Browns’ 2020 offseason reassessed: Short-term wins, long-term losses
BEREA — Andrew Berry was hired as the Browns’ executive vice president and general manager on Jan. 28, 2020. Just under two months later, he went through his first free-agency period in that role, hoping to establish the foundation for long-term success.
Three years later, the Browns did find success from many of those moves Berry and the front office made that offseason. The only problem is, those successes were almost all in the short term.
The Browns would finish that 2020 season with an 11-5 record, their best mark since 1994. They would also make just their second playoff appearance since the franchise’s 1999 rebirth, while winning their first playoff game since Jan. 1, 1995.
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Many of the players acquired in the months leading up to that campaign played a role in those successes. However, many of those players were on one-year deals and didn’t carry those successes on to the following season.
The ones who were signed to multi-year deals, though, mostly failed to live up to the hype. There’s one notable exception to that rule who remains a foundation piece for what the Browns hope is a resurgence as the Berry-Kevin Stefanski combination heads into their fourth year together.
Looking back on the moves Berry made in the offseason prior to the start of the 2020 training camp, it starts with one that didn’t really pay off in either short- or long-term ways.