John Dorsey's screwed up on Duke Johnson will cost the Browns $2.25M

The biggest story of minicamp was getting clarification on Duke Johnson's status with the team and Johnson explained how he felt about it. As Johnson explained, when John Dorsey put it out publicly that Johnson was available for trade, Johnson felt betrayed. After a month on the trading block, Johnson basically determined that agreeing that a trade would be the best for both parts was an effective middle ground.

#Browns RB Duke Johnson says he still wants to be traded because he feels we was put on the block and he deserved more loyalty. pic.twitter.com/Uu4p1r6aiA
— JosinaAnderson (@JosinaAnderson) June 4, 2019

Dorsey did not reach out to Johnson beforehand, despite the fact that Dorsey had just signed him to a contract extension the offseason before. Nothing requires Dorsey to reach out and tell players that he is interested in trading them, but this is the potential fallout from such a move. That trust is gone and a player who has spent his entire career with one team and wanted to keep that way is now looking out for his own best interests, as anyone in his position would.

Johnson even noted he understood that if the Browns could get something better for him, that it's in their best interest to do so. He also said that he would continue to act like a professional as long as he's here. He's never diverted away from that in his tenure with the Browns and there's no reason to believe he will at this point.

Baker Mayfield, in his press availability and had the following exchange about Johnson.

Reporter: "Duke's in kind of an awkward spot now-"

Mayfield: "It's not awkward."

Reporter: "It's not awkward?"

Mayfield: "No. It's not awkward." For anybody else in this building."

Reporter: "Why not?"

Mayfield: "You know, it's not awkward. It's self inflicted. It is what it is. It's not awkward. For anybody else in this building."

It's not clear if he's referring to Johnson or Dorsey, but it fits better with Dorsey's actions. In a sense, that Dorsey's actions made this into a self inflicted situation that they now have to deal with. And to Mayfield's credit, he's not going to let it distract from anything they are doing, but that note was just interesting.

The result of this flubbing by Dorsey is the Browns have a weakened position to bargain from when it comes to trading Johnson. Because Johnson basically said he isn't going to change his mind on this, that teams that weren't offering much of anything before have even less reason to do so now.

Moving him will cause them to eat dead $2.25M in dead cap, potentially split over the next two seasons. The Browns have space to operate, but this unforced error only shrinks their margin for error on top of everything else that is wrong with this situation. More than likely, they get next to nothing for a good football player and come away with a bill for it.

For all the things that John Dorsey has done well, this has been an area where he's been remarkably tone deaf. Dorsey didn't talk to Kevin Zeitler before trading him to the New York Giants for Olivier Vernon. Dorsey preaches how he's trying to help young man and is trying to make them better, but this is a fundamental hypocrisy that serves to be a harsh reminder that this is a business and players are here until they aren't.

All the 'buddy boys' and 'kemosabes' don't diminish this issue and only serves to make his words look rather hollow. And when it comes to negotiating contracts and attracting free agents, this could come back to hurt the team. Dorsey has been fantastic in talent acquisition and a number of trades that allowed this team to improve dramatically, but this is an issue that continues to rear its ugly head. This situation was created by Dorsey and Johnson has handled it infinitely better than Dorsey has.