The Cleveland Browns announced on Friday that they have terminated the contract of veteran OL Paul McQuistan. McQuistan signed a two-year deal with the Browns last March after he was not retained by the Seattle Seahawks. McQuistan won a Super Bowl ring with Seattle in 2013, but was demoted from his starting role for ineffective play.
It was thought that McQuistan might compete for a starting role under a new coaching staff in Cleveland last year, but based on his lack of starting reps in training camp, it was clear that the Browns didn't have any big plans for him.
After C Alex Mack suffered a season-ending injury against the Steelers, the Browns shifted OG John Greco over to center and inserted McQuistan into the starting lineup at right guard. McQuistan played so awful that the following week, he was sent back to the bench so that Greco could re-stabilize the right guard position. Unfortunately, that meant the center position remained a liability the rest of the year as the likes of Paul McQuistan and Ryan Seymour.
I'm actually a little upset that McQuistan was released now, because he was one of the more obvious players I was going to list in my annual-but-yet-to-be-released article on potential cap casualties for the Browns. Earlier this week, I outlined how the Browns had about $52.40 million in available cap space.
McQuistan was scheduled to eat up $1.77 million in cap space in 2015. Because someone has to replace him in the Top 51 calculation (a minimum player of $435,000), the net savings in cap space by cutting McQuistan is $1.335 million.
Previous Cap Space ($52.40 million) + Cap Savings ($1.335 million) = $53.735 million.
The Browns still have the third highest cap space in the NFL at about $53.735 million, but are now just a hair behind the Oakland Raiders ($53.95 million).