Browns release first-round pick Phil Taylor
The National Football League mandated that all 32 clubs get their rosters down to 75 players, and the Cleveland Browns got there in part by releasing 2011 first-round pick Phil Taylor. Taylor has been a bust throughout his four years with the Browns, playing in 44 games. Over that time, Taylor racked up seven sacks, including four as a rookie.
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This move just reeks of the Browns. They picked up their option on Taylor in 2014, making sure that his 2015 salary of $5.477 million is fully guaranteed, per Pro Football Talk. Now, Cleveland is on the hook for all that dough if nobody else is willing to pick Taylor up off the street.
Taylor is six-foot-three and 335 pounds, making him a seemingly perfect fit as a nose tackle in the 3-4 defensive scheme. However, the Browns changed coaches approximately 55,094 times since Taylor was drafted, never allowing him to settle in. Taylor was taken out of the University of Baylor and looked like a player on the defensive line along with Jabaal Sheard, but neither are with the team at this point.
This seems to be a running theme in Cleveland. Remember when the Browns traded the sixth-overall pick in 2011 to the Atlanta Falcons, and received Atlanta’s first, second and fourth-round selections along with its 2012 first and fourth-round picks? People thought Cleveland was getting a major bargain. Turns out, they are still the Browns.
With the release of Phil Taylor, the #Browns now have no one left from their Julio Jones trade haul (Taylor, Little, Marecic, Weeden)
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 1, 2015
Cleveland needs to start drafting better if it ever wants to get out of the basement. The Browns have drafted Trent Richardson, Justin Gilbert, Brandon Weeden, Johnny Manziel and Taylor with recent first-round picks. Wow.