In the following months Deshaun Watson has been traded to the Cleveland Browns, the group looked for another franchise willing to trade for Baker Mayfield. The Browns have finally found an interested party in the Carolina Panthers, traded with Mayfield for a conditional draft option last week.
On Tuesday, Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer revealed the Browns – who will pay $10.5 million in Mayfield’s salary in 2022 – could have gotten a better deal if they had agreed to a commercial offer from Carolina in the 2022 NFL Draft.
“The salary bill was first put in place for us to talk to Baker and take the next step,” Fitterer said in a press conference. “We had to work with Cleveland to find the right number. Obviously, we talked to Cleveland during the draft – those were settled – the compensation was higher at the time. .
“Now that it’s changed with Matt Corral being added to the team, we’re going through spring and Sam [Darnold] played really well during the spring, we weren’t in such a rush to necessarily go out there and add someone right away. So we worked through that compensation, we got it [fifth-round pick] go into a [fourth-round pick] for two years, and we think that’s fair. When that happens, [Browns GM] Andrew Berry has allowed us… to work through the financial part of it. “
Carolina picked Corral in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft, adding him to a quarterback room that already had Darnold and PJ Walker. Fitterer said that the 2024 fifth pick heading to Cleveland in exchange for Mayfield would be fourth-rounder if the quarterbacks account for at least 70% of the Panthers’ hits in 2022.
