At this point, a post-June 1 trade of Eagles receiver A.J. Brown should be expected. The changing of the calendar from May to June opens the door to other possible trades.
The benefit comes from the ability to spread the dead-money charge over multiple seasons. This makes it more attractive for high-profile players with big-money contracts to be moved to a new team after June 1.
The biggest name that potentially lands in the post-June 1 trade category (other than Brown) is Browns defensive end Myles Garrett. Last month, we reviewed the mixed signals emanating from Cleveland as to whether that could happen.
His recent contract restructuring delayed his annual option bonus until seven days before the start of the regular season. With the Browns not required to pay Garrett $29.2 million by March 15, that instantly became a factor pointing toward a potential move.
After June 1, a trade would actually create cap space for the Browns by sending Garrett’s 2026 option bonus and his 2026 salary to a new team, leaving behind only his 2026 bonus proration ($15.534 million) on the books this year. Any remaining cap charge would move to 2027, offset by the unloading of his 2027 cap number if he were still on the team.
So, yes, Garrett’s deal becomes tradable after June 1 — even though the Browns have insisted he won’t be traded.
Other veterans become easier to trade from a cap standpoint after June 1. The most obvious post-June 1 trade candidate is Saints running back Alvin Kamara, who has been supplanted by the arrival of Travis Etienne.
The Cardinals, who paid defensive end Josh Sweat a guaranteed option bonus of $7.22 million in March, could trade him after June 1 and push $16.515 million in cap charges into 2027. (They’re reportedly getting calls about Sweat, who has been absent from offseason workouts.)
A trade of Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby remains a possibility, but the passing of June 1 doesn’t impact the cap consequences. His current contract has no bonus proration beyond 2026.
However it goes, June 1 (which used to mark a fresh wave of free agency before teams could cut players with a post-June 1 designation) remains a key date as it relates to the trading of contracts with significant dead money still attached to them.
Browns Clips
Browns cornerback Denzel Ward is not participating in voluntary Organized Team Activities, but he says he’ll be good to go when the mandatory work starts.
“I’ve just been training, working out,” Ward said, via the Akron Beacon Journal. “I got a girlfriend, I got to take her on some dates. I’ve just been working out, working my craft and getting prepared for when I get back in there. Yeah, that’s it.”
Ward says he’s in regular communication with his position coach and is learning new defensive coordinator Mike Rutengerg’s scheme.
“It’s been good because even though I haven’t been there, like I’ve been with [defensive backs coach Brandon] Lynch, he’s been calling me, we’ve been getting on calls and going over the playbook,” Ward said. “And so I’ve still been learning the playbook and the new plays that’s been going in. And so continue to do that. And then like I said, I’ve been watching the practices that they’ve been doing and how they run the plays and how guys are looking. So I’m still involved, just from afar. I’m looking at it from a different view this time.”
Ward says he’s also been watching practice film of his teammates and he’s not concerned with anyone getting the wrong idea about his absence from voluntary work.
“You don’t have to read into it,” Ward said. “It’s up to people if they want to read into it, but no, I’ve just been working my craft, working out and getting ready. I’ve still been checking them out though, so I’ve been in the iPad seeing what those new guys have been looking like. So I got something for them when I get there though.”
The biggest question for the Browns is the identity of the starting quarterback. One of the men whose input will be relevant to the decision was asked for his take on whether Deshaun Watson or Shedeur Sanders has taken the lead during offseason workouts.
“I don’t know that we have somebody who’s ahead,” offensive coordinator Travis Switzer told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re pleased with both their progress, and all the guys are doing a nice job.”
Switzer also was asked how he thinks the competition is going, at this point in the Cleveland OTAs.
“I think that both of those guys and really all of our guys are progressing very well,” Switzer said. “Very pleased in what we’ve seen in the growth. Like I said, a lot of is the familiarity with the system — getting a little more comfortable as we move on. But their progression, just in the short time that we’ve been so far is very encouraging, and we’re excited about that.”
Switzer was specifically asked what he has seen from Sanders.
“I’ll only speak to what I’ve seen over the last couple weeks, and his progress has been impressive,” Switzer said. “Just his ability to move through progressions. His feet are getting more urgent, and he’s ready to throw when he needs to more consistently. We can continue to grow there, but his progress has been impressive.”
At some point, one of them will be named the starter. The sooner that happens, the more reps he’ll have to prepare for Week 1.
That’s the challenge in every quarterback competition. At some point, it ends. The longer it takes to end it, the less time the winner has to get ready to play well enough to avoid being benched for the guy who finished in second place.
The Browns announced a change to their cornerback group on Tuesday.
They have signed Tyron Herring to their 90-man roster. DeCarlos Nicholson was waived with an injury designation in a corresponding move.
Herring went undrafted out of Delaware last year. He signed with the Packers and failed to make the cut to 53 players in Green Bay. He spent time on their practice squad and on the Patriots’ practice squad over the course of the season.
Nicholson signed with the Browns after going undrafted out of USC this year.
The Browns signed two other undrafted rookie cornerbacks to compete for spots behind Denzel Ward and Tyson Campbell this season.
