Browns, Baker Mayfield Have Not Exchanged Proposals
Baker Mayfield‘s agent, Jack Mills, recently predicted that his client and the Browns would agree to terms on a contract extension this summer. But that might be a bit optimistic. According to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, Mayfield’s camp and the Browns have not even exchanged proposals yet, and she suggests that a new deal might not get done until late October.
Why then? Because at the start of the 2020 season, for which there were no spring workouts and no preseason, Mayfield was still getting used to head coach Kevin Stefanski‘s offense. But as Cabot observes, Mayfield was Pro Football Focus’ second-highest-rated QB over the final seven games of the year, and both player and team believe that is more representative of who Mayfield is (even though he did have some quality performances over the first few weeks of the campaign as well). By waiting until the end of October to authorize a massive extension, the Browns will essentially have a full season of data on how Mayfield performs in a quality offense that he completely understands.
The Browns are also working on new contracts for other key members of the roster, like CB Denzel Ward, RB Nick Chubb, and G Wyatt Teller (this is the first we have publicly heard that the club is talking contract with Teller and Ward, though it’s hardly a surprise). The front office might want to get those less costly pacts out of the way before turning its full attention to the Mayfield situation.
And Mayfield, who is perfectly content to bet on himself, also has reason to wait. If draftmates Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson sign extensions with AAVs in excess of $40MM, Cabot says Mayfield will not “settle” for a $35MM AAV, which Spotrac currently considers to be his market value.
At this point, Cleveland and Mayfield have no doubt that a deal will get done. It’s really just a matter of when.
Latest On Browns, Baker Mayfield
The Browns have Baker Mayfield under contract through 2022, thanks to his fifth-year option. Now that the quarterback is firmly in extension territory, agent Jack Mills believes that a long-term arrangement is just around the corner. 
“I think something will be done this summer,” Mills said (via Tony Grossi of WKNR). “As far as trying to get a deal done, I don’t know if it’ll get done. It’s something that would be pretty much in the team’s control.”
Mayfield’s fully-guaranteed $18.858MM salary for ’22 is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s less than 14 other quarterbacks are making in average annual value. For his part, Mayfield says he isn’t sweating it.
“I’m in no rush because I’m just trying to win games,” the QB said earlier this month. “Like I said, it’ll handle itself. I’m sure [agents] Tom and Jack Mills are handling that. I don’t try and feed too much into that because it’s like wasting my time and energy and thought process on things I’m not in control of right now.”
After the Browns declined to pursue Aaron Rodgers this offseason, it’s safe to say that they’ll move fast to get Mayfield locked up for years to come.
Browns Suspend Asst. Callie Brownson
- Browns assistant coach Callie Brownson was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated last month, 92.3 The Fan’s Daryl Ruiter tweets. Brownson pleaded guilty to the charge, and the Browns suspended her. However, Kevin Stefanski said Brownson will be back for training camp. Currently working as the team’s chief of staff, Brownson became the first woman to coach a position group during a regular-season NFL game — when the team’s COVID-19 outbreak led to her coaching wide receivers and tight ends in separate games last season.
Nick Chubb Could Get Browns Extension Before Start Of Season
We heard last week that Nick Chubb‘s agent had started extension talks with the Browns. Although Chubb said he wasn’t putting a deadline on things which seemed to imply it could come during the season, it sounds like it may happen sooner than that.
Chubb could get his extension done before the beginning of the season, Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes. Kay Cabot says there’s mutual affection between the two sides, “which should translate to an extension.” It sounds like both Chubb and the Browns want to get something done, so don’t expect this to drag on too long.
Interestingly, Kay Cabot writes that she believes Cleveland “will negotiate an incentive-laden deal” with Chubb that gives them some protection in case he declines, in the wake of several other high profile running backs who have landed huge contracts and then fizzled.
The 2018 second-round pick is currently set to enter the final year of his rookie deal. Whenever he gets a new contract he’ll want to become one of the league’s highest-paid rushers, and deservedly so. Despite ceding some carries to Kareem Hunt, Chubb has rushed for over 2,500 yards in 28 games over the past two years, averaging well over five yards per carry.
In 2019, he led the NFL in rushing with 1,494 yards. Last season he led the league in rushing touchdowns with 12, despite playing only 12 games while dealing with an MCL injury. He’ll turn 26 in December.
Browns ‘Amazed’ With Odell Beckham Jr’s Recovery
We heard last week that Odell Beckham Jr. was working out with Jarvis Landry and Baker Mayfield ahead of minicamp, and now we have another positive update as the star wideout comes off his serious knee injury.
