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Jake Trotter, ESPN Staff Writer
BEREA, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns are all in this season. That’s why they couldn’t go into it with Cade York as their kicker.
Monday, the Browns finally gave up on York, despite giving him every opportunity to convince them he could be reliable. Cleveland traded for Dustin Hopkins, sending the Los Angeles Chargers a seventh-round pick. A source told ESPN the Browns plan to waive York.
This move wasn’t about Hopkins, though the 32-year-old brings experience and calmness to a position in need of it. Hopkins has made 84.8% of his 224 career field goal attempts.
This move instead was about York and his inability to consistently convert kicks.
The Browns have struggled to do just that ever since Phil Dawson’s departure in 2012.
Former Cleveland general manager John Dorsey was determined to solve the problem and drafted Austin Seibert out of Oklahoma with a fifth-round pick in 2019. Seibert, however, struggled out of the gate his first training camp and never recovered. After he missed his only field goal and extra-points attempts in the 2020 season opener in Baltimore, the new Browns regime led by general manager Andrew Berry released Seibert immediately.
Berry tried to solve the problem. But that backfired, as well.
Last year, Berry spent a fourth-round pick on York, who had one of the most decorated kicking careers in LSU history. That seemed to be a home run selection after York nailed a 58-yard, game-winning field goal last year to snap Cleveland’s 17-game losing streak in season openers.
But York’s success proved to be short-lived. He made just 24 of 32 field goals (75%) on the season for one of the worst conversion rates of any starting kicker in the league.
The Browns didn’t doubt then that York would recover to develop into the franchise’s long-term kicker. But doubt started to creep in during the preseason.
The Browns still stood by York even after he missed a pair of potential game-winning attempts — getting a second try after a penalty — on Aug. 17 in Philadelphia.
“Cade’s our kicker,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said then. “We support him. We have a ton of confidence in him. That’s really as simple as that.”
On Sunday, one day after York missed another game-winning attempt in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, Stefanski’s tune changed dramatically.
“I think all roster decisions and those types of things are things that we talk about internally,” Stefanski said when asked directly whether York would start the opener against Cincinnati.
That said it all, a harbinger of Monday’s kicking change.
Beginning with the trade for quarterback Deshaun Watson last year, the Browns have pushed all their chips in on winning now. They’ve given up significant draft capital and signed expensive contracts to win this season.
Giving up on a fourth-round selection after only one season from one of the precious few draft picks the Browns have made in the recent past — and will make in the immediate future — had to hurt.
But York losing a game for the Browns would’ve hurt even more. In the AFC, and the AFC North in particular, the margin for error is virtually none.
The Browns couldn’t afford going into the year with a kicker they no longer believed in. Especially in a season with so much riding on it.
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