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Cleveland Browns players report to Berea for the start of offseason programs. In a move that came out of no where, though, Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network is reporting that SS Derrick Kindred is expected to be waived by the team today:
The #Browns are expected to waive safety Derrick Kindred today, source said. He was slated to be a starter. Cleveland had shopped Kindred, who was due more than $2M in salary. He should generate considerable interest on waivers.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 1, 2019
In March, we talked about how Kindred’s playing time over the first three years of his contract helped him earn the Player Performance Escalator (PPE) for the 2019 season, which brought his base salary to $2.025 million.
When Cleveland traded SS Jabrill Peppers to the New York Giants, Kindred became the starting strong safety by default. It wasn’t a guarantee that he would remain the starter — but at the very least, he has been a good run defender the past several years and figured to be a nice backup. The fact that Cleveland was looking to trade Kindred, and now waive him, would seem to indicate that GM John Dorsey has something up his sleeve at the safety position still, like a veteran free agent he thinks he’ll be able to sign at some point.