DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Tony Grossi Upset w/ Browns in FA

The hardest part right now is showing patience.
I know we all been patient since 1999 but we have to hold the course at some point. Thank goodness it appears the FO believes this.
Lets see what happens after the draft & actually play football games.

I don't know about anyone else but that was the most fun I had watching the Browns in years. Ya, tough ending- but into December I was engaged and loving it! I'm having a hard time understanding the heavy doom~gloom
As far as I can see we are sticking to the plan.
Grossi has always been a half empty type guy, this is not a revelation.

The free agents are helpful to a point. But overpaying for guys who are just as good as guys you can sign a week later is not a good idea.

I think we signed Dansby and Whitner last year as our "culture builders," now we have to be patient.

True, and i agree. Just sucks cause we let go skrine, who was decent, for HOPES of our draft picks from last year being the same in production.

My guess is that we sign a veteran that will be our insurance policy.

If we sign Browner, Cox, or some other quality veteran corner for a cheap rate, people will forget about Skrine very quickly.

I am not going to read all the posts in this thread. I know almost all will bad-mouth Grossi and defend the FO. They will say he is an arrogant idiot. This article is his worst ever. He hates the FO.

Yeah, I have seen it before. Y'all said the same thing when he bad-mouthed H and H, even though he gave them way more room than any other FO.

On the other hand, y'all quoted him when he ripped Mangini. You thought he was a guru when he criticized Banner.

Funny how that works.

I think he went over the top in this article, but I also think he had some very good points.

Let's cut to the bottom line: Do you really think the Browns are going to win w/this roster?

The defense will be good enough to win, even without Skrine and Sheard. The offensive line will be good enough, barring injury. The running backs are fine. Even the wide receivers won't be terrible.

Guess you know where I'm going. It all depends on Johnny, or Josh or, gulp, Marcus.

Is this the roster that will be on the field after the draft and the start of the season ? Seems to me there's a lot of factors ahead before assuming this is the roster.

Can we wait until the season's start before answering?

Do you think Chip Kelly wins 10 games this season?

This response is for you and Diesel.

Of course, we can wait.

However, are we allowed to evaluate what has transpired thus far, or are we not permitted to discuss the moves that have happened thus far?

***Disclaimer***

The following comment is a joke. The following comment is a joke.

___________________________________________________________________

What moves?

___________________________________________________________________

***Disclaimer***

What you have just read is a joke.

Of course.

I saw Mangini come in cleaning house bringing in his people. I knew it would take two or three years. He made a lot of people unhappy. I'm seeing Farmer/Pettine doing something similar. What I don't know can he replace with better. After F/P's first year, they won more games than the the last three regimes. All I can say is that got my attention.

Not trying to be difficult I simply don't see the gloom and doom. Maybe I'm naive.

Nice reply. Very logical.

I hope you are right, bro. And you very well might be.

It's just debate, bugs. I like when we can debate w/respect.

We disagree, but it's all good.

Of course we aren't going to spend money. The Browns want to be the first team in league history to be fined for not spending enough. 89% of the cap HAS to be spent by RULE. Browns won't do that. Browns have no intention of improving. I hear some saying lets wait for the draft? Why? We will likely do the same thing we did last year. Draft two players in the first that DON'T play. Because we don't need talent on the field. We are perfect as is. We went 7-9 last year. Against a WEAK ass scehdule. NO quarterback. No threat at WR. No pass catching tight end. No pass rush whatsoever. The weakest LB corp of ANY 3-4 defense in the league. And now a huge hole at corner. The most important position in the No Pressure Defense that Pettine runs. But yes, we should NEVER attempt to improve the teams talent in FA. We have the draft to find us BENCH players. Oh, and drunken head cases. Can't forget those. And all of this with a rookie OC that's never called plays? Playoffs here we come. Or perhaps more accurately, 4-12 here we come.

I almost believe Grossi when he posits they are tanking the season for a QB NEXT year. It sure does seem they have zero interest in winning this season. McCown is our savior? Holy crap are we in trouble!

The only thing that seems a positive about our lack of interest in improvement is the certainty of change to come. If these morons step back to 4-12 or 5-11 I'm virtually certain Haslam will fire them faster than he did Banner and company. So whille they may believe they have 100 years to screw around, Haslam has shown he is not a patient man. Farmer would do well to remembrer that. Or perhaps better for us, NOT.

from page 1:



...and yet, we seemed to hit on Dansby, Hawkins & Whitner last year.

Not a bad haul, if you ask me.

