Paul Kruger's contract makes him a cut candidate after 2015

By Craig Lyndall

Once you come to accept the idea that the Cleveland Browns will most likely clean house, you start to think about what parts of the roster they’ll chop.

We’ve seen this game play out too many times in Cleveland to fool ourselves into thinking that whomever the Browns hire to run their team going forward will want “his guys.” And even if the Browns retain Ray Farmer or Mike Pettine, it’s hard to imagine anyone would consider Paul Kruger indispensable by this point. Luckily for the Browns, his contract is set up perfectly to move on this offseason.

Kruger signed with the Browns ahead of the 2013 NFL season for five years and $40.5 million with $13 million guaranteed. By the time the 2015 NFL season finishes, Kruger will have earned north of $26 million over the first three years of the deal. In 2016, the linebacker is set to earn $6.5 million in salary and costs an additional $1.2 million against the cap, representing a prorated portion of his $6 million signing bonus. If the Browns cut bait, their cap penalty is a mere $2.4 million, or the remaining value of his signing bonus that they haven’t accounted for.

So no matter who is running the Browns, it is reasonable to think they’ll look at the production and decide they can more efficiently use that $4 million elsewhere.

The Browns have little need for the money under the cap, but Kruger, while not a bad player, has been very inconsistent. There have been questions about his play and also how Jim O’Neill and Mike Pettine have used him in the defense. Kruger had his best season in 2014 when he had 11 sacks for the Browns, but much like the rest of the team, 2015 has been much worse. As of this writing, Paul Kruger has only 4.5 sacks and most Browns fans will remember him being part of the problem early on in the season when it came to setting the edge against opposing running backs.

The Browns have spent resources on outside linebacker. They drafted Nate Orchard in 2015, and he made strides in his rookie year. His rookie contract pays about $4.5 million total in his first four seasons. Armonty Bryant continues to be relatively productive as well, and he’s a candidate for a contract extension. He’s signed through the end of 2016, and he won’t cost even $1 million against the cap as a former seventh-round draft choice.

So why would the Browns cut Paul Kruger and not Barkevious Mingo? Mingo has been even less effective than Paul Kruger, but because Mingo was a first-round draft choice, his contract is more expensive to move on from than the veteran’s. If the Browns play Mingo in 2016, he will cost them nearly $4.5 million on the cap. If they cut Mingo, he’ll cost them $5.1 million because of the accelerated accounting on his signing bonus. Alas, it’s hard to see a scenario where the Browns cut Mingo.

In the end, when you’re tasked with fixing a team that isn’t playing well, you need to find the most efficient way to rebuild. Any general manager will look at the amount of money being spent on an underperforming defense and immediately see that $4 million he can clear out next to Paul Kruger’s name. So, even as we don’t know who will be running the Browns in 2016, you have to think Paul Kruger could be a marked man because of the structure of his contract.

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