Now that the dust has settled in the 2023-24 Cleveland Browns season, we turn our attention to the offseason. This offseason will be another pivotal one in determining the future success of the franchise, as the Browns begin the strategic phase of aiming to enhance the roster, address positional weaknesses, and continue to build upon the existing foundation. This will include exploring player additions via trades, the NFL Draft, and free agency, the latter of which will be our focus here.
The Browns have 26 players currently slated to hit free agency, some of which are familiar household names. Our purpose here is to try and determine which free agents should be brought back for the 2024-25 season (“buy”) and which players would be better suited with a different ball club (“sell”).
Some definitions of metrics that may be used throughout:
Expected points added (“EPA”) via Inside the Pylon: “Expected Points Added (EPA) is a football statistic that seeks to measure the value of individual plays in terms of points. This is done by calculating the Expected Points (EP) of the down, distance, and field position situation at the start of a play and contrasting it with the situation at the end of the play. A three-yard gain on first-and-10 is pretty different than a three-yard gain on third-and-two, something not usually captured in conventional statistics. The Expected Points framework helps translate raw gains into value.”
