Analysts Say Browns Might Be ‘Parting Ways’ With Player After Arrest

Getty Perrion Winfrey #97 of the Cleveland Browns and Myles Garrett #95 celebrates a sack during overtime against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

On Wednesday, April 12, news broke that Cleveland Browns defensive tackle Perrion Winfrey was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge in Texas on Monday, April 10, according to Cleveland.com.

TMZ further reported that court documents said taht Winfrey and his girlfriend got into an argument over “a dog and keys to a rental car” and it became physical and bystanders had to intervene, according to the documents. The court documents also say that the woman said this was not the first time Winfrey assault her.

Browns reporters Mary Kay Cabot and Dan Labbe said in their latest “Orange and Browns Talk” podcast that perhaps the Browns will be cutting Winfrey loose after this latest incident.

Mary Kay Cabot Said Winfrey ‘Hasn’t Always Been in the Right Place at the Right Time Doing the Right Thing’

On the show, Cabot listed off the issues the team had with Winfrey in his rookie year last season:

“[Winfrey] didn’t do a lot of bad things last year, but he did enough to get benched in the second game of the season for not being professional enough. We don’t know exactly how that manifested,” said Cabot.

She continued, “Then he missed three other games later in the season, one of which was a healthy scratch, that’s never a good sign, that’s another disciplinary action. Then one of them was because he missed two practices before the Dolphins game with an illness, and then … the third game that he missed in that little three-game span was against the Bills in Detroit. The reason why he missed that is because he got a concussion from an accident mid-week.”

Cabot went on to say that this latest arrest “just doesn’t bode well for how he’s starting off the 2023 season” and perhaps the Browns are going to part ways with the defensive tackle after they ascertain what the situation is.

“For their part, the Browns are gathering more information. They’re going to have to talk to Perrion themselves, someone in the organization will speak with him about this, they’ll talk to the authorities about this and they’ll find out as much information as they can and if they’re comfortable with what they find out, then they’ll move forward with Perrion.

“If they’re not comfortable with what they find out, then there is a chance, I suppose, that they could start to think about parting ways with him. One of the reasons why they even might consider that is this is just sort of the latest in a line of incidents where Perrion Winfrey maybe hasn’t always been in the right place at the right time doing the right thing,” said Cabot.

Dan Labbe Pointed Out the Defensive Additions the Browns Made This Offseason

Labbe took a look at Perrion’s contract and said that it would not actually cost the Browns that much money (in the grand scheme of things) to part ways with Winfrey, who was going to have to fight for his job anyway this year.

“At some point, it does come down to there’s just always something with certain guys and this was a fourth-round pick … it’s not gonna cost too much money to move on from him at all, we’re talking hundreds of thousands. This is a fourth-round pick contract, it’s not that big,” said Labbe.

According to Spotrac, Winfrey is signed to a four-year, $4.4 million contract after they drafted him in 2022 but only $812,796 is guaranteed. If they parted ways with him right now, the dead cap amount is just over $600,000.

He added, “The other part of it is … this isn’t a play you’ve exactly given a vote of confidence to with the moves you’ve made this offseason. They’ve really been throwing bodies at that defensive tackle position, he was going to have to fight for his job to begin with. He did not have a very strong rookie year, so a lot of this is pointing to, if the Browns want to move on, it’s pretty easy for them to do it.”

Indeed, this offseason, the Browns added defenders Dalvin Tomlinson, Maurice Hurst and Trysten Hill to the roster and perhaps that will be enough for the Browns to wash their hands of the second-team All-Big 12 selection out of Oklahoma.