There has been a lot of buzz the past week as to why the Cleveland Browns restructured Myles Garrett's $40 million-a-year contract, which gives them more cap flexibility over each of the next three seasons. Garrett's option bonuses were moved back from March until seven days before the start of each of the next three seasons. The changes made to the contract make it easier to trade Garrett.
Andrew Berry was asked at the owners meetings in Phoenix on Sunday about the move to restructure.
"Myles is a career Brown," Berry told the reporters that were in Phoenix. "He is one of the faces of our organization. I think we've been very clear, both past and present in terms of our feelings on that. "
The OBR's salary cap expert Jack Duffin said that the moving of the signing bonus changes the dead cap hit before March 25th from a $41,090,225 2026 dead cap hit to a $15,534,000 2026 dead cap hit in a trade after after June 1st.
Berry said the Browns could have traded him regardless of the contract change.
"So I think you guys know, like standard practice, I don't comment on player contracts," he said. "I guess probably the easiest thing to say is if we wanted to trade Myles, we wouldn't need to make a contract adjustment, so it doesn't have anything to do with that."
Duffin said on last week's episode of Inside the Browns Beat that there was very little upside to the Browns other than to make it easier to trade Garrett.
My take is that I do not think the Browns intend to trade Garrett, but needless to say, they are opening the door for bidders to come calling to see if they can pry Garrett away from the Browns. Garrett has a 'no trade' clause in his contract with the reason being, obviously, that Garrett wants to control where he ends up, if he is traded. Garrett and his agents could also have asked for the change in the contract and it was done to appease them.
Why wouldn't the Browns have traded Garrett a year ago when he was embarrassing the organization with his demands at the Super Bowl on radio row, telling whomever would listen that the Browns were not in position in the near future to compete for the Super Bowl and he wanted out.