TAMPA, FLA.: The Browns traded linebacker Barkevious Mingo to the New England Patriots on Thursday afternoon in exchange for a fifth-round draft pick in 2017.
Mingo declined to comment on the move at the Browns’ hotel on the eve of the team facing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the third preseason game at 8 p.m. Friday at Raymond James Stadium. He was preparing to leave Tampa and join the Patriots in North Carolina, where they’ll play the Carolina Panthers in an exhibition game Friday night.
When Browns head of football operations Sashi Brown spoke about Mingo on Thursday morning, the executive essentially damned the player with faint praise by saying he tries really hard. The comment foreshadowed the Browns parting with Mingo, the sixth overall pick in the 2013 draft who seemed likely to be cut by the team next week.
The Browns moved Mingo, 25, from outside linebacker to inside linebacker this summer. It was as if the team’s new coaches were searching for a way to give him his best chance to earn a roster spot. But Mingo played in the fourth quarter in each of the first two preseason games, an indication the new regime wasn’t impressed with him.
“[He’s] working hard, and he’s showing up on [special] teams. We’d like to see him show up more in the defense,” Brown said. “Very positive attitude. Barkevious plays his tail off.
“If I could take his energy and effort and pour it into every player, we would have a great thing. He’s a guy who sets a tone in terms of the effort he lays out there every day, and we appreciate that. Both the staff and Barkevious have to find a way to find some productivity for him.”
Now the Patriots will be tasked with trying to maximize Mingo’s abilities. He has been a colossal disappointment thus far, but Patriots coach Bill Belichick is known for developing players and getting the most out of them.
Mingo has played 46 games with 16 starts, compiling 99 tackles, an interception, 16 passes defensed and a fumble recovery. Former Browns CEO Joe Banner and ex-General Manager Mike Lombardi drafted him as an edge rusher out of Louisiana State University, but he has tallied just seven career sacks — five as a rookie in 2013, two in 2014 and none in 2015.
The Browns declined to exercise the fifth-year option on Mingo’s rookie contract in May, another sign his days in Cleveland were numbered. They would have paid Mingo $11.925 million next season if they had picked up the option.
“It was their right [to decline the option],” Mingo said on Aug. 2. “But now it’s my job to put it on the field and let them see that they should have done it.”
Now Mingo will undoubtedly try to prove the Browns shouldn’t have traded him.
The Browns, meanwhile, are happy to add to their stockpile of draft picks. To net a fifth-round pick for a player who likely would have been cut has the feeling of a coup. Unless, of course, he becomes a force for the Patriots. NFL Network reported the Detroit Lions were competing with the Patriots to trade for Mingo.
In next year’s draft, the Browns also own the first-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles, the second-round selection of the Tennessee Titans and the seventh-round choice of the Indianapolis Colts. They have the second-round pick of the Eagles in 2018.
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Browns blog at www.ohio.com/browns. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NateUlrichABJ and on Facebook www.facebook.com/abj.sports.