Andrew Berry Has Plenty To Prove Ahead Of Critical Browns Offseason

Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry shouldn't be praised for simply doing what he's always done with Deshaun Watson's contract

Browns GM Andrew Berry watches from the sideline during the 2022 training camp in Berea. / Jeff Lange / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Deshaun Watson saga draws on and there's no easy out in sight. The Cleveland Browns made their bed, now they have to lay in it.

That's what Friday's contract restructured represented. A concession from the organization that this partnership is untenable. The penance, at least another year with Watson on the roster. Maybe two, now that they appear to have added a dummy year in 2027 that could allow them some flexibility to release the embattled QB as a post June 1 designation and spread the dead money over multiple years.

It was a necessary move for Cleveland if they intend on trying to stay competitive in the short term – something Myles Garrett essentially demanded of the organization last week. Necessary and savvy are two very different things though. And while Andrew Berry has made a habit out of kicking the can down the road on the team's financial commitments. Previous iterations of the practice also came with plenty of praise for Berry, and his prowess as a forward thinking executive.

The thought process behind it is that the cap goes up every year, so if you push money into voided years, the percentage of the cap those dead money figures eventually make up will be lower and lower over time. In theory, it sounds smart. But it only works if the players who's contracts you're manipulating are preforming at a high level while they're cap charges are lower.

That isn't the case with Watson, who is in the midst of recovering from a season-ending injury for a second consecutive year. He may not even be ready for the start of the season, but even if he is it seems extremely hard to picture him ever playing another snap for Cleveland. That means the team's biggest financial commitment is giving the team nothing, while Berry works to fill in the cracks bargain bin shopping and hitting on his draft picks.

Five years into his tenure as GM, there are still questions about Berry's ability to build a roster through the latter of those tools. Which is, arguably, the most concerning aspect of the current state of the Browns. They are in this mess largely because of the Watson decision, but also because after giving up three first round picks for him, Berry and his staff put a lot of pressure on themselves to hit on a lot of day two and three picks to help supplement the roster behind an aging core. They didn't do that consistently enough these last three years, and so here they are.

Any GM can pay their best players and move money around to keep the financial burdens lower in the present. The Saints, for example, have deployed similar practices since Drew Brees retired and where has it gotten them? The savvy GMs limit the amount of times they have to pull that lever, and are elite talent evaluators.

Yesterday, Browns veteran Joel Bitonio opened up a little more about his potential retirement and revealed what the biggest factors will be in his decision this offseason and why a trade to a contender isn't in the cards for him: https://t.co/qSEUwou24x

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This all sets the stage for what is the biggest offseason of Berry's tenure. He finally has a first round pick again, one he absolutely has to hit on. Berry's first ever first-first-round pick, Jedrick Wills Jr. is destined to leave the team in free agency this offseason as a massive miss on Berry's resume.

His 2025 first rounder has to be one that helps the team now and is a building block for the future, because frankly, he doesn't have time for a project. Jimmy Haslam may be set on keeping the team's power structure status quo for now, but this time next year, there's no guarantee he's so forgiving if the Browns produce another three win season, or worse.

Maybe Berry has a master plan out of this nightmare, one that ends with the Browns contending as soon as next season and well beyond. Fans owe it to themselves to let him prove it before knighting him as "savvy" for simply doing the thing that got the team into this mess in the first place.