The Insiders

Rapoport: Cleveland traded Denzel Ward to Pittsburgh this morning for a first-round pick in 2027 and a first-round pick in 2028. No money either direction. The trade call went to New York at 11:26.

Rapoport: Cleveland did. Tim Vukovich in their pro scouting department called Pittsburgh on August 18 and was turned down that day. Cleveland called back a week later. Both sides give me the same sequence.

Rapoport: Two first-round picks on the eighteenth, two first-round picks nine days later. I do not believe Cleveland made a second offer at any stage.

Rapoport: A second club was, and was given the same number. I am not naming them tonight. Their offer included a first-round pick and Cleveland did not take it.

Garafolo: Start in January, because everything here comes off that contract. Ward’s signing bonus was $30 million, prorated at $6 million a year through 2030. This trade is after June 1, so Cleveland keeps this season’s $6 million where it is and the remaining $24 million accelerates onto their 2027 books. Pittsburgh takes the salary and nothing else. That is $9.7 million this year and $22.5 million next year.

Garafolo: Two dates do the work. Ten million of Ward’s 2027 salary has been guaranteed for injury since the day he signed it, so every week he plays for Cleveland is a week they can end up owing that with nobody to trade. The other date is the third day of the 2027 league year, when the rest of the 2027 money locks in. Pittsburgh has a decision in March, they do not have an obligation in March, and that is what made a second first-round pick gettable.

Garafolo: They converted base salary to bonus on an existing veteran deal about ninety minutes before the call went in, which put them at roughly $11 million of room. Ward’s number goes into that. There is no restructure of Ward’s own contract as part of this and there is no new money in it anywhere. They are taking the deal Andrew Berry wrote in January, as written.

Garafolo: Straight, wherever Pittsburgh lands in those two drafts. No swap language, no deferral, nothing conditional, no protection if the Steelers have a bad year in either one. Cleveland now holds three first-round picks in 2027. Their own, the Rams’ from the Garrett trade in June, and Pittsburgh’s.

Garafolo: Pittsburgh had the oldest cornerback group in the league on cutdown day and they have carried an extra body there all camp. Porter is 26. Everyone else there with a defined role is over 32. Ward flies in tonight, takes his physical tomorrow morning, and they expect him in meetings Saturday. There is nothing in the trade about when he plays.

Rapoport: Ward asked for a trade in March and asked again in June, and was told no both times. He found out this morning on the phone. He is flying tonight.

Rapoport: He went fifteen questions at 3:15. He gave three names off his own staff, he talked about Ward for four and a half minutes, and he would not walk through the negotiation. Same as June.

Rapoport: Omar Khan called Berea at 9:40 and agreed. Mike Tomlin spoke to Ward before noon. That is what both sides say happened and neither has said anything else.

Battista: I went back through it this afternoon because the number sounded larger than my memory of the market, and there is one. Two first-round picks for a cornerback has happened once in the last ten years, in October of 2019, when the Rams sent two firsts and a fourth to Jacksonville for Jalen Ramsey. Ramsey was 24 at the time, he was playing on a rookie contract, and there were two years of control on him. Ward is 29 and being paid more than any cornerback in football. Six clubs have called me about the comparison since noon and four of them raised it before I did.

Battista: Two things, and they are not related to each other. The first is that four clubs told me today they had Ward valued as a deadline rental with money attached, and that valuation was in their own files as recently as last week, so their boards were wrong for two months and they know it. The second is procedural. Two of those clubs said they will now open with a first-round pick when they call Berea rather than waiting to be asked for one, because what they took from the last ten days is that the number does not come down. That is a change in how a phone call starts.

Battista: Two AFC clubs and one in the NFC, and one of the three is a team that called Cleveland in June and got nowhere. None of them would go on the record and I would not expect them to in August.

Battista: Cleveland goes into that spring holding their own first, the Rams’ first and the Steelers’ first, and I could not find another club since the Browns’ own 2018 group that walked into a draft holding three of them. What the club will say about it is nothing at all. I asked two people there today whether the 2027 board is being built around a quarterback and was told both times that they do not discuss future drafts in August, which is the same sentence they gave me in June, word for word.

Rapoport: New York gets Jerry Jeudy for a 2027 third. Cleveland asked for a third and got a third. The Giants had him on their list in July.

Battista: Because New York lost a starter at the position in mid-August and the market at receiver in late August is four or five names, none of whom are 27 with a 90-catch season behind them. Cleveland’s asking price in July was a fourth. It went to a third when the Giants’ depth chart changed, which is ordinary and is how almost every August trade gets priced. Both clubs have told me the football conversation and everything else attached to Jeudy this month were handled separately.

Garafolo: Smaller, and it works the same way as Ward. Cleveland carries $4.2 million this season and $8.4 million accelerates into 2027. New York takes the base salary and there is no cash going with him. Agreed Tuesday afternoon, processed Wednesday morning, and the pick has no conditions on it.

Rapoport: He cleaned out Wednesday. Nothing posted, no statement from his representation. I would expect him on a podium in New Jersey next week.

Garafolo: I want to be exact on this because it keeps getting reported loosely. $117.6 million from the Watson release in January, which is the largest single-player dead-money charge in league history, past Tua Tagovailoa’s $99.2 million. Add Garrett at $21.3 million, Ward at $6 million and Jeudy at $4.2 million and Cleveland’s team number for 2026 comes to just under $150 million. That is second in the league. Miami is at $182.29 million and Miami holds the team record, not Cleveland.

Garafolo: That is the number that moved today. Ward’s $24 million and Jeudy’s $8.4 million put Cleveland at $32.4 million in dead money for next season before they have made one decision about their own free agents. They will still have room next spring because of what came off the books in January, and $32.4 million of that room is committed as of this morning.

Rapoport: Three clubs called Berea this afternoon about other players. All three were told no. I do not believe that is a permanent no on any of them.

Rapoport: No starter named and there will not be one this week. Shedeur Sanders took every first-team rep Wednesday. That is all I have on it tonight.

Battista: On the scale of the last two days, yes, and the calendar is the reason rather than any decision. The deadline is November 10 and the players on that roster who would have drawn a first-round conversation have now both been traded. What is left there is the ordinary in-season market, and three clubs told me today they will circle back on Cleveland’s interior offensive line at the end of October, which is a normal call to make about a team in this position.