The Browns are “amazed” with where OBJ is in his recovery from surgery, Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com writes. Beckham, of course, tore an ACL back in October and missed the rest of the 2020 season. Just eight months later, it appears he’s pretty much back to full strength. Kay Cabot reports he’s “been running fullspeed, cutting on a dime and leaping to make his trademark one-handed catches” during minicamp practices.
She also notes that he’s been doing it “without a brace or sleeve” on his knee. There’s been a lot of talk about the supposed lack of chemistry between Beckham and Mayfield since the former arrived in Cleveland, and Kay Cabot reports the duo “got to know each better off the field during some boating and other recreational activities in Austin” around the time of Mayfield’s aforementioned passing camp in Texas.
That’s got to be music to the ears of Browns fans. The LSU product had 1,035 yards and four touchdowns in his first season in Cleveland in 2019, which was solid but not great by his standards.
Then he had only 23 catches for 319 yards in seven games before going down last year. The Browns made major progress last season, but will need OBJ to get back to his old self if they want to be a true championship contender. Thankfully, everything appears to be going smoothly for the receiver who not too long ago appeared to be on his way out of Cleveland.
Sheldon Richardson Turned Down More Money From Browns To Sign With Vikings
Sheldon Richardson ended his free agency this past week by signing a one-year deal with the Vikings worth $3.6MM with a max value of $4.35MM via incentives.
Apparently, he could’ve gotten a little more than that. The defensive tackle turned down more money from the Browns, Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com writes. We had previously heard that Cleveland made an offer, but it wasn’t known what the financials were like.
Kay Cabot writes that Richardson’s decision was “more about principle” after the Browns elected to release him back in April to save around $12MM in cap space. She also says that Cleveland may have been able to get him back had they gone a bit higher than they did, but that they “set their price and stuck to it.”
Richardson signed a three-year, $37MM pact with the Browns in 2019, and made it 2/3 of the way through it. He spent 2018 with the Vikings, so it’s not like he chose a totally foreign environment over returning to the Browns. The 13th overall pick of the 2013 draft turned 30 in November.
Ten First-Round Picks Remain Unsigned
This year, NFL teams have been quick to tackle their rookie paperwork. Still, there are a decent number of unsigned draft picks remaining, including ten of this year’s first-rounders: 
- QB Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars (No. 1 overall)
- QB Zach Wilson, New York Jets (No. 2 overall)
- QB Trey Lance, San Francisco 49ers (No. 3 overall)
- TE Kyle Pitts , Atlanta Falcons (No. 4 overall)
- OT Rashawn Slater, Los Angeles Chargers (No. 13 overall)
- OG Alijah Vera-Tucker, New York Jets (No. 14 overall)
- QB Mac Jones, New England Patriots (No. 15 overall)
- RB Travis Etienne, Jacksonville Jaguars (No. 25 overall)
- CB Greg Newsome II, Cleveland Browns (No. 26 overall)
- DE Joe Tryon, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (No. 32 overall)
In a sense, this is a sign that things are back to normal in football following the pandemic. For example, by June 12th of 2019, 22 first-round picks had put pen to paper, with 222 rookies inked on the whole. However, around this time last year, there were just two first-round picks officially in the fold – Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and Panthers defensive lineman Derrick Brown.
Offset language and similar minutia could be holding these ten deals up, but there’s no reason to panic. In all likelihood, these rookie contracts will be squared away before the start of training camp this summer.
Baker Mayfield “In No Rush” To Sign Extension
Browns QB Baker Mayfield is under club control through the 2022 season after Cleveland exercised the fifth-year option of his rookie contract earlier this year. That option is worth a fully-guaranteed $18.858MM, a healthy sum to be sure, but there are 14 quarterbacks making more than that on an annual basis.
Still, Mayfield doesn’t sound too concerned about when he will secure his place among the league’s high rollers. The No. 1 overall pick of the 2018 draft told reporters today, “I’m in no rush because I’m just trying to win games. Like I said, it’ll handle itself. I’m sure [agents] Tom and Jack Mills are handling that. I don’t try and feed too much into that because it’s like wasting my time and energy and thought process on things I’m not in control of right now. So I’m going to handle what I can control” (via Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk).
The last we heard, the Browns had not yet initiated extension talks with Mayfield’s camp. Owner Jimmy Haslam, however, made it clear that his team has every intention of keeping Mayfield in Cleveland for the long haul, which is why the Browns — a trendy Super Bowl pick — are not interested in disgruntled Packers star Aaron Rodgers.
