Jason La Canfora floats a terrible Browns trade idea

Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports tweeted out that he heard another avenue the Cleveland Browns could take to address left tackle would be to trade with the New York Giants again; this time for Nate Solder and his horrible contract.

© Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports suggested that if the Cleveland Browns are unable to get Trent Williams from the Washington Redskins, they could go back to their favorite trading partner, the New York Giants, to trade for Nate Solder.

If the Browns are unable to pry Trent Williams out of Washington, the other LT I hear they are interested in is Nate Solder. They've already done a lot of business with the NYG, it's worth noting

— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) October 23, 2019

Solder has been abysmal for the Giants and has the equivalent of setting money on fire since he arrived. It gets worse. Solder has a team opt out in his contract after this season, one the Giants are likely to exercise. If the Browns were to acquire him, they'd be adding a 31 year old left tackle who then costs $13 million in dead money to dump him after this season. If the event they don't exercise the opt out, they'd be on the hook for $19.5 million in 2020.

The Browns have a number of free agents to sign in the offseason, so their alleged salary cap room is a myth and basically already gone. It's just a question of how general manager John Dorsey wants to spend it on the upcoming free agents. Joe Schobert, J.C. Tretter, Damarious Randall, Rashard Higgins and Eric Murray are among the names slated to be free agents after this season as is Greg Robinson, who they presumably would be replacing.

Going the extreme short-term move by adding Solder, who has been bad for the Giants and is arguably worse than Robinson this season, not only doesn't fix the Browns problems up front, it's essentially a bill for $13 million that effectively eats up the money that would go to a player like Tretter or Schobert, who are actually good.

Maybe La Canfora actually heard this from someone, but if he did, it's not with anyone who has the most basic understanding of how the salary cap works or realizes how awful Solder's contract really is.. Any general manager foolish enough to give something to the Giants to bail them out of Solder's contract should immediately be fired as they would be incompetent.