June 19, 2013

Browns Flex Muscles with Restricted Free Agents

June 11, 2010 by 9 Comments

It is bad enough in some cases that Browns restricted free agents haven’t signed their deals.  Some showed up to the optional OTAs anyway like Jerome Harrison and Lawrence Vickers.  Others made the strange decision not to show up.  Abe Elam, Matt Roth and D’Qwell Jackson in particular showed peculiar judgement in not showing up with increased competition in their respective areas of the field.  I know the situation stinks for them seeing as they have no real leverage or bargaining power.  Just ask Matt Roth who even attempted to push the Browns for a trade.  Now, the situation appears to be getting worse according to the PD’s Tony Grossi as the Browns will start to reduce their offers if they aren’t signed by June 15th.

Fullback Lawrence Vickers would get about $589,000 instead of the $1.759 million tender. Running back Jerome Harrison would get $593,000. Linebacker D’Qwell Jackson would get $704,000. And linebacker Matt Roth would get $770,000 instead of the $1.809 million tender for a five-year player.

Safety Abram Elam, who was also a restricted free agent last year, would get $1.65 million instead of $1.759 million.

At this point, I am just hoping that this won’t cause a lot of unrest throughout the organization.  Because of how much Clevelanders love the Browns, the chemistry of every situation seems dire at this point of the year.  Granted this situation involving the players is far different (and less toxic) than the conversations we were having this time last year about murals, bus rides and running laps.  It is still a mild concern to a lot of fans I talk to.

Obviously this won’t cause issues for all the players involved.  I am sure many more will just have to buck up, sign the deals and get used to the fact that because of the way this off-season played out it couldn’t have gone any differently.

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  • Tron

    I really don’t know how you complain about 1.8 million for a years worth of work.

  • Mike Z

    You have to wonder if their agents are giving them this advice, or if the players’ egos are keeping them from signing their tenders. They have zero leverage, and do they want us to think that one of them is going to risk taking the lowered offer? The agents obviously know this, and risk looking especially foolish by holding their players out until the last minute. If Jackson and Roth, in particular, miss a lot of reps they don’t get on the field early in the season. That hurts future value. How can they win with this brainless strategy?

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com Denny

    The way I read this headline it was as if Holmgren and Heckert were standing around in a room with the free agents and everyone was doing bicep curls.

  • MallaLubba

    I’ll give them some leeway if their desire is to sign multiyear contracts instead of the one year their being offered. But, not performing and not participating doesn’t seem like an argument for a multiyear to me.

  • http://www.clevelandfrowns.com Cleveland Frowns

    I dunno… I see Roth, Elam and Jackson as all sure starters, whether they miss some camp or not. I’d be shocked if Roth especially wasn’t signed by the 15th. I tend to think now that the other side of the non-guaranteed deals these guys have is that they can take some extra time off, like they have this week, if they’re comfortable with it.

    Such a contrast to last summer. LeBron and now Izzo are really putting the screws to our ability to enjoy it.

  • Ike

    Roth and Elam are really ticking me off. Roth was picked up off the street in the middle of last season, for Heaven’s sake. And Mangini gave Elam an opportunity to be an NFL starter by bringing him over the CLE from NYJ. To be clear, it’s not like Elam was a stud or anything last year.

    Whenever players (Chris Johnson, Roddy White last year, etc.) hold out in the NFL, I’m usually on their side; the NFL is very unfair to the players given the length of an average career and no guaranteed money. But Roth and Elam have nothing to complain about; they’ve been given opportunities to lengthen and enhance their careers, respectively; and they’re still unhappy. If they can’t understand why the Browns won’t rework their deals at this point in time, then they’re idiots.

  • mgbode

    as far as surefire starters, i’d list them as you did in order of likelihood

    1. Roth – we need his big-play ability. if he and Gocung (who by all reports is looking great) play well, then we actually might have OLBs worth watching.

    2. Elam – well, even if we give one spot to the better rookie (whoever wins between Ward and Asante), I would assume Mangini wouldn’t want 2 rookies back there. That leaves Elam vs. Adams and Elam is better (though I’d feel much better about him if his best game last year wasn’t the first one. he seemed to regress while everyone else seemed to be progressing).

    3. D’Qwell – only because he isn’t ideal for his position (small and quick doesn’t exactly a 3-4 ILB make) and that we seem to have the most quality depth there (Fujita, Veikune, Trusnick, even Maiava, possibly Barton). And yeah, I said Veikune. I plan to have an optimistic tone on him as he’s gotten a lot of praise (we’ll see if it translates soon enough).

  • deebo

    According to PD, DQ is going to Africa for two weeks to help build schools for underprivileged kids, an outstanding, selfless, and cool thing to do wherever it may be, but the timing seems more than a little off.

  • Mark

    These guys will sign. They have to. What other choice do they have other than sit out for the year?

    I know this probably wont go over well with most fans, given the amount of money we are talking about, but I feel bad for the guys who were going to be unrestricted free agents this year but were slapped with the restricted tag because of the lack of a salary cap. For just about every athlete, especially NFL players with their short careers, testing the open market and getting what the market determines is so important. They were all expecting it this year. This would be the summer to cash in with bonuses and long term deals. And now they cant. They are stuck with the one year tenders through no direct fault of their own(thank you owners and union).

    All that being said, the Browns are doing the right thing in playing hardball. None of these guys have a guaranteed future with the Browns. The Browns should use their leverage to get them in for this season and let next year play itself out. No more Phil Savage like new contracts and extensions until we are sure of what we have. We were 5-11 last year. Outside of a few obvious exceptions (i.e Cribbs and Thomas) none of these guys are that important that we cant survive without them.

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