Both sides do have reason to wait, though. After all, Mayfield was a mess in his sophomore campaign, and while he appears to have righted the ship under the steady hand of head coach Kevin Stefanski last season, the Browns might want him to prove that he can sustain his success. And Mayfield — who said today that he has no problems betting on himself — may prefer to have 2018 draftmates Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen ink their big-money extensions first.
Barring an All-Pro type season, Mayfield is unlikely to earn as much on his next contract as Jackson and Allen will on theirs, but their deals will still help push Mayfield’s price point a little higher.
Nick Chubb Aiming For Browns Extension
The running back salary landscape has shifted somewhat over the past year and change. Several members of the 2017 running back class secured long-term extensions, creating a host of new eight-figure-per-year contracts. One of 2018’s top draftees is now up for a new deal.
Nick Chubb has become one of the NFL’s top backs but has no intention of testing the market. The fourth-year back said Tuesday, via Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, he believes his agent has begun extension talks with the Browns. Chubb would prefer that scenario reaching a lucrative conclusion. He has not set a deadline regarding an extension, Cabot adds.
“I don’t like uncertainty, and I know here in Cleveland what I have with the players and coaches,’’ Chubb said. “This is the city of Cleveland, and I don’t know how things will be anywhere else. So Cleveland is where I want to be and that is my main focus – to be here in Cleveland.”
This plan will probably work for the Browns, even though they have a couple of other high-profile extension candidates — Baker Mayfield, Denzel Ward — on which to focus at some point in the near future. Chubb has become the centerpiece player on Cleveland’s offense. After finishing second in the 2019 rushing race (1,494 yards), Chubb rushed for a career-high 12 touchdowns last season. The Georgia product did that in just 12 games, averaging 5.6 yards per carry in an injury-shortened slate.
Although the Browns gave Kareem Hunt an extension, the former rushing champion/overqualified backup is signed through 2022 at just $6MM per year. Chubb will undoubtedly be eyeing a top-tier running back contract. Christian McCaffrey‘s $16MM-AAV extension now tops the market, with six backs drafted from 2016-17 also signed for at least $12MM annually. While Chubb does not contribute much in the passing game, he has proven to be one of the league’s best ball carriers. The 25-year-old back will be able to comfortably ask for a deal north of that $12MM-per-year threshold.
The Browns have Chubb under contract through the end of this season but retain exclusive negotiating rights through next March’s legal tampering period. Should no deal be reached by then, the franchise tag will be an option. This did not end up being necessary for six of the seven eight-figure-per-year backs. McCaffrey signed with two years of rookie-contract control left; so did Ezekiel Elliott. Alvin Kamara, Joe Mixon and Dalvin Cook signed their deals going into their contract years — Chubb’s present window — while the Packers extended Aaron Jones just ahead of his free agency. Derrick Henry‘s 2020 tag led to a $12.5MM-AAV extension.
Sheldon Richardson Declines Browns Offer, Plans To Sign Elsewhere
Despite making Sheldon Richardson a cap casualty earlier this year, the Browns wanted to bring him back. However, it looks like the two-year Cleveland contributor will not return to northeast Ohio.
They made the defensive tackle veteran an offer to return, Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer tweets, but Richardson is planning to continue his career elsewhere.
[RELATED: Vikings, Richardson Discussing Deal]
Richardson, 30, bid farewell to the Browns earlier this year. That made sense, considering the team released him in mid-April. That move saved the Browns around $12MM in cap space, but Cleveland kept Richardson on its radar and wanted to retain him at a lower price. The longtime D-line starter who entered the offseason with one season remaining on a three-year, $37MM Browns accord remains in search of a new team.
The former Defensive Rookie of the Year certainly could have helped the Browns, who have devoted most of their offseason resources to retooling their defense. At D-tackle, however, the team has lost talent. Prior to Richardson’s release, four-year starter Larry Ogunjobi signed with the Bengals. The team regrouped and signed Malik Jackson but then cut Richardson. The Browns do have former Bengals starter Andrew Billings back; Billings opted out in 2020.
Richardson graded as a top-40 interior defender, per Pro Football Focus, last season. The Mizzou alum registered 4.5 sacks and 64 tackles in his second Browns campaign. He has started 118 career games and missed more than one game in a season just once. The former Jets, Seahawks, Vikings and Browns starter likely will have a new team ahead of training camp.