Heading into free agency, the Browns were widely viewed as the team most likely to sign free agent quarterback AJ McCarron. It’s easy to see why: Hue Jackson previously coached McCarron in Cincinnati, and the Browns liked McCarron so much last year that they tried to trade a second-round pick and a third-round pick to acquire him.
Instead, the Browns traded a third-round pick to the Bills for Tyrod Taylor, and it ended up being the Bills who signed McCarron.
From the Browns’ perspective, that makes it clear that new G.M. John Dorsey does not think as highly of McCarron as Jackson did. Jackson was viewed as the driving force behind the attempted trade for McCarron last season, when Sashi Brown was the G.M. Now that Dorsey is running the Browns’ personnel department, they no longer view McCarron as favorably.
From the Bills’ perspective, it’s a move that makes a lot of sense: McCarron is going to cost about $9 million less against their salary cap this year than Taylor would have. And they’ve now added the 65th pick in the draft, which they might package as part of an attempt to move up in the draft and get the top quarterback on their board.
So it’s easy to see where the Bills are coming from: They think the wild card round of the playoffs was as far as they were going to go with Taylor at the helm. Now they think extra cap space and another draft pick can help them get further. And McCarron will hold down the fort until a rookie quarterback is ready.