I once asked Chris Palmer, the first head coach of the expansions-era Browns, when he knew that his team had landed a free agent.
“When I see his signature on a contract,” he said dryly, and honestly.
Indeed, these situations regarding what free agents will go where. are as unpredictable as the weather in Ohio. As they say, if you don’t like what it’s doing outside, then give it five minutes and it’s bound to change – but not always for the better.
As such, things could end up differently – they could most certainly end up differently – in terms of the future of wide receiver Terrell Pryor. He could end up re-signing with the Browns. That’s still a possibility.
But perhaps it’s not much of one, for if things fail to stop proceeding the way they’re headed, then it appears that Pryor is headed elsewhere.
How these things usually work is that if the team for which he played last season – in Pryor’s case, that is the Browns – don’t re-sign him by the time that free agency is set to begin and he thus becomes a full-fledged free agent, which is where we’re at now – then that club has pretty much lost its chance.
Pryor was arguably the Browns’ best overall offensive skill player last season. He was certainly that when it came to the passing attack. As evidenced by their franchise-worst and NFL-worst 1-15 record last year, they need all the help they can get. They don’t have nearly enough good players as it is, so the last thing they can afford to do is to let one of their best ones walk away, especially when they have all the financial wherewithal to prevent it.
Yes, I understand budgets and analytics and not wanting to pay players way more than what they’re worth. But I also understand common sense. And just as you have to be prepared to overpay to get a good quarterback because it’s the way your team survives, you have to be prepared to overpay your top players at other positions as well.
More on this in our next post.
