The Browns will be facing a few of their former teammates next season. They face Kansas City in Cleveland, a team that has Romeo Crennel, Brian Daboll, and Hillis. They face Denver on the road, a team that has safety Mike Adams. They face Dallas on the road, a team that has fullback Lawrence Vickers. The Browns will also get to see two quarterbacks they would have killed to have: Andrew Luck on the road with the Colts, and Robert Griffin III at home with the Redskins. If Peyton Manning signs with Denver, they could also see him.
7 years, $84 million
5 years, $42.5 million
3 years, $27 million
3 years, $16.8 million
3 years, $16 millionWould you say that a team was a "big spender" if they handed out those type of deals? If you hadn't guessed already, those are deals that the Browns' front office made within the past seven months. They correspond to LTJoe Thomas, LB D'Qwell Jackson, DT Ahtyba Rubin, LB Chris Gocong, and CB Dimitri Patterson, respectively. The three players with the largest contracts in that list were "home-grown" by the Browns.
The Seattle Seahawks have agreed to terms on a contract with former Packers quarterback Matt Flynn, the team announced Sunday.
The contract is for three years and $26 million with $10 million guaranteed, a league source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
Flynn agreed to a deal with Seattle after visiting both the Seahawks and the Miami Dolphins over the past week.
The 26-year-old backup to NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers started in one game last season and set Packers records with 480 yards passing and six touchdowns in a Week 17 victory over the Lions.
Rodgers sat out the game, which was meaningless to Green Bay since it already had wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
A seventh-round pick out of LSU in 2008, Flynn already had the attention of general managers around the league after he nearly beat New England last season while Rodgers was recovering from a concussion.
Play like malarkey to draft Matt BarkleyHaha. Not bad.....
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Randy Lerner's Browns need not take the same approach to free agency as the Browns of Al Lerner, who tried to make Berea a destination.
They just can't come out of free agency having lost more (Peyton Hillis, Eric Steinbach, Mike Adams) than they gained without inviting skepticism from a fan base that just heard team president Mike Holmgren say even an improvement to 6-10 won't cut it.
Back in the Shangri-la days -- between the selection of the Lerner-Carmen Policy ownership and that 43-0 reality check against Pittsburgh -- Al Lerner wanted to make the Browns "the place of choice for the best player." Those Browns had a new practice facility. Players could hand an intern a grocery list in the morning and find the food in their refrigerators at home later the same day.
They ate eight kinds of fresh fruit and hand-rolled granola. They had a 11,000-square-foot locker room and day care with three nannies. Lerner tore up the new playing surface after only a month and put another one because players complained the original one was a little slick. They had a 800 number on a key chain to call in case they needed help. Security people manned it 24 hours a day.
Their new security chief was Lew Merletti, the former head of the Secret Service. According to a Sports Illustrated story by Peter King, Merletti told President Clinton of his job offer and heard No. 42 say, "You mean, Carmen Policy, Al Lerner, those Cleveland Browns? Oh, you've got to do that."
Those Browns had an entire team to build from scratch. Their non-free agency options were the regular draft beefed up by sandwich picks, and the dregs of the expansion draft. Not long after they made offensive lineman Jim Pyne the first pick, Pyne looked around and said, "I've come to NFL heaven."
These Browns are in a much different place and circumstance. The only similarities, really, is a respected and bejeweled team president (Policy, Holmgren), a first-time head coach (Chris Palmer, Pat Shurmur) and the weather.
Randy Lerner carried on some of the same player-friendly amenities, but the Browns are no longer ahead of their time in that department. Years of losing have accumulated like winter snow (just not this year; the snow, I mean), leading free agent wide receiver Mario Manningham to say he had no interest in signing here. And he's from down the road in Warren.
Right now, the lack of free agent action seems like a mutual disinterest. The Browns say they don't believe it's a good use of resources. In the meantime, why would offensive players come here a season after the Browns scored one more point than the 1999 expansion team, haven't upgraded at quarterback or offensive line and are worse at running back?
The PD took a hard look at free agency on Sunday and determined it's certainly not the recipe to winning big and for a long period of time. I don't doubt that.
But Bill Belichick has certainly made use of it, most recently signing two wide receivers to an offense-rich team. The Pats signed former St. Ignatius star Anthony Gonzalez, who played in Indianapolis. They signed wide receiver Brandon Lloyd, who had a great year under New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels when McDaniels was Denver's head coach.
In San Francisco, the 49ers just signed Randy Moss and Manningham a year after signing Braylon Edwards. OK, so that's not convincing proof that free agency is the answer. And they're trying to entice Peyton Manning to sign up. But everything done there since the hiring of Jim Harbaugh as head coach speaks to an aggressiveness that would -- if practiced here -- bring Browns' fans pouring into the streets in celebration.
The current debate on why free agency can't play more of a role in this rebuild -- whether it's simply not the philosophy of a smart and patient front office or it's disinterest on the part of coveted free agents, or both -- ends only when the Browns win.
"Going from 4-12 to 6-10 isn't good enough," Holmgren told season ticket holders. "And that's been conveyed. I believe we are going to be better than that -- in fact, we're going to be a lot better than that."
So winning should happen soon, according to Holmgren. Because the Browns are doing it through the draft, winning should become a habit.
A weary fan base would settle for one out of two.
LaMichael James anybody? I would like for the Browns to get an OT and a Guard in the 1st round, personally. You can't win in the NFL unless you win in the trenches, IMO - even with it being a passing game now. No use if you can't block. But I would love to get James in the 2nd or 3rd round
Play like malarkey to draft Matt Barkley
Play like shat, then go draft Matt.The infamous "shat for Matt" campaign.....yes...
My hunch is Peyton Manning signs in Tennessee. Then of course, Matt Hasselbeck will be available....WCO QB through and through...a perfect "bridge" QB to show McCoy (or the future QBI believe Matt Hasselback had a rejuvenation in Tennessee last year, but I think he is on the downside of his career. I am not saying he is going to go head-first down a mudslide like Jake Delhomme. After that mess, however, I would be extremely hesitant. I wanted Matt when he came out in the draft from Boston College. But some things you just can't revisit. They had their chance then years ago.) the ropes....Shurmur got a first hand look at him last year when he shredded the Browns D....And he wouldn't come with the same price tag as say Matt Flynn.....Obviously Holmgren is very familiar, long history together....perfect fit for what we need.
...that being said, I doubt the Browns would be interested. Makes too much sense for this franchise....
And I would have only extended Rubin and Jackson. If you wer going to give up two positions to free agency I would have prefered they let Gocong and Patterson walk. I have no idea what their hang-up is with these guys. Patterson can ge good to a degree, but would he really be worth that kind of money? You could have almost given that exact same contract to Peyton Hillis I have no doubt. And then you wonder why he had no serious intention of negotiating. Patterson didn't even play in Cleveland more than a little over a month. I guarantee you if it wasn't for the connection to Shurmur we wouldn't even be having this discussion. It's like Mangini all over again. What are these guys doing??7 years, $84 million
5 years, $42.5 million
3 years, $27 million
3 years, $16.8 million
3 years, $16 millionWould you say that a team was a "big spender" if they handed out those type of deals? If you hadn't guessed already, those are deals that the Browns' front office made within the past seven months. They correspond to LTJoe Thomas, LB D'Qwell Jackson, DT Ahtyba Rubin, LB Chris Gocong, and CB Dimitri Patterson, respectively. The three players with the largest contracts in that list were "home-grown" by the Browns.
