DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns Release Sheldon Richardson

I can't get in to every rotation...so we can talk.

Who plays DT?

Jackson
Elliott
Billings

Those seem to be the main 3 at this point.

Clowney is a good inside player. He is better on a inside move over bending around the edge. We will probably rotate him in there some as well.

We will probably draft a DT at some point in the draft. I would think fairly high, meaning 2nd or 3rd round.

Richardson wasn't in any long term plan. It's not as foolish as you think.

Nothing in Barry's transaction history would suggest that he makes moves without calculation. I'd be very surprised if he has no options and he's just winging it.

I agree. Berry, Depo, and Stefanski have a plan.

Mixed emotions... I hate losing Richardson... but he's not worth $12m.... i'd probably rather have Richardson than Clowny.... but if we offered to restructure and he turned us down I understand the cut... especially if it is more of a long term play to sign our superstars....

I agree with those who said this FO seems to be very calculated and I'm trusting they'll have a plan...

Not Happy with this HOWEVER!! We could not keep him at his current salary, maybe we offered him a 2 year 20 mill deal and he said NO. I realize we needed some cap relief and he and his agent said NO. This might be temporary, go see whats out there and take another look at what we have offered. I am not sure about this BUT I am sure he knows his BEST chance to SHINE is playing with Myles and Clowney, not to mention a chance at the Big Dance. I have a feeling he will be back at a price tag similar to what it was just a little different for our 2021 season

J/C

I'm not sure how to feel about this one. Berry and co have earned some trust, but it just doesn't appear to be a move which needed to be made at this time. Unless we're about to make an aggressive trade, cap space wasn't currently an issue.

Richardson has been productive, reliable and a fantastic leader. He's a very good player. On the other hand, DT is somewhat loaded. Elliot flashed last year, Jackson isn't what he once was but is super underrated, Billings will hopefully be back and better for the time off and Day is nice depth - and that's without what could be further addition in the draft.

I'll trust their moves but this feels like creating a hole, it be honest.
Still,

Boo... but we had a feeling this could happen. Still, this kinda thing always ticked me off (now we have a hole... Jackson replaced Ogunjobi).

Are you sure about that? I thought Jackson was more of a 3 technique?

J/C
I think we should fire Berry and replace him with a couple of posters on this board! Some think they could do better!!

I liked Sheldon too for all the reasons already expressed on this thread. However, Andrew Berry has done an outstanding job up to this point so again I am putting my trust that he is doing the right thing and has a plan.

Odds are Richardson refused to play for MUCH less this year. He knew even with a restructure this was probably only going to last one or two more years.

Dang Throwlong. If you didn't think the current Defense (if thats what you want to call it) didn't need a roster overhaul you haven't been watching the Browns lately. This D needed a MAJOR rebuild.

As far as Richardson. I loved the guy and thought he was one of three on Defense that actually earned their keep.
That being said we gonna have to make some cap space. It has been rumored he had the cap hit that was gonna make room.
As good as he was he wasnt a 12m defensive tackle. Sorry he just wasn't.
We never know what goes on behind closed doors either. They might have tried to restructure we don't know. We just know he took the ax and we gonna plug the hole one way or another through draft , FA or what we have on the roster.
You can rest assured Berry and company has a plan going forward so everyone can quit stroking out and get there panties straight and calm the heck down.
We gonna be alright !

Speaking of a plan I didn't see this mentioned. Don't we have a young DT named Curtis Weaver who is recovering from an injury whom many are high on. I don't know if our FO and coaches feel that is the plan but it could be. Young guy, potential and cheaper than Sheldon.

J/C

Agree with Bonefish. It is safe to assume this move isn't made unless Berry and the coaches have both complete faith in the current talent at the position and their plans for future additions.

And that's an important part of the move. It wasn't one which had to be made, Berry wasn't forced in to making it against his will out of cap issues or such, so we can reasonably conclude it was a move the team was comfortable with.

While we could add high at the position, DT is another position which infamously produces decent talent in the middle rounds, especially on a team like ours in which the ends are going to draw plenty of attention and we've got the existing talent to facilitate a development-by-rotation kind of environment. Which is what we saw last year with Jordan Elliot - who certainly had some bright moments.

I don't think this drastically alters plans. Especially when our first selection is at 26 - there isn't a whole lot of clarity regarding who will be on the board. I've read teams typically have a good idea of the first 10-12 selections but after that it's up in the air.

I didn't forget him, but I think he is a edge player. At least in college. I am not sure if the plan is to kick him inside or not.