Here ya go, Bard.... even trade:

If you are going to complain about something, please know what you are talking about.

They won more against WHO? We played the weakest schedule in the league. Lets see how easy it is to repeat 7-9 THIS year. Since we don't need any more talent, and McCown is an AWESOME QB. There's no reason we shouldn't easily win more games than 7-9 against this years schedule.... Have you looked at the teams we play this year? No easy victories on that schedule. So lets see how the NPD and the FG offense we run works this season.

I'd make that trade. At least I could feed the Spam to my dog.

So 89% doesn't have to be spent? There is no rule on spending? That's not what I've been reading and hearing on Sportscenter and NFL Network. 89% was the figure they were quoting....

Read this

Hey tony when are you going to quit pooping in your diaper, crying over spilled milk, sucking on your Binky's,holding your breath stomping you feet and crying more than all the woman on the bachelor. Grow up and learn how to be a reporter you waste of column space

Here's the other article quoted...

http://603brown.com/2015/02/24/browns-are-fine-for-the-89-cap-floor/

The Article also has a copy of the CBA in it.

*****************************************************

Browns are fine for the 89% cap floor.

by Mike Burgermeister · February 24, 2015




NFL: Cleveland Browns at New England Patriots
Joe Haden’s big signing bonus last year was smart and positions Browns well for aggregate cash spending.

A couple weeks ago I thought I was on the scent of a brewing scandal and was poised to unleash a low-grade rant. Subject was the four year 89% cap spend floor and the Browns’ prospective failure to hit it. It turned out I was entirely wrong with my premise (the Browns are in good shape w.r.t. the floor as explained below) and so then I sat on the news.

That’s not sporting is it? So here’s the post.


In the outfall of Jimmy’s private presser with his hand-picked journos and with all the attention spent on Jimmy’s ignorance of his first round QB’s scouting report and the contents of his GM’s texts which herald fines and lost draft picks… as well as his blessing to have lots of intelligent people in rooms weighing in on any old topic since they’re so intelligent and such…1

Lost in all that was Jimmy’s statement the Browns would be “not a player in free agency.”

We’re way under the cap now, we were way under the cap last year, and the year before that.

Wait: Isn’t there a floor wherein the aggregate over so many years spend has to total some percentage of the aggregate total?

Wasn’t I pounding the table on this thing a couple years ago? And then wasn’t I chastened because I was operating on bad data when I learned that rollovers were ok and the floor is basically spread out over time?

Yeah, that all rings bells. So rather than be wrong and guessing, this time we’re going to the source.2

Dig into the CBA.


Let me try to wade through this dense doc and pick out the relevant info and offer a translation.

Page 61 is “Article 12 Revenue Accounting and Calculation of the Salary Cap.” Basically they’re defining ‘All Revenue’ (AR) and ensuring a percentage of AR is fed to players as ‘Player Cost Amount’ (PCA).

Skip to page 77 and there’s “Section 6. Calculation of Player Cost Amount and Salary Cap.” Page 80, (c. i.) tells us PCA = 55% of NFL Media + 45% of jerseys and such as + 40% of local media + 50% of new revenue streams.

An interesting note is found right below (p. 80, c. iii.) on “Bands” and “Stadium Credit.” The net here is that Stadium Credit costs seem to be divert money away from players. Since I’m not 100% on this, I’ll leave it alone but will bookmark in my mind that your sin tax dollars for scoreboards probably mean Jimmy is less compelled to spend in free agency and also that monies spent on escalators mean less monies for NFLPA members.

The 89% floor.

Here’s the key section for this discussion.

Page 84: “Minimum Team Cash Spending.” Every four years, teams need to ‘true-up’ with their spend and ensure they have spent up to at least 89% of the previous four years of cap.

The NFL cap from 2013-2016 looks to be in the $550M range; 89% would be ~490M.

Browns spent 94.6 in 2013. 112.2 in 2014…

“Browns spend” using Cap hit numbers. Looks grim.

Wait is the data correct? What numbers should I be looking at?

Enter Jason from OverTheCap.com.

At this point I’m first realizing that I’m out on thin ice. That’s because there are cap spend numbers but also cash spend numbers.

So I reached out to the proprietor of OverTheCap.com, and Jason replied and walked me through the subject so clearly that it’s worth posting our exchange here for everyone’s edification.

Me: Hi Jason, appreciate your work at OTC. I’m trying to get my arms around the Browns cap sending and specifically with regard to the 89% rule.

