The Cleveland Browns now have star quarterback Deshaun Watson atop the depth chart and are still looking to trade former starter Baker Mayfield and the $18.858 million of fully guaranteed salary for 2022 attached to his contract.
Thus far, the Browns have clearly found no interested parties, and ESPN's Dianna Russini reported this week Cleveland still wants any would-be buyer "to pay that money" to land the 2018 first overall draft choice.
NFL Network's Ian Rapoport appeared on "The Pat McAfee Show" on Wednesday and explained Mayfield probably won't have a new football home anytime soon.
"I don't get the sense there'll be anything (with) Baker until maybe June at the earliest," Rapoport said.
"You're getting into a real kind of dead period...so there's no real deadline to make anything happen," he added.
"I don't get the sense that anything will happen with Baker Mayfield until June at the earliest" ~@RapSheet#PMSLive pic.twitter.com/8MPisZU33b
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) May 4, 2022
In her update, Russini said the Seattle Seahawks "have no interest in" Mayfield at this time and instead are ready to roll with 2019 second-round pick Drew Lock as their QB1. Seattle acquired Lock in the trade that sent one-time Super Bowl champion Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos in March.
The Browns don't owe it to Mayfield to trade him as long as they have the salary-cap space to keep him stashed on the roster until further notice, and teams with healthy signal-callers can continue to wait to see if the Browns will ultimately cut the 27-year-old.
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