4 reasons the Cleveland Browns may in fact land DeAndre Hopkins
By Chad Porto
3. The Cleveland Browns front office has been known to land guys “out of their price range” before
One of the big salary cap issues the Cleveland Browns are facing currently has to do with owed money to players no longer under contract. The Browns have done deals for Amari Cooper and Jadeveon Clowney that saw owed money get deferred after they’ve seemingly left the team. Clowney will still collect over $6 million still owed to him by the Browns, even though he’s a free agent, and Cooper will collect around $10 million after his contract expires.
That means in 2023 and 2024, Clowney will count $1.6 and $4.8 million against the team’s salary cap, even though he’s not on the team anymore. For Cooper, he’s going to be paid nearly $10 million in 2025 and 2026, but only about $7 million will count against the cap in 2025.
The Browns are well aware that they’re not building a dynasty. This is about winning now, a bad methodology for sustained excellence but that’s what the team is doing. The Browns can structure the DeAndre Hopkins deal, specifically the signing bonus, to pay out portions of the owed money after the deal ends. It’ll obviously hurt whoever the next GM of the Cleveland Browns ends up being, but they may just land the missing piece for the team to succeed in 2023.