If I’m reading the CBA correctly, teams have to spend up to 89% of the sum of the salary caps from 2013-2016. Using the OTC NFL cap numbers of 123, 133, 140, and 150; 89% of that sum is 485.9M. The Browns’ cap spend (again using OTC numbers) has been 2013-94.6, 2014-112.2, 2015-107.0 (projected).

Based on these numbers, am I correct in thinking the Browns will need to spend 172.1M in cap in 2016 either through players signings or else they cut checks to get them up to that number to members of the current roster? Or am I missing something… like does the dead money factor into this somehow?

Basically 0% chance that the Browns will fail to reach the floor.

His response.

Jason: Hi Mike. The actual numbers you need to look at for this are cash spending rather than cap spending. The floor is designed such that the team spends 89% of the cap limit in actual cash payments.

I have to check how we have the calculations set up right now (everything is set to top 51 on the cap charts so it understates 2013/14, but I cant recall how the cash ones are set up). But for the Browns I know that spending is not an issue.
In 2013 their official spend was around $107 million. In 2014 they had one of the highest payrolls in the NFL around $148 million. The reason it was so high was because they had the two first round draft picks, the extension for Haden, and a pretty large salary for Alex Mack.

So they are basically right at 100% spending right now. They only need to spend around $95 million in cash to stay on the 89% mark. They are almost already there and thats before the draft where they again have two first rounders. Those two firsts will lock them into another $11 million in salary.

So when he says he’s not spending its likely because he realizes they can play at the minimum from this point forward and not have issues with that 89% rule.

How cool is that?

This would be speck tack…

So thanks Jason for this info and I’m sorry readers for not posting this initially largely because it wasn’t bad news.

What the hell is my problem?

Grossi and Drennan have been spewing negative comments in their Browns "analysis" since the end of last season. It's getting old and so are they, maybe it is time for new blood.

LOL Someone is feeling cranky this morning

I like it when you speak your mind GM

The Browns better have one more run at a quarterback in their playbook
Mar 12, 2015

Promises, promises: Minutes after the Browns’ 16th game in Baltimore on Dec. 28, owner Jimmy Haslam held an impromptu meeting with media in the visitor’s trainer’s room and pledged to fix the team’s quarterback situation.

“(GM) Ray (Farmer) and his team will go to work on that tonight or tomorrow,” Haslam promised.

There was the same promise from Haslam on Jan. 22 in an appearance at the Cleveland Sports Awards. And a third promise to address the position came on Feb. 11 in a meeting with media in team headquarters to douse some other PR brushfire.

“We’ll do what’s necessary to solve the quarterback situation,” Haslam said. “That’ll be a call that Ray will make as we get closer. It’s a long way … there’s a long time to go. We’ll have plenty of time to think things through.”

What have the Browns done thus far? They allowed hometown product Brian Hoyer (7-6 as the team’s starting quarterback last year) to leave in free agency and replaced him with 35-year-old journeyman Josh McCown (17-32 in 12 NFL seasons and coming off a 1-10 year as Tampa Bay’s starter).

Right now, the Browns’ quarterback roster is McCown; Johnny Manziel (0-2 as a rookie starter), who is in his seventh week sequestered in an undisclosed chemical dependency treatment center; and former practice squadder Connor Shaw (0-1 in a final-game emergency start).

Yes, they inherited this franchise bugaboo. But they also have made it worse. Since Farmer took over as GM in February of 2014, the quarterbacks he has added to the mix are: Manziel, Shaw, Tyler Thigpen (1-11 in his NFL career) and McCown.

I’m going to give Haslam, Farmer and the Browns the benefit of doubt and say they will address this issue further.

But how?

Two swings, two misses: On Tuesday, the most stunning NFL trade in my 30 years covering the NFL was completed when the Philadelphia Eagles swapped quarterback Nick Foles, a fourth-round pick in 2015 and a second-round pick in 2016 to the St. Louis Rams for quarterback Sam Bradford and a fifth-round pick in 2015.

Everyone knew that both Foles and Bradford were available. Bradford told Albert Breer of NFL Network on Wednesday that he was made aware he could be traded “three or four weeks ago.” That timetable coincides with hollow denials of Bradford being available at the NFL Combine by Rams GM Les Snead and coach Jeff Fisher.

Either quarterback would immediately elevate the Browns’ QB situation to “credible,” at the very least. The Browns entered the trading season as the only team with two first-round draft picks – so they had the capital to satisfy either the Eagles or Rams. Yet they failed to land either quarterback.

