Browns: 3 reasons to wait on signing Baker Mayfield to a new deal

Browns should re-work other contracts first

The Browns aren’t going to have a lot of space available once Baker Mayfield gets a new contract, assuming no one is traded, cut, or had their deals re-worked. The Browns also have the looming deals of Wyatt Teller, J.C. Tretter, Joel Bitonio, and Jack Conklin to think about, with Teller being up this year, while Tretter, Bitonio, and Conklin after 2022. That’s a lot of owed money that needs to be paid.

The problem is, some players won’t re-work their deals because they know they don’t need to. Case in point, Austin Hooper, whose contract is rock solid, and it’s unlikely he’d want to give back a single dollar, let alone re-work it so he gets paid less over the same amount of time. Then you have to worry about what to do with Kareem Hunt when his deal expires in 2022, and then of course not only do you have to worry about re-signing four-fifths of your offensive line over the next two years, but then you have to worry about replacing them if they get too expensive. That turns into another issue, as replacing them might get expensive too.

Then you have Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr., who no doubt won’t want to re-work their deals but unlike Hooper, all of their guaranteed money is gone, so they have no leverage. The team can trade them away with ease, or just release them and take no penalty.

So until the Browns get their contracts in order, offensively speaking, it’d be best to wait on the Mayfield extension.