The Browns Nailed It With the Brock Osweiler Trade
How do the Browns benefit from bringing on Brock Osweiler?
First off, Brock Osweiler is probably not the future of the Browns (or any team for that matter). However, the Browns absolutely nailed it with this trade.
Lets look at the trade details: Houston is giving up Osweiler, a 6th round pick, and a 2018 2nd round pick in exchange for Cleveland’s 4th round pick this year. At a first glance, this trade can raise some eyebrows at to why Houston would give up so much for just a 4th round pick. Well this trade means that the Texans get Oswiler’s horrific $72 million contract off of the books and free up $10 million in cap space this year. There is a lot of speculation that Houston could be making the way to get Tony Romo which, if he can stay healthy, would make a really strong Houston team considering they made the playoffs last year with the 29th worst passing offense in the league. So that could explain why Houston made the trade and it seems pretty solid for them, but why does Cleveland want another bad quarterback? Is this just another typical Browns move that’s going to backfire on them?
The Browns are happy to take his contract considering it will only cost them $16 million out of their $103 million in cap space they had going into Thursday. Cleveland is in a great position with this trade since they also don’t even have to keep Osweiler after this year and can release him without having to pay his guaranteed money. However, lets not forget that Osweiler was pretty bad last year with 16 interceptions, only 15 touchdowns, and a QBR of 55.3 (22nd overall in the NFL) leading to him getting benched late in the season. On the other hand, the Browns can’t really get much worse and he’s an option. Trying another quarterback can’t really hurt when you just went through three starters in one season and only pulled out one win. So you plug him in and if he works, then great you have a quarterback. If not, then you can eat the cap hit and trade him or just release him at the end of the season and you still get a 2nd round draft pick out of the deal.
The latter is definitely the more likely option after Executive Vice President of Football Operations Sashi Brown’s first statement concerning the trade was, “We’re really excited to acquire a second round draft choice in this trade. Draft picks are extremely important to our approach in building a championship caliber football team. We are intent on adding competition to every position on our roster and look forward to having Brock come in and compete.” So look for the Browns to move Osweiler but there is still a chance he shows up in Cleveland and takes over the starting job.
Okay so if he’s probably not going to play, then what’s the point? The value of a 2nd round draft pick is often overlooked. The average total cost of last year’s 1st round draft picks was $13,864,153 while the average cost of a 2nd round pick was only $5,308243. So the 2nd round is essentially Black Friday for teams as they can get players with first round talent and maybe a few question marks for a huge discount. Some notable 2nd round picks include Thurman Thomas, Brett Favre, Drew Brees, Matt Forte, Rob Gronkowski — you get the point. In 2013, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) released a study claiming that 2nd round picks have the most value for a team on the basis that they perform at least 70% as well as a 1st rounder for 40% of the price. This pick is also the Browns’ third 2nd round pick for 2018 as they also have the Eagles’ pick from last years trade for the overall 2nd pick. Now this isn’t saying that the Browns’ recipe to becoming competitive is next year’s second round, but three valuable picks in one draft offers a lot of possibilities for Cleveland.
Overall, this trade is beneficial to both teams. Houston gets to fix their mistake of giving a huge contract to an unproven quarterback so they can look for veteran experience and Cleveland gets another quarterback to try out at low risk with a good pick next year for practically nothing. In the end, Cleveland comes out ahead on this trade considering how low risk it is for them. So while the Browns might not have found their future yet, they are actually making smart moves for once which is definite improvement.