You can see why the Rams made the trade. They lost confidence in Bradford’s ability to stay healthy after two ACL surgeries in two years, they wanted a starting quarterback in return, and they saved about $11 million in cap dollars in the swap for Foles. Great trade for them.

The Eagles’ side of the trade makes little sense.

They take on a $13 million quarterback with a dubious injury history and throw in next year’s second-round pick?

The immediate speculation was that Eagles coach and Jimmy Johnson-incarnate Chip Kelly acquired Bradford as a chip to barter another trade to move up in the draft from his No. 20 position to bring him his beloved quarterback prodigy at University of Oregon, Marcus Mariota.

“I’m the only Chip here,” Kelly said on Wednesday, tossing water on the speculation.

Kelly called Mariota “the best quarterback in the draft,” but said rumors of him angling to trade up for Mariota “is crazy.”

“Let's dispel that right now … We will never mortgage our future to go all the way up to go get somebody like that because we have too many other holes that we're going to take care of," Kelly said.

"We're not going to mortgage the future for any particular player. That's not philosophically what we think is the right thing to do, that you're going to package 20 picks to move up from 20 to some other spot."

Do you believe him? I didn’t believe Snead and Fisher when they claimed they weren’t trading Bradford. I don’t believe Kelly now.

Now what can the Browns do?: Because of their two picks (No. 12 and No. 19), the Browns have the assets to make a run at Mariota or facilitate Kelly to do the same.

I have maintained that Bradford was by far the best veteran option for the Browns – injury history notwithstanding. But if Kelly would go against his word and use Bradford as a stepping-stone to Mariota, he would need the Browns’ 12th pick. That’s too steep, but could be balanced on the Eagles’ end with something in exchange.

If Kelly is truthful about not pursuing Mariota, then the potential field for the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner would be significantly narrowed. The Rams, at No. 10, and the Eagles, would be out.

That would leave the Titans (No. 2), who are believed to favor USC defensive lineman Leonard Williams over Mariota, and the Jets at No. 6. But the Jets don’t have the assets that the Browns do.

So here we are again, pondering whether the Browns should mortgage future draft picks and tab yet another Heisman quarterback in the first round after selecting 2012 Heisman winner Manziel in the 2014 draft.

My first preference for the Browns was to bring back Hoyer and draft a developmental quarterback in the second round or later. I felt Hoyer could keep the team respectable until the next great hope is identified.

I don’t feel that way with McCown. I say there are only two ways out of this mess for the Browns – take a run at Mariota or Bradford.

If not, the treadmill will take us to the same place in 2016.

http://espncleveland.com/common/more.php?m=49&action=blog&r=17&post_id=43141

I think we can. Obviously we still need to address some areas.

We went in to FA saying we weren't going to be big players. We signed McCown before FA as he had been cut. Based on some of the ranking I saw, he was rated the highest of the FA QB's available. I don't think there is much difference between him and Hoyer. Based on what Hoyer signed for, we could have signed Hoyer if we wanted. It's pretty obvious to me we let Hoyer go because both him and Manziel weren't a good fit for team chemistry. The Browns IMO still view Manziel as the future, and at this point they probably should. I agree it isn't a ideal situation but it is what it is. I don't see any way we could have done any better up to this point.

I know some will say we should just have cut Johnny and signed Hoyer long term, but I just don't see that as logical at this point. Manziel may turn out a total bust but we have to allow that to play out. Nobody can convince he that it already has. They may end up being right, but it is simply a guess at this point.

As to FA...we are now headed towards value season, and that is where I think we will make some moves. I am not going to get in to names, but there are still some good players out there, and the longer Jordon goes unsigned, the better our chances of keeping him.....but who knows, maybe he gets signed today?

The only real loss IMO was Skrine. But, we do have some decent looking players behind him who very well could be looked at as being better by the coaching staff. I guess we will just have to wait to see how that goes and see if their evaluations hold. I doubt we would have let Skrine walk without a sniff had the coaching staff said the guys behind him have nothing and we can't lose Skrine. I doubt we let Skrine walk simply over money. I am sure money had something to do with it, but it was value based. Just because you have the money doesn't mean you throw it around without some thought.

I think last year our receivers proved they didn't suck, and nothing has really changed. We basically went without Gordon all of last season. I think the Hartline addition was solid, so we have improved based on that alone. It's hard to say what we will do in the draft, but I do think we will address the position with some pick of meaning and it won't simply be some 6th round pick.

