Fare thee well Pendejo.

Came aross this earlier when researching FA and it stuck with me:
John Johnson Rams' Defensive Signal Caller

If we are going with Wilson, Takitaki, and Phillips (or a rookie) at LB, it makes sense to have a guy that's called plays at S. And he can actually play.

Well we should now have three starting quality safeties to use in Woods defense.

In terms of guaranteed money Johnson will be the fourth highest paid safety in the league as of today.

I like that he just turned 26 as well. A young FA acquisition.

Great news! Could be really impactful!

Johnson called the defensive plays for the Rams, which is unusual for a safety. He was in every down. Solid!

And the annual average per year & total value is 8th, I think.

How big of a cap hit for 2021?

Seems like a good signing

Can't wait for the obligiatory post, that says, annoyingly always says,

Oh since they sign player A, it means player B is definetly leaving the team.

So, emm, Delpit, let's go with him. " I guess this means the end of the career for Delpit. Aw SHOOT! I SPOKE TOO SOON,

They better bring back Terrence Mitchell, Mitchell has been the most consistent and highest playing time receiving DB on the Browns for probably 2.5 years, You don't cut the guy who can stay healthy and help you win by suiting up for the majority of games for 2.5 years, in leiu of some player who you don't yet know how he fits into your game play.

Re Sign Mitchell! The Team needs him. "Winning!"

j/c:

Fantastic.

Really good player who is still young.

Big upgrade on the back end.

Nice signing! Fills what I thought was our biggest weakness last year. Now we just need another edge rusher, a LB, and a couple corners before the draft.

Excited to see how Woods uses our 3 young, talented safetys this year!

This FA signing may be addressing, stopping Lamar Jackson.

Agreed, and to a lesser extent, Burrows and his legs too.

Great signing. Young and talented.

2020 PFF grade = 85.6 overall

I'll miss Sendejo diving for air and his blonde highlights.

It seems like it doesn’t break the bank either. He may be a pretty good value

Safety is off the FA list Now we need:

LB
EDGE
DT
CB

Pleases me a bunch. Have advocated getting strong up the middle on D. Our young LBs need a smart caller who whiffs less. Suddenly, we are tougher IMO.

Wednesday can't get here soon enough. I want to see a pen put to paper.

This a great signing. Leadership, great player who can do it all and young too. Wow

A great signing. High level player, and a reasonable contract. Another solid move by the front office.

If he turns out as good as I hope, they can renegotiate his contract in a couple of seasons and lock him down for another 3-4 years when the cap money is back up..

Here is our Safety Room as of now:

John Johnson III
Ronnie Harrison Jr.
Grant Delpit
Sheldrick Redwine
Elijah Benton
Vontae Moffett

4-2-2-3 all-year baby!

I'm guessing the more money would have also included more years, and he would rather cash in again when there is a higher cap while still under 30 y/o. Plus, we did something like 2/3 guaranteed.

Wanting to win probably factored in, too.

I'm just hoping "Team X" doesn't offer significantly more again before he signs the deal with us. ...I'm still working through the residual effects of years of Battered Browns Fan Syndrome.

Great get!!! Andrew Barry is continuing to make acquisitions that should take this team to consistent contender status.

THis is a huge get. Individually we have some great defenders and a very opportunistic defense. The thing that tends to expose the D though is getting outcoached and getting put out o position on the field too.

Needed a defensive player who can take charge and call things on the field as well. And we got em. Hopefully this means less players being out of position..

More speed goes a long way to not being out of position, too.

Oh stop worrying. He was seen late this afternoon looking at houses out near where Bill Cowher was buying his.

Yeah, but any reports yet of him buying an interest in Orlando Pace's restaurant in Sandusky?

I’ve watched a little film on him and see him as a hybrid type player ... he’s really good in the box and durable. Pretty good early returns IMO

A front office and agents still believe in ethics. It's still a bad look if one or the other backs out of a handshake deal.

I am not worried about it.

I don't see him as a box player. He will be the deep guy. Harrison will be the guy most likely to crowd up to the LOS. He has more of the build.

I have read that he is also good covering the slot

JC...

You can tell Johnson played a lot of corner while at BC...as his defense excels in passing situations (while I believe that was most troubling with our safeties last year, Joseph, Harrison, and Sendejo are all more run based defenders) Really great signing!

