The Cleveland Browns in free Agency. Quiet as a church mouse.

The free agent period thus far for the Cleveland Browns has been quiet. To this point they have not made any deals with any of the leagues free agents, and they have only (to this point) resigned one of their own unrestricted players (TE Alex Smith). If you were to characterize their activity to this point, you may need to compare them to frugal Aunt Dorothy who puts her Ziploc baggies in the dishwasher. So why would a team who finished 5-11 last season be so “tight” with their checkbook? The answer is in the numbers.

The Browns salary cap room is estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $17.4 million. The team is also due to receive an additional $1.6 million coming from Dallas and Washington in penalties from their uncapped year spending sprees. This is not a solid number but it is safe to assume that Cleveland will have somewhere between $15-20 million available to spend.  Sounds like it’s time to shop, right? Wrong.

Based on the figures from last year’s draft, and given the number of picks and their position, the Browns will need somewhere in the neighborhood of $10-12 million just to sign their draft selections. There are also other players such as Peyton Hillis, and Mike Adams that the team would like to resign if at all possible. So it is not so much an issue of the Browns brass not being aggressive, its more an issue of money being tied up in some bad contracts from previous regimes. So if Cleveland does make any deals in free agency, don’t expect them to break the bank.

There however have been some interesting rumors floating about involving the Browns. One that caught my attention was from NationalFootballAuthority.com.  Sighting league sources they reported that Cleveland is Interested in a trade with the Houston Texans for running back Ben Tate. The Texans signed Arian Foster to a long term deal before the start of free agency so Tate has become somewhat expendable.

As a backup, Tate rushed for 942 yards, and 4 TDs during the 2011 season. For those who do not remember (or blocked out the game due to trauma) Tate rushed for 115 yards on just 12 carries. He would clearly make an excellent addition to Cleveland’s rushing game.

So if you are frustrated with the lack of activity you are not alone. But maybe now you can understand it’s not from a lack of interest in acquiring talent. It’s a matter of the lack of dollars.

Michael W. Youngman

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