With the cap hits next year, key players who still may need extensions, losses of some veterans who don’t feel they were paid enough, and the slow development of some of our draft picks, is the window for pursuing a Super Bowl closing? Especially with Deshaun Watson missing the first 11 games of the season and with Brissett as our “1st string?” – Elmer L., Bangor, Maine
I wouldn’t say the window is closing. Not with Watson locked in as a the QB through 2026, although he’ll need to prove he’s still capable of producing at the level he did before he was traded to Cleveland when he returns from his 11-game suspension. Watson will have been 699 days removed from his last NFL appearance when he returns in Week 13.
The Browns have several key guys whose future is sealed through the next several years, too. Nick Chubb is locked in through 2024. Garrett was extended through 2026. Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller are each staying in Cleveland through 2025. Denzel Ward was extended through 2027 in the spring. David Njoku was extended through 2025. Extensions for players of that caliber are how you keep a team competitive for a long time.
Sure, a lot of money was given to those guys to make the deals happen, but there aren’t many teams around the league set to have that type of foundation for the next few years. Andrew Berry has always maintained that he wanted to build the team through keeping the top players the Browns already had, and he’s done that.
It’s fair to say, however, that a number of the 24 players he’s drafted since 2020 — none of them have been cut since he became GM — will have to step up with a big season this year. Guys like OT Jedrick Wills Jr., WR Donovan Peoples-Jones, DT Jordan Elliott, TE Harrison Bryant, S Grant Delpit and LBs Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Jacob Phillips.
All of them were drafted with the expectation they’d be able to contribute in big ways by 2022. The Browns need big years from most, if not all of them for that Super Bowl window to…
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