Browns: Andrew Berry again passes up play-makers for potential

The Browns’ GM Andrew Berry failed to improve the team’s defense yet again, despite the team being a real contender for the playoffs.

Too many sports fans equate one sport to another. They’ll talk about “needing time” to build a team in the NFL when that’s rarely ever the case. Teams can be turned around in a single season and win with relatively no “known” talent. It’s a league based on parody, so talking about building the team like it’s a baseball franchise is absolutely nonsensical. The Browns in 2020 are a playoff team that needed drastic help on the defensive front. Yet, Andrew Berry, again, decided to not make any moves to improve the defense

So the trade deadline has come and gone and the same fans who bemoan every year about needing to mortgage the future of the Indians to “win now” are all of a sudden saying things like “you want the Browns to mortgage their future!?”

No, I want them to trade a 4th round draft pick for a borderline Pro Bowler like Baltimore and Pittsburg does every year practically. I want the Browns to make a move to shore up one or two spots, using very little in the way of capital. I want the GM to realize how precious playoff appearances are in Cleveland, and how that should matter to him as well.

I want an organization that doesn’t gut the defense, sign a bunch of backups, and borderline NFL-players while funneling all that money saved into the offense.

Berry saw what happened Sunday against the Raiders. The Browns offense got on the field just six times, the least amount since 1990. Berry saw HIS defense get brutalized. The defense he “rebuilt”, the defense filled with “hidden gems”. He saw that defense gets brutalized for the eight-time this year, and did nothing.

Don’t worry folks, that fifth-round pick we saved by not trading for Ngakoue will probably turn into something or, you know, the more likeliest of scenarios which is him getting cut after two seasons. But hey, we kept our draft capital.

It’s infuriating that Berry is again doing this to us. After even saying he would never be done making moves.

Berry didn’t re-sign the two guys he should have in Joe Schobert and Damarious Randall (a safety who can play corner). The Browns didn’t go get anyone in free agency other than a bunch of backups like Andrew Billings, Adrian Clayborn, and B.J. Goodson. All of whom the team would need to start.  He also didn’t bring anyone in that wasn’t already seen as a bust elsewhere; hey Karl Joseph.

Worst yet, when trades were available, Berry sat on his hands and re-structured Olivier Vernon’s deal, making his entire salary in 2020 guaranteed. All for him to half-ass his way through an Oakland Raiders loss.

“He drafted players though! That counts!”

It would if they were any good. Grant Delpit, who knows what he’ll look like. He had the third-worst injury a player at his position could suffer (hip and neck being worse), and who knows when he’ll be healthy. As far as Jacob Phillips and Jordan Elliot go? They’re part of the problem.

This was a defense that passed up playmakers for potential. Time and time and time again. The team lost out on Everson Griffen, twice. The team lost out on Yannick Ngakoue, twice. The team didn’t make any moves for J.J. Watt or Harrison Smith, nor did they chase after a legacy like Clay Matthews Jr. who could actually start for this crabapple of a linebacking corps.

Plus, he can still pass rush.

It’s insanity that Berry has been so adamant against improving the defense in any real, tangible way. He could sign Matthews to a one-year deal, and most of the people he could trade for had very little in the way of cap penalties if traded or cut. The trades were also shockingly inexpensive, as Detroit got Griffen for a sixth-rounder.

If this team doesn’t make the playoffs because of its defense, then yes, it’s time to rethink who’s building this roster. This is a season of opportunity and the franchise has too much on the line this year to fall short.