Yep, I think we can win. Are we headed to the Super Bowl? Nope, but we started out strong last year then couldn't close. We may not start out 7-4 like last season, but I also don't think we go 0-5 down the stretch either. I think our players and coaches learned something from that. I don't think we finish nearly as poorly as the talking head think we will.

I find it very telling that we have zero ability to keep our own free agents. The loss of sheared and skrine is going to hurt bad come this season.

I mean what is the point of building through the draft if you can't keep them once their rookie contract is over. It just means we are doing the dirty work of training guys for the NFL just to get fleeced later on.

When Mack leaves after this season adn Joe Thomas retires to just get away from us we will be starting all over on the O-line. So I guess we will then draft lesser versions of them and brag about how young our team is. Then again it's not like our QBs every make it through a season anyways...

So yeah let's just keep doing what we always do. There is no real reason to improve...

Don't worry Tony, the way things are going, you won't have to report on the Browns for much longer after they move....BTW, I won't miss Skrine or Hoyer.

Reading your gloom and dome posts ever since Holmgren was fired. Browns are the worst team in NFL. Per your assessment then all teams Browns played last year, in theory, were difficult.

Then you switch stating Browns had easy games last year. That implies Browns were ranked better than the majority of teams on last years schedule.

You finish spouting the loss of players Sheard, Hoyer, and Skrine, without seeing who will replace, except the addition of McCown, will move Browns back to #32 wost team in the NFL.

The Browns did have about as easy of a schedule as they are going to get. The AFC North was matched up against the AFC South and NFC South, and the Browns got their two in-conference, out-of-division games against last place teams (Bills and Raiders.)

Being matched up with the last place teams will remain but instead of the AFC South and NFC South, we are matched up with the AFC West and NFC West.

Eventually if we win the division, we will drop the games against the likes of the Jets and Titans and get teams like the Pats and Colts instead.

I don't think it's an inability to keep them, I think it's that we didn't want to keep them.

Cameron - wants to be paid like a Pro Bowl TE but is one hit away from being out of the league. Can't overpay.
Sheard - is a poor fit for a 3-4 so it was mutual that he leave. Will be great in NE's 4-3.
Hoyer - we wanted a mentor QB, not a guy who would get cranky if he didn't start.
Skrine - got paid like a #2 corner, we disagreed with that price.
Rubin - was spent last year, we chose to move on.

I mean how many of those guys was it a situation where they had to choose between the Browns and another team with an equivalent offer and they chose the other team? Every one of them was either us moving on or us not matching the $ the player found elsewhere. Not sure how that shows a lack of ability to retain guys. If they wanted them and were willing to pay, I bet they'd have been able to get every one of those guys under contract.

But that doesn't fit the "We're a cheap and crappy organization" narrative..

Can I wait until I see whatelse the do before I answer that?

Yeah, because you never mock anyone..pffff lol You just can't take a dose of your own medicine.

Not directed at me but I will sadly go on record and say no. I expect another losing season. Good players are walking, recent draft classes which should part of the core of the team are underwhelming, we'll have a tougher schedule this year, new offensive coaching staff, the owner is still a buffoon, I could go on and on.

Pettine does look like a promising coach but even there, compare his accomplishments to the other head coaches in the division. It's like the best we can say about him is that he has not embarrassed himself like several others in the organization have.

Josh McCown, Johnny Manziel, Connor Shaw.

I say the Browns go 5-11. Bad enough to be unbearable, but not so bad to get one of the top picks in 2016.

I agree.

Also, IMO, had we kept Hoyer, Cameron, Sheard, Rubin and Skrine ... we would probably still have a losing record this year.

The Brown's should change their name to the Groundhogs. Because that's what we do every year. We poke our collective heads out of a hole each spring and declare ourselves SB champs with no need to add proven and real NFL talent and then go back down into the perpetual AFC North basement to finish hibernating until next season.

Six Mo's of NFL winter left. LOL.

The only free agents I regret not keeping is sheard and skrine. I think both are good players that will be hard to replace in this years draft. Maybe Desir? will step up his game this season along with Gilbert.

I didn't care about Cameron since he cant stay healthy long enough to contribute anyways. Plenty of good TE in this draft and Dray played pretty well last season.

The QB situation was hopeless and I didn't and don't see a way for them to fix it this season. I wanted to trade for Foles but they probably wanted too much. Even if we move up to get Mariota I doubt he makes much of a contribution this year because he would have so many new things to learn.

Rubin played with an ankle injury all last season. Makes it very hard to judge if he was out of gas or just doing his best in spite of a nagging injury. Would love it if we drafted Danny Shelton to be his replacement though.