Free agent defensive lineman Janarius Robinson visited with another team as he continues to look for a place to play in 2026.
Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports that Robinson worked out for the Browns on Monday. Robinson worked out for the Patriots earlier this month as well.
Robinson spent last season with the Chiefs and had a sack in the preseason before landing on injured reserve with a foot injury that cost him the entire season.
Robinson had had 11 tackles and 1.5 sacks in 16 games for the Raiders in 2023 and 2024. He has also spent time with the Vikings and Eagles.
As it turns out, the Browns aren’t the Cleveland-based sports team having the most warped obsession with analytics.
Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson, whose team trails the Knicks 3-0 in the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals, came up with an all-time glass-half-full justification for the Cavs’ struggles.
Via Matt Clapp of Awful Announcing, Atkinson claimed — with a straight face — that Cleveland is essentially winning.
“Analytically . . . we’re two out of three in the expected [score]. . . . We’ve won two out of the three,” Atkinson said.
The remark immediately flopped worse than SGA.
“I know you’re looking confused,” Atkinson said. “But if you believe in process and all that. . . . take that layer. . . .
“I think last night, it was, the expected score was like one point or two. Us shooting way below expected, them shooting way over. I know no one wants to hear that. I think you guys like hearing it. The general public . . . everyone’s outcome-based. Sure. I get that too.”
Yes, the general public is outcome-based. Because winning and losing is based on the outcome.
At a time when the Cavaliers face the nearly impossible task of digging out of a 3-0 hole, they need inspiration. They need confidence. Telling them to buck up because they’ve analytically won two of the three games that they lost surely won’t do the trick.
It would be nice if, in hindsight, this is the moment where blind reliance on analytics jumps the shark. Or, even better, when the shark eats it.
And then Atkinson can claim analytics actually ate the shark. If you believe in process.
Former Heisman winner and Browns first-rounder Johnny Manziel made his MMA debut on Saturday, against an influencer named Bob Menery.
Manziel won easily. Anyone who spent two minutes and sixteen seconds of their lives watching the fight lost.
It was, quite frankly, a Battle of Dad Bods. Two guys with limited skills in a fight that looked like something that broke out at the back end of a barbecue where both had consumed too much brisket and too much beer.
Manziel, a former pro athlete who outweighed Menery by (as Menery claimed after the fight) 30 pounds, seemed to stun Menery early with multiple kicks (including one that almost connected to Menery’s face) before taking Menery down and never letting him get up. Manziel eventually wailed away with blows to the head. At one point, Manziel seemed to be on the verge of deploying the time-honored “stop hitting yourself” technique.
Eventually, the referee stepped in and stopped the madness.
“I need a cigarette,” Manziel said after the fight.
After watching it, I need a Manhattan.
Manziel said his first MMA fight was likely his last one. That’s the best news of all.
The Browns hired Todd Monken as their new head coach on Jan. 28. Almost four months later, he has yet to meet the team’s best player.
Monken was asked at the team’s organized team activities whether he has had a “face-to-face with Garrett yet.”
“Myles?” Monken asked, before answering, “No.”
Garrett has stayed away from the Browns’ offseason program and has already lost $1 million for missing a mandatory minicamp last month. The team has another mandatory minicamp next month, which will cost Garrett another $107,911 if he misses.
The 2025 Defensive Player of the Year didn’t participate in the Browns’ voluntary offseason work last season before setting the NFL’s official sacks record with 23.
Browns coach Todd Monken was not happy about interceptions he saw on the practice field during Organized Team Activities on Wednesday.
Monken said after practice that it should be easy for quarterbacks to find open receivers, given that OTAs don’t include any pass rush, and he wasn’t pleased that his quarterbacks were throwing interceptions anyway.
“We threw interceptions in 7-on-7 for God’s sakes. Who does that? There’s no pass rush. It was embarrassing,” Monken said.
Monken did not say which quarterbacks had thrown embarrassing interceptions. Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders are competing for the starting job, while Dillion Gabriel and rookie Taylen Green are taking backup reps.
As for Watson and Sanders, Monken wouldn’t say which quarterback is ahead in the competition at this point. Monken has said he hopes to know who his starting quarterback is by the end of the spring.
Shedeur Sanders made the Pro Bowl last season despite starting only seven games and throwing seven touchdowns to 10 interceptions as a rookie. But Sanders is firmly in the competition with Deshaun Watson for the Browns’ starting job.
Sanders is the only one of the team’s four quarterbacks who spent the offseason working at the team facility.
New head coach Todd Monken praised Sanders’ development since last season.
“I think Shedeur’s come miles, in terms of his progressions, getting the ball out, his understanding of concepts,” Monken said, via Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN. “I think he’s really, really come a long way.”
The Browns held their second OTA practice on Wednesday, and Sanders and Watson split the first-team reps. Dillon Gabriel and rookie Taylen Green took second- and third-team reps.
Monken hopes to name a starting quarterback before training camp.
“You’d love to have it at every position at the end of spring, but you can’t guarantee that,” Monken said. “We’ll have it set for Jacksonville [in Week 1].”
