The Cleveland Browns have been less risk-averse than most organizations in terms of giving opportunities to players with checkered histories in their personal lives—sometimes second chances as well. That’s not just an observation. Their coaches and general managers have said it. They were the team that gave Kareem Hunt a job. They were the team that traded for Deshaun Watson—though half a dozen other teams probably would have as well.
This offseason, however, they found that they would have to move on from one such risk, second-year defensive lineman Perrion Winfrey, whom they released earlier this month following his second off-field altercation.
Though he claims never to have brandished it, he was accused of threatening women with whom he was acquainted with a gun in a hotel lobby after one had insulted him. Earlier in the offseason, he reportedly caused bodily harm to a woman he had been involved with. The Browns released him, but his teammates haven’t forgotten about him.
“It’s disappointing for all of us because we love Perrion”, Myles Garrett told reporters last week. “We always wanted to see the very best happen for him and try to lead him towards just a better path and just got to keep his head clear. I think now it’s more important than ever that we as a community…to reach out to him and try to take care of him and take him under our wing because he’s still here, he’s still one of us”.
He added that people have “dark pasts and a difficult history” and may be surrounded by bad influences, cautioning against their allowing him to possibly continue down that path by forgetting about him now that he is no longer on the team.
“If we look out for him and help him clean up his act and go down the path he can go and the things that he should do, he can really be an upstanding young man and I really hope the best for him still. I’ll try to be there for him if we can”.
Garrett has his own “dark past” of sorts, his conveniently more unambiguous given that millions of people saw what he did live. Pittsburgh Steelers fans certainly remember when he struck QB Mason Rudolph over the head with the helmet he’d just ripped off of him. Granted, there was more to that incident, but there’s a reason he got suspended indefinitely at the time.
Winfrey was a fourth-round draft pick out of Oklahoma in 2022. He played 342 snaps as a rookie last season, registering 22 tackles, including one for a loss, splitting one sack. He also recorded two passes defensed, and otherwise would have been in line for a bigger role this season were it not for his inability to keep his nose clean outside of the influence of the team environment.
