Landry Decision Was Made With Logic

Following a professional sports team is a very emotional experience for fans, particularly an NFL team.

The day to day nature of baseball means you can’t get overly distraught about a single game, although some losses stick with fans longer than others, and in the NBA or NHL, there are several games each week.

However, for NFL fans there is just one game per week, so a difficult defeat or a thrilling victory stays with fans for a while.

In Cleveland, with so much of the media bandwidth spent on the Browns, it is very more noticeable.

You know who cannot think with emotion about the teams? The people who work in the front office. They have to stay detached and make moves that benefit the team both now and down the road.

This brings us to the past few days for the Browns, in which they traded for Amari Cooper and released Jarvis Landry.

There should be no debate that wide receiver became a position of need for Cleveland during this past season. Landry led the team in receptions once again, but he battled through injuries basically all season, and finished with just 52 catches, a career low.

Whatever your feelings are about Baker Mayfield, we think everyone can agree the receiving corps didn’t help him out this past season.

The veteran was scheduled to make $16 million this season, and GM Andrew Berry felt the production did not and would not equal the salary, so he looked to move in another direction. Again, this decision was made with his head, not his heart.

Look, we understand Landry was a positive influence in the locker room. He helped change what had become a losing attitude (and rightly so) within the team. His first year in Cleveland, the Browns went from 0-16 to 7-8-1.

By the way, that was also Mayfield’s first year with the team.

Landry will turn 30 during the 2022 season, and that was definitely a factor in the move. Cooper is younger and frankly, better than Landry right now.

The former All American from Alabama had an off year by his standards too, with just 68 catches for 865 yards, but Berry figures at 28-years-old, he is much more likely to bounce back and return to being a 1000 yard receiver.

And with Cooper making $20 million per season, there was no way the Browns could keep Landry at what he was currently making. It would have been way too much money tied up at the wide out position.

The Browns gave Landry the option of finding his own deal after trading for Cooper, but he found out no one wanted to pay that salary for this season.

We also expect Berry to use the same method, head not heart, in judging every position on the team, including quarterback. Making decisions out of emotions rarely work out.

Browns fans should be sorry to see Jarvis Landry leave. He gave them four solid seasons, making the Pro Bowl twice and the playoffs once. But that’s the way the NFL operates. It’s a cold, at times cutthroat business.