I think it is pretty obvious that Dt is looked at as a throw away position. Meaning the FO thinks finding solid DT's isn't all that hard, and I think they are right. Unless you have a guy like Donald, you can seemingly salvage some vet or prep some rookie to be solid run stuffers in the middle.

Again, I can't say this enough, we are a good team, and good teams have to release good players if they need to shuffle money around.

You can't keep everybody. Might as well get used to it, that is unless you liked it better when we sucked and keeping a few good player wasn't a problem.

Those comments are general and not aimed at any one person.

I agree, and the roster isn't full at this point.

We still have a draft in front of us.
We still have camp cuts to monitor.
The book may not yet be closed on Richardson.

Let's wait to see what things look like come the end of August.



Just to add: It wouldn't surprise me if Richardson and his agent already have a new offer from the Browns. I think Berry and Depo are pretty adept at placing a value on a player.

I figure they made Richardson an offer and he indicated a desire to see what else is out there. There is no reason that they cannot bring him back on a cheaper deal once he explores his market. But in the end someone said it is better to let a player go a year early vs a year late, no?

I don't get it.. Richardson seemed like the perfect fit for us. Maybe age played a factor. to me, he contributed last season..

One thing however, I trust Berry, so let it play out.. I suspect he has a plan

I'm guessing it was a number crunch.

At the time we had Richardson, Jackson, Billings and Elliott inside.
Garrett, Clowney, McKinley and Gustin/Weaver outside
Obviously some other depth competition.

At the same time, Richardson, Jackson, Billings, Clowney and McKinley are all one-year guys, so both spots are likely targets on day one or two of the draft.

If you draft a DT on day one or two, baring injury, they aren't likely to get cut, neither is Elliott or Jackson (cheap deals). Billings is a cheap deal as well so Richardson would have potentially been gone either way. Personally I would have waited in case Billings doesn't come back ready to roll.

If we take both a DT and DE then Richardson likely gets squeezed out by the numbers anyway, but still, not a fan of the timing of the move.

I guess this is the weird stuff that happens when you are both "stacked" at a position and yet need to draft for the position a well.



I wish Richardson luck. Still a chance we bring him back on a cheaper deal (hopefully without voidable years, Berry is getting kind of aggressive with the credit card spending).

Rolling Dead Cap:

2022: 6.65 million
Jadeveon Clowney: 3.6 million
Malik Jackson: 1.89 million
Anthony Walker: 1.16 million

2023: 7.75 million
Jack Conklin: 6 million
Troy Hill: 1.75 million

2024: 12.6 million
Austin Hooper: 3.75 million
John Johnson: 8.85 million

That's another topic regardless...

You're making the most sense in this thread. All the good teams in recent history have had to release good players. With the contracts we have coming due and the amount of talent on this team, it's going to happen regularly. Of course we'll have the usual whiners, (the same people who constanly criticized the coach, the qb and the team all the way to the second round of the playoffs), calling out the FO for these "dumb" moves, but Berry really hasn't given us much reason to doubt him so far.

I don't doubt that they have an offer in front of them now, and I know they don't make moves without a plan, BUT, I also know that their moves don't always plan out and will sometimes make moves they don't succeed in covering for... our secondary and linebacker groups in 2020 is a good example; we let a bunch of quality guys go, brought not much in, and rolled almost entirely with question marks everywhere.

Which quality players did we let go?

jc -

Doesn't this move only make sense if they are trying to get a restructure done before the season? Whether he is worth the money or not is irrelevant unless they need the money for something else. You don't just cut a player because they aren't worth their contract. It's because they aren't worth their contract plus <fill in the blank>.

I guess in place of a restructure, it could be another player addition as well. But anyone who is arguing he was cut solely because he wasn't worth the contract...I just don't think that makes any sense at all. It has to be that in combination with something else.

Shoebert was still a better player than most anything we trotted out at LB.
Eric Murray, Demetrious Harris, Justin Burris, and TJ Carrie would all have been very valuable in our secondary last year.

Wasn't Harris a TE?

I could be wrong but I think PFF had Schobert as one of the worst linebackers in the league last year (I wanted to re-sign Schobert). Those other guys are basically replacement level players that were let go for equal players (Kevin Johnson, Karl Joseph, etc.).

So it's either love every move without question or we want him fired? No room in between those 2?

And here I thought this was a message board for separate threads to discuss each topic....

Your thinking makes sense if teams weren't able to roll over cap room from year to year- teams would try to get as close to the salary cap as they could each year.

