With the Cleveland Browns 3-1 and at the top of the AFC North heading into Week 5 as underdogs on the road against the New York Jets, everything around the team is more fun. Talk of trading away a wide receiver or quarterback is about what is best for the team, not just about adding draft capital for the future.
With the NFL trade deadline over a month away, the Browns have five games to make a decision about what direction they see the team going after the deadline. That doesn’t mean GM Andrew Berry will wait. DE Khalil Mack is already rumored to be on the market and fits a role that Cleveland could use help with: pass rush.
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Berry spent most of the offseason trying to add another edge player, and that was before DE Alex Wright was lost for the season due to injury. The 35-year-old Mack, who signed a one-year deal to return to the Los Angeles Chargers, may be the first big domino to fall as his team has floundered to a 0-4 start.
Mack’s $18 million contract seems big, but a trade would only cost the Browns a portion of the $8 million in base salary, as the Chargers paid $10 million as a signing bonus. As Jack Duffin of The OBR explains, how much it would cost Cleveland depends on when a deal happened:
Quick math says that acquiring Mack this week would cost just over $6 million in cap space and that would drop about a million every two weeks. At the start of the season, Berry had over $12 million in cap space to work with and could get creative with Mack’s contract if the two sides were amenable.
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Is Mack’s performance at age 35 worth it?
So far, the veteran has three sacks, five QB hits, and five tackles for loss in four contests. Pro Football Focus has him ranked 13th in total pressures in the NFL and gave him an 86.1 grade in Week 4:
Mack produced one sack and four pressures while leading the team with four stops. He also posted an 82.0 in run defense and a 69.6 in pass rush (second best on the team).
Suffice to say, Mack continues to produce.
Given his age, production, and salary, Los Angeles is likely to receive a high Day 3 pick for the veteran pass rusher. It is also possible, especially for a team like the Browns with a lot of young players, that the Chargers attempt to do a player-for-player swap instead of draft capital.
Are you in favor of the Browns trading for Mack? If so, how high of a draft pick would you be willing to give up? If not, who do you think the team should be looking to add in a trade?
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