Browns GM Andrew Berry: Jedrick Wills’ situation, the NFL Draft and roster decisions

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Some things Browns general manager Andrew Berry said in his pre-draft press conference Friday, plus a couple things to track during and after the draft …

Berry followed Browns coach Kevin Stefanski in saying little about the recent arrest of second-year defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey on a misdemeanor assault charge involving a woman in Texas. Berry said Winfrey has been participating in the Browns’ voluntary offseason workout program that began last Monday and remains on the roster.

“It’s an ongoing legal matter, so I won’t comment on the specifics of that other than to say that Perrion understands what our expectations are for all players, whether they’re on the field or in the building,” Berry said.

Does Winfrey really understand those expectations? He missed multiple games last season for reasons related to maturity issues and off-field actions, which makes it fair to wonder if the Browns will soon move on from Winfrey, a fourth-round pick last year.

Berry said the Browns will continue to deal with the matter “internally and make the appropriate decision for the organization.”

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As he’d done previously, Berry declined to say whether the Browns would pick up the 2024 fifth-year option for left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. Berry acknowledged that the May 2 deadline for the option is coming quickly and said he’d make a public announcement before the deadline.

“We’re pleased with Jed,” Berry said.

The Browns picking up Wills’ option — which has long felt like a near-certainty — wouldn’t necessarily lock Wills in at the $14.175 million price tag that comes with picking up the fully guaranteed option. The Browns could negotiate a longer-term deal with Wills at any time, and based on how the Browns have structured previous contracts, that new deal would likely have a low cap number in the first year. The same goes if the Browns chose to decline Wills’ option; they’d still have until next March to negotiate a new deal before he hit free agency.

As of now, the 2024 salary-cap numbers for the Browns’ other four offensive line starters are: Joel Bitonio ($19.6 million), Wyatt Teller ($13.9 million), Jack Conklin ($12.97 million) and Ethan Pocic ($3.98 million). That’s a whole lot of money devoted to one position group, even though it’s mostly been money well spent.

Other current 2024 cap numbers for key offensive players include $63.97 million for Deshaun Watson, $23.77 million for Amari Cooper, $18.39 million for David Njoku and $16.2 million for Nick Chubb. Obviously, big decisions lie ahead, and either some serious cap gymnastics or at least a couple notable roster deletions — and likely a combination of the two — are coming. Stay tuned.

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Berry started his mandated pre-draft session by calling it “everybody’s favorite press conference where you ask questions and I barely answer them.” He’s not turning into a stand-up comedian, but with the Browns not set to start their draft until pick No. 74 in the third round Friday night, he was a little more open than usual on draft questions he usually doesn’t come close to answering.

“I really like Will Anderson,” Berry said of the Alabama defensive end and potential top-five pick. “If he falls to 74, we’re going to take him.”

With just five defensive ends on the current roster and none of the veterans at the position taken on over the last two offseasons still around, Berry acknowledged that’s a position the Browns will target at some point next weekend. The view from here is that it’s the most likely position the Browns will target with their first pick, but Berry’s track record of having made multiple trades during each of his first three drafts in charge says the Browns might not actually use the picks they hold at Nos. 74 and 98.

“I think (the kind of trade we would make) is more situationally dependent on how the board falls quite honestly,” Berry said. “Ultimately, what is the acquisition cost to move up from 74 to the third pick in the draft? I wouldn’t say there is a hard and fast rule, but generally speaking, because we look at the draft more through a long-term lens, we probably in general would be more apt to move back than necessarily move up. I wouldn’t say that we would be exclusively tied to that decision-making thought process.

“I think every general manager in this sport has to have a foot in the present and a foot in the future. That really won’t change now. Maybe how much of your body is leaning present versus future may change as your team either matures or ages out or if they’re really young. Certainly, we believe we have a group of players that will allow us to be competitive in the fall, but that does not mean you punt or don’t consider future years in your planning.”

Per the NFL Players Association’s public salary-cap report, the Browns have 73 players under contract. With eight draft picks currently, that would leave the Browns the chance to add nine more players after the draft before reaching the 90-man offseason roster max. There’s always movement in and around the team’s rookie minicamp with undrafted rookies being added, and a veteran free-agent addition at just about any position on the defensive side would make sense between now and July. The draft, obviously, will dictate the team’s immediate thinking on what’s left in the free-agent market.

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Berry would never share the list of players the Browns hosted on pre-draft visits for strategy reasons, but he acknowledged outside reports that the Browns hosted some quarterbacks. Though he twice called quarterback “the most important position in sports,” he called the team spending time with quarterback prospects a standard part of the pre-draft information-gathering process.

“Teams use those visits in different ways,” Berry said. “For us, as we think through what usually ends up being about 125 guys on the board, we just want to make sure that we have everything on all the guys, because you just don’t know what the possibilities are going to be that the individual falls to you.”

The Browns enter the draft with three quarterbacks under contract — Watson, Joshua Dobbs and Kellen Mond — and eight picks. If they keep all eight, they might have flexibility to use what some might consider a bonus pick given that their specialists are under contract and the Browns added 12 veteran players in the early free-agent periods.

Last year the Browns got what could be considered a free look at Mond when they claimed him on waivers at the end of the preseason. Mond was a third-round pick of the Vikings in 2021 but was cut by the Vikings’ new regime, and he spent a lot of last season running the scout team in Browns practices.

Stefanski previously said the Browns wouldn’t decide on whether to carry a fourth quarterback for the offseason until they finalized the 90-man roster. If the Browns keep eight draft picks, they’ll be more likely to take a shot on a quarterback Saturday than they would be if they end up with fewer than eight picks. With an extra preseason game this summer and the Browns knowing what they have in top backup Dobbs, there will be more game-like chances for young quarterbacks than there have been in recent years, so the Browns’ evaluation of Mond will also play into any draft decisions regarding the quarterback position. As long as their current quarterbacks are healthy, Watson and Dobbs are firmly set as the two game day quarterbacks.

The Browns didn’t add a fourth quarterback last season until just before the start of training camp and that quarterback, Josh Rosen, didn’t get many camp reps. Rosen ended up sticking around on the practice squad, but he was cut when Watson was eligible to return to team activities.

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(Photo of Jedrick Wills Jr.: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)