Report: Browns Owners Unpopular at League Meetings
Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam recently attended the NFL owner’s meetings last Sunday. The meetings actually interfered with their biggest acquisition, maybe ever. That exact transaction was a reason that other owners were not fond of the Cleveland owners at the meeting.
Peter King described Jimmy and Dee Haslam as “not the most popular people at the league meetings on Sunday” in King’s most recent Football Morning in America piece. King said he heard “lots of grumbling” from people around the league.
Browns gave Deshaun Watson a fully guaranteed contract over the length of five years. The contract was worth a total of $230 million dollars. With Cleveland signing Watson to such deal, other quarterbacks in the league will want something similar.
Essentially the deal reset the market in a way, with how deals actually work. Players will now want a fully guaranteed contract just like Watson got. It is going to the the new standard likely.
This means there will be less money going into the owners pockets. Owners can’t cut players and owe them no money anymore. Players will have contracts that are fully guaranteed across, when it gets to that point.
At the end of the day the Haslams were willing to risk that with the acquisition of Watson. The team believes this is the best path for them to get to where they want to go. Andrew Berry has said they believe you must have top-10 quarterback play. Cleveland believes they have that.
Brandon Little is a writer for Sports Illustrated’s Browns Digest website and you can follow him on Twitter here. You can follow Browns Digest on Twitter as well here.
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