I knew Johnson would command at least 10mill a year...so his contract looks really good imho. And let's not forget Harrison will be a FA at years end, and Delpit is a big question mark.

I'm willing to bet the team that offered Johnson a lot more was the Jags (as they have an incredible amount of cap right now)

Un un-splashy, non-hype, sort of sneaky signing that fills a huge need with a top 5 player at his position (PFF grading). What's not to love about the way this FO goes about their business? It's a huge *IF* ... but if Delphit and Harrison come back healthy and close to 100% - we potentially have studs to man the safety position, and if we run a 3 safety look, we will have players at each position out there.

What the Browns want is three guys who can play in the box, OR cover. Keep the offense off balance and make the pre snap reads easier to disguise. Man if Delpit is healthy we will have that

Contract details here:

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cleveland-browns/john-johnson-21833/

That's not a bad deal at all. Hopefully, he plays well enough that we can't wait to pick up that third year and keep him locked up.

Agreed. There are very few Carlos Boozers in professional sports.

I get the feeling that the 'he turned down more elsewhere' line is becoming a de facto move on the players' part to get a good start with fans, team, etc.

I highly doubt all these guys are choosing to avoid bigger contracts.

and now he " is really excited to be a member of such a storied franchise and can't wait to get into town and get to work; to take it one day at a time and just work on being better than we were. The City of <insert city> has the best fans and I'm looking forward to being on the field in front of them. God willing, this will the best year, yet."

Hehehe... you reminded me of a guy that bounced around between like 3 or more teams in a season and he literally copy-pasted basically what you just said when he got to each new team.

I'd not be surprised if he turned down more but that it is all about semantics. The agent said significantly more, but didn't say significantly more per year.

I could see him getting an offer of something like 4 years 50M with 25m guaranteed. That's significantly more in total than the 33.75M the Browns offered. But if it came from the Jags for example, why not take the more money guaranteed and have a chance to win?

Maybe they have realized that your standard of living on $150K/year is significantly greater than it is on $100K/year for middle class America..

But your standard of living on $9M/year isn't significantly greater than it is on $7M/year for a professional athlete..

So $7M and a chance to win and be in the playoffs is a decent trade-off..

Add in that $5mil in Cleveland goes further than $7mil in say, NY, Boston, SF, etc.

OMG - he tackles!!! Actually wraps his arm around the ball carrier and tackles as opposed to 'hitting' the ball carrier. Awesome!

I agree. That is always a good sign. If you are the first guy there, wrap him up and take him down. Let someone else make the jarring hit or rip at the ball.

Thinking about him Delpit and Harrison on the back end. That is pretty special

We don't know if/when Delpit will ever be healthy.

Joseph and Sendejo did well last year- ( I don't care what anybody says)

Joseph Yes Sendejo eh

I like Redwine a lot he has turn into a very good Safety and has a litle ballhawk in him

Sendejo belongs in the Ralph Brown and Terry Cousin category of elite DBs.

Don't forget Hank Poteat!

It's official.

Johnson is way better than either of these players, Sendeljo was horrible in coverage, and great at missing tackles trying to launch himself. He made a few plays, but anybody on the field could do that. He knew how to line everybody up, IMO, that was the only reason he was on the field.

Joseph is a good "in the box" safety. His coverage skills were not the best.

Johnson has an interesting stat. He played like 3000+ snaps over two years and only had two penalties. That is amazing.

Here is my thought on the Johnson signing.

Sendejo was clearly the worst starter on the team and in my opinion one of the worst starting safeties in the NFL. Johnson is one of the top safeties in the NFL. This is a significant upgrade and in my opinion (all other things being the same) this move makes our defense 3-4 points/game better.

Tavierre Thomas at nickel corner for a stretch was a close 2nd. I'm hoping an upgrade there is coming, too.

This right here, has me geeked!

j/c

When you add a top safety and drop your weakest safety, the depth chart improves from top to bottom.

2 penalties. Two penalties. That's insane.

If you'd have told me a week ago "JJ's coming to Cleveland," this is NOT what I would have expected. I think I like this JJ better!

j/c...

Love it

Good job using the suffix as a design point for the stripes.

JJIII reminds me a lot of when Jarvis Landry came to town. He has that same enthusiasm and excitement for becoming a member of the Browns. I am more and more excited about him playing here with each passing day!

I think he's going to be a major game changer on defense.

He’s my favourite free agent acquisition, we needed to get better on the back end and he’s a very good player.