, this isn't really the forum for that discussion. It'd be great to have Higgins back. He might have to wait. Most teams would love to have him, but I'm not sure he's going to be a "got to get that guy" guy for any teams. He's more of a we'd love to have him if we can still afford him guy imho.

I'm not sure if this is a great analogy, but I'm going to try it out. Higgins is almost a training wheels WR. He's great for getting a QB comfortable, but I'm not sure how necessary he is once the QB's ready to race. Undoubtedly, he's still reliable, but we may have outgrown him.

Not sure if it completely works, but another angle to try to look at the situation from.

I don't think that many people actually forgot it. But I also think people must take it in context. We see players who are listed third and forth on the depth chart change positions all the time.

Point being this was before the coaching staff actually saw both players performance on the field last season. Did their performances change the coaching staffs perspective? If so, by how much? Did the performance of Higgins make them reevaluate his value and place on the depth chart? Let's face it, Higgins certainly made the most of his opportunities based on his targets.

These are questions I don't believe anyone can answer with any degree of accuracy. I know I can't. But what the depth chart will look like at the beginning of this season, especially as you go deeper into it, may not look anything like it did last year at some positions. WR may be one of those positions.