BECKHAM, BAKER, BERRY, STEFANSKI AND BROWNS LOYALTY

By STEVE KING

We’ve all purchased a home.

I don’t mean building a new home. Rather, I’m talking about buying an existing home.

When we take possession of it, we look around and take stock of what we like and make sure we keep it, and also of what we don’t like and make sure we get rid of it, if not immediately then as soon as possible.

That’s just the way it works.

It’s that way, too, with football teams. When members of a new management group – a general manager and a head coach — arrive, they do the same thing. And so it is as well with the Browns, who have a first-year general manager in Andrew Berry and a first-year head coach in Kevin Stefanski. They have done their due diligence and have decided what players they want to keep, and don’t want to keep. They have even formulated a third group of players who are on the fence and could eventually land in either group.

I say this in regard to the fact that there has been all this talk about whether quarterback Baker Mayfield and, more recently, wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., should either stay or go.

Let’s be clear – very, very much so – about this, and it is that Berry and Stefanski did not bring those two players to the team. They inherited them. As such, then, they owe nothing to them in terms of loyalty. They didn’t use one ounce of their own energy or one penny of their own salary cap money to get them. The previous homeowners were responsible for that.

If Berry and Stefanski think Mayfield and Beckham are worth keeping – both in terms of their production level and their price tags – then they’ll keep them. And if they don’t, then they won’t. It’s that simple.

It’s also the way they look at every other player on the roster in that Berry and Stefanski owe their allegiance only to their own guys – those they brought to the Browns.

Keep that in mind – in the front of your mind, actually – during this season and the ensuing offseason.