But since they can carry-over cap space, it makes sense to cut contracts that just aren't close to what the player would get on the open market, especially when there is not a big "dead cap" hit.

I think Richardson has been a great player for us, and I hope that he could still possibly re-sign. Maybe Berry told him to go see what he is worth on the open market, and we'll match whatever offer he gets?

Hard to fault this move without seeing what else AB has planned.

I think you're correct. A little game of DYK...

Last year Schobert missed 20 tackles -- second most in the NFL. The Browns top four LBs -- Takitaki, Smith, Goodson and Wilson missed 26 combined.

j/c

First, I'll start by saying I expect the response of the board to be predictable. Some, possibly many will say the player I"m going to mention hasn't done anything in the league to be expected to fill Richardson's shoes that he will be a huge drop off from Richardson's talent level...so on and so forth.

I think all of that has some truth. I'm not suggesting this guy will replace Richardson. I'm saying he may be an option for a role in the D tackle rotation. This player does not prevent the team from looking for more DT help in the draft. I searched around but I couldn't find much analysis about him. What I do know is the Browns have seen him up close on a daily basis for a better part of a year. The Browns re-signed Sheldon Day a day or two before releasing Richardson. He was on our practice squad most of last season. Five years NFl experience. 26 years old.

https://www.sisdatahub.com/players/4252

I don't think Berry makes transactions on a random basis. Just connecting dots Dawgs.

Don't like this move at all. I know Richardson wasn't worth what he was being paid but why create another hole and he was still playing pretty good. The Front Office must think we are possible Super Bowl contenders or why give Clowney, McKinley, Walker, and Jackson all 1 year contracts and if that is the case why not over pay for Richardson as he was due to be a free agent after the season anyways.

Yes, I got distracted while looking up who we lost and looked at the wrong thing. The point was that moves get made with a plan in mind, but plans don't always pan out and they can very realistically bite us in the ass.

j/c

A few points I would like to address here.

What I do find funny is how when a player demands a trade people point the finger at the player and his agent. Often times he will get labeled much like a deserter. Like he is somehow disloyal to the team and our fans. Yet when our FO cuts a valuable player we hear, "They must have a plan. I'll trust they did the right thing. He was too expensive." Yet that same contract was signed and agreed to by both parties. Hopefully at least some fans will keep this in mind. In neither case is there a good guy or a bad guy. It's a business and each side is doing what they think is right for them. So the next time a player wants out of a contract at least try to keep that in mind. A player doesn't somehow owe more loyalty to a team than a team owes to them.

Secondly, and this is mostly directed to Peen, you can't live in a world where you claim that the LB'er position and the DT position aren't that important. That will only create a situation where teams run the ball down your throat up the middle any time they want or you have to keep an extra S or CB up close making you vulnerable for passes to their TE and RB up the middle. After all these years I felt you had seen enough of that. I guess not.

Thirdly, let's stop pretending that we have some magical player on the roster that will replace the production and quality of Richardson at DT. We don't. Clowney does have versatility and can be moved around. But that's for the purpose of finding mismatches. He's not suddenly going to be moved inside to play DT. That would ruin the very purpose of signing him in the first place which was to be the bookend to Myles.

I'm sure the FO does have a plan. But then again I'm not someone who acts like a player is going AWOL if they want to be traded. It's a business.

Maybe the LB'er position isn't as much of a non factor as people think in Woods system. That could be the answer we do not yet know about. It is possible that Woods will use a dominate LB'er to help stop the run and rush the QB. It could be be the DT position will be addressed during the first round of the draft. It could be another signing is in the works we don't know about. Nobody can actually say with any certainty at this time.

Richardson was not worth 12 million this year. From a business standpoint I understand the move. Waiting to see how a replacement or shift at the LB'er position plays out is yet to be seen.

Malik Jackson is replacing him, and Billings replaces Ogunjobi. Elliot is the developmental guy. I think we are okay.

When you make moves like Berry has, you have to adjust in other areas. That is how you make a roster sustainable. I'm sure they knew Richardson will be able to get paid what he wants, he showed his worth last year. Glad he was here and wish him well wherever he lands.....except any team in our division.

I would add to your point that we did roll with what we had (and let those guys go unfortunately) with my contribution being that we made no moves during the year to get better on D. I think if Berry & Co knew how well we were getting/jelling (or going to get/jell) at the back 1/4th of the year, they would have certainly made moves last year. JMO

If not for D'Qwell Jackson, Shobert would go down in history as the Browns most over-rated LB ever...and I liked both those guys...but they were sooooooo not as good as Browns fans remember.