Cleveland's front office was on board with a trade for quarterback AJ McCarron and did not sabotage the deal with the Cincinnati Bengals, said Sashi Brown, the Browns' executive vice president of football operations.
The teams simply started too late and ran out of time before the NFL trade deadline at 3 p.m. CDT Tuesday, Brown said.
"We were all disappointed that it didn't happen," Brown said during a Monday press conference.
The public narrative that emerged after the deal fell apart has been that the Bengals got the necessary paperwork to NFL headquarters with five minutes to spare, but the Browns emailed their paperwork to the Bengals without sending it to the league office, dooming the deal when the deadline was missed.