Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam say to put the Deshaun Watson 'big swing and a miss' trade on them, not on GM Andrew Berry. (TheLandOnDemand)
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
PALM BEACH, FL
GM Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski – the Browns’ top two football executives – were spared their jobs after a 3-14 season because owner Jimmy Haslam doesn’t hold them accountable for the crater the organization is trying to climb out of.
“Let's address the elephant in the room,” Haslam said. “We took a big swing and miss with Deshaun [Watson]. We thought we had the quarterback. We didn't, and we gave up a lot of draft picks to get him. So we've got to dig ourselves out of that hole.
“I've said this, I think, numerous times: the Deshaun Watson [trade] was an entire organization decision and it ends with Dee [Haslam] and I. So hold us accountable.”
In his annual confab with Northeast Ohio media covering NFL owners meetings, Haslam ascertained the coming draft is “huge for us, OK? Huge. We're excited about the draft, but we got to get it right, and we spend a lot of time working on it and we'll continue to do so.”
In the early years of his ownership, Haslam conceded he was the least patient man in the organization. But patience has been an acquired virtue, almost to a fault, since partnering Berry and Stefanski six years ago.
And Haslam is now preaching patience in rectifying the team’s generational search for a franchise quarterback, this time to succeed Watson, whose days are numbered with two years left on his $230 million contract and the coming season devoted to rehabbing two Achilles tendon surgeries in January.
On Monday, Berry said it’s not likely the team can trade-up with Tennessee for the No. 1 pick to tab the draft’s unanimous top-ranked quarterback, Cam Ward of Miami.
“It would be great if we could get the quarterback, but we're not going to force it,” Haslam said. “We're going to be patient, and we're going to try to accumulate as many really good football players as we can.”
Even though Haslam has accompanied Berry and Stefanski on private workouts with Ward, Jalen Milroe of Alabama and Jaxson Dart of Mississippi, and will join them in the last scheduled workout later this week with Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter, the owner is not pressing Berry to produce a franchise quarterback – or else.
“I think the message is if the right person's there, we're going to take him,” Haslam said. “If not, we'll figure it out for a year or two until we get the right person. And I just keep … we need good football players. There's good football players in this draft and we’ve got to make sure we get the right ones for us.”
Which certainly doesn’t take Berry off the hook going forward. In five drafts as Browns GM, Berry has selected 37 players. Only one, linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, has been selected to the Pro Bowl. (JOK’s immediate playing future is in jeopardy because of a season-ending neck injury; he may take 2025 off and hope for a return in 2026.)
After a surprise run to 11 wins and a wild-card appearance in 2023 while needing to use four starting quarterbacks, Berry and Stefanski each received contract extensions. They were the first GM and coach in Haslam’s 12-years as owner to earn a second contract. Haslam burned through four coaches and four GMs in his first eight years of Browns ownership.
“We sat here last year and Kevin was a two-time out of four years Coach of the Year, and Andrew was regarded as one of the top executives in pro football at the age of 37 years old,” Haslam said. “So, I don't think they forgot how to coach. I don't think they forgot how to do personnel.
“There's things both of them can do better. There's things our entire organization could do better. It's a little bit of everything that could go wrong did go wrong, but I don't want to make any excuses. They can both do better, but we have high confidence in both of them.”
The stadium project
Haslam said he hopes to break ground on his planned $1.2 billion covered stadium in Brook Park in the first quarter of 2026. But it depends on the Ohio state legislature approving a $600 million bond issue towards the cost.
“We will know on the state funding by June 30th,” Haslam said. “And so assuming that goes well, then we can then move quickly to try to start sometime in the first quarter of '26. So this is not going to be a drawn out two or four year deal. It's either going to happen and happen quickly or we'll go to plan B.”
Which is?
“Plan B is renovation [of Huntington Bank Field on the lakefront],” he said.
Haslam said he would not consider selling a small percentage stake of ownership in the franchise to private equity investors, as some NFL owners recently have done, to raise money for the project.
“You're taking on a partner … and how's that work out? So, we have no plans to sell any stock in the Browns anytime soon,” Haslam said.
Myles Garrett
Haslam attributed Garrett’s highly-public request to be traded to emotions and frustration.
He was asked why the organization felt it was better off not trading Garrett for resources that could be used to accelerate a pathway to winning.
“We had a lot of conversations about it and there was never serious thought to trade Myles,” he said. “I mean, what we know we have in Myles is a Hall of Famer. Myles just turned [29] if I remember, I think in December. He’s probably got five or six really good years in him and is a dominant player who coaches have to game plan for and we value that. We want him to stay here and retire with us, et cetera, et cetera. So it was never really a serious thought.”
Watson’s future
Neither Berry nor Stefanski have elaborated on if they feel Watson could be healthy enough to see the field in 2025. The team has an insurance policy on Watson’s 2025 salary of $46 million and could receive a decent credit on the 2026 salary cap if he doesn’t play.
“He's had three horrific injuries in what, a 15 month period, right?” Haslam said. “Shoulder, tears his Achilles, re-tears his Achilles. And I think the focus now is on getting him healthy and how long does that take and when can he be healthy? So that's the main thing need to be focused on.”
Watson will receive another $46 million in 2026, the last year of his contract. It’s been speculated the team might pay him off and take their medicine in what amounts to $120 million in salary cap hits in 2026 and 2027.
Haslam was asked if the organization has crafted an exit strategy to put the Watson era behind it and pay the cap penalties ahead.
“The contract's the contract,” Haslam said, “and I would just restate what we said earlier: We need to see what Deshaun's health situation is before we make a decision.”