jerious norwood - speed back who atlanta's coaching staff criminally under-uses. though similar to davis and harrison, lenwhale completely sucks, and i'd rather have three fast RBs who can take it the distance than two fast RBs and one who never gets more than four yards a carry because he is both slow and sucks. norwood also doesn't have a lot of miles on him, so he should be good to go for at least four more years.

lee evans - possibly, but probably not - he's a perennial disappointment, but that could be because his QB blows.

bo scaife - receiving TE who the titans franchised this year. will likely go to FA next year b/c the titans have rookie jared cook to take over his role.

tony scheffler - overall solid TE. blocks acceptably, catches well. the broncos would be foolish to let him go.

jarvis green - patriots d-lineman. solid fit in the 3-4. will likely stay in new england with the trade of richard seymour, but i wouldn't be surprised to see us go after him if they let him get away.

elvis dumervil - again, denver would be completely idiotic to not lock up dumervil. he's a great pass rusher and is flourishing in their new 3-4. if they let him out, expect him to command top dollar.

matt roth - serviceable OLB from miami. currently rotating with jason taylor, joey porter and cameron wake. a solid, dependable player but not spectacular. the kind of signing we'll likely make this offseason.

dj williams - great MLB. fast, good hands, a sideline-to-sideline guy, but in the same mold as DQJ, whom we also have to re-sign this offseason.

atari bigby - an enforcer at SS, but don't look for the browns to actually go after him. he's too similar to elam and has been injured this year. either way, a huge hitter who i would go after if i were GM.

we also need help on the o-line, but i don't particularly know the guys who are available in FA this year, though chris snee is an excellent OG, but look for the giants to lock him up before he hits the market. he's coughlin's son-in-law (he knocked up his daughter and then married her) and is an integral part of what's always talked about as the best OL in football.

suh's a sure-fire top five pick. he can play DE in a 3-4 or DT in a 4-3. he's ideally suited for a 3-4 team, imo, because he can play DE on run downs, reduce inside to DT when the team lines up with a four-man front, and has the short-area speed and awareness to drop into zone coverage if he's drafted by a zone-blitz team. he can do anything you'd need a d-lineman to.

here's a longer scouting report on him.

most mocks have him going in the 3-5 range to tampa or detroit, for what it's worth. those same mocks have us taking bradford, jimmy "i look like a douchebag ostrich" clausen, or eric berry, the guy we should be taking.

@brownshirt said:

Hey JD, was that in the movie? Caught just the last couple of minutes of it. If so who was the comedian? Or is this your version?

Actually the Modell family were all aristocrats up in Waite Hill by Kirtland. Maybe bp 52 is david modell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aristocrats_(film)

this is just me. i'm a sick, classless troglodyte.

and even david is smarter than this no-talent ass clown.

to the xxxxing moron who started this thread:

you come into a place where you don't belong just to start shit? xxxx you. get the xxxx out. you're a mindless prick, xxxxing internet tough guy, and you live in baltimore, a city so shitty that the wire is set there. have fun with your toothless whores and drug trafficking.

because you're here to get attention, i'll give it to you. here's my estimation of your family:

your mom, wishing that she'd aborted you because you're an idiot mongol, sticks you with a junkie's leftover needle and gives you AIDS. then, in a fit of guilt, she tries to make it up to you by sucking your dick, therefore getting AIDS herself.

you dad find out what happened and goes on a bestiality tear through mexico. while getting xxxxed by a donkey, his rectum tears and he starts to hemorrhage. your mother, grief-stricken with the thought of having to again become a toothless baltimore whore, tries to shove his intestine back into his shattered colon. they rip, and she smears herself with a combination of your father's feces and his blood in her abysmal pain.

out of her mind with grief, your mom goes back to baltimore, digs up your grandmother's rotting corpse, takes it to mexico and mops up your father's blood and shit with it. she then hires larry the cable guy to cut off your grandmother's right arm and fist her with it, because being stuffed with giant objects is the only way her distended, gaping xxxx can feel anything.

she then asks larry to piss in her mouth and shit in her face, just because she wants to.

in one last attempt to finally end your worthless life before she, too, kills herself, your mom buries you next to a colony of fire ants, then get a horse to shit on your head. your mom then jacks off the horse, sucks as much of its cum as she can into her mouth, then spits it into your face before she licks larry the cable guy's asshole. she then kills herself by slitting her throat, sprays you with her blood, and, with her last breath, curses you for ever being born.

the aristocrats.

die a thousand deaths, you worthless piece of shit.

glad to hear it, man. what school do you go to?

this is a massive problem. even though pork chop isn't the greates pass blocker in the history of time, he's at least strong enough to handle a bull rush. with fraley in there, a guy who spent sixteen games last year gettig pushed seven yards into the backfield, and st clair, who can't stop a speed rusher to save his life, as the right side of the

line, we will be able to neither run the ball nor pass at all. it'll make for a miserable day.

the saddest part is that you're watching 2007 highlights when you should be out getting drunk and hitting on anything that moves. you're in college, man. take advantage of every situation you possibly can because it'll be over before you know it. this is definitely a situation that's far bigger than football.

@jason-j said:

I'd seriously contest that assessment of Davis. And Mays has great track speed. He doesn't play with great football speed. When he comes through the combine, keep an eye on his shuttle numbers. Don't get me wrong, he's plenty fast enough. He just doesn't have Berry's COD skills. But he's fast. So fast, in fact, that I think a lot of coaches will look at that frame and be dying to make him a linebacker.

And no, I'm not saying I recommend that. I'm just saying it's a possibility.

-jj

i was always of the mind that davis would have made an average safety at best because he lacks make-up speed and would have consistently been vulnerable to being beat deep. and thanks for the advice on mays: i'll be on the lookout for the times.

where do you think mays would have a greater impact? though it's just my take, he can play a LB-type role as an in-the-box safety on first and second down and then cover deep when needed. moreover, his size as an intimidating S is something that wouldn't translate into nearly as huge an advantage at LB. 6'3" guys are everywhere in a front seven, but WRs coming over the middle don't often have to contend with someone of mays' size waiting to knock their teeth through the backs of their heads then spit on them while they're in traction.

@ solon: the offseason speculation and quibbling was a bunch of uninteresting horseshit, and discussing a shitty team is often no fun. turns out that draft talk might be my favorite part about being a browns fan, at least right now, because the current incarnation of the team gives me very little to be hopeful about.

@jason-j said:

Mays reminds me of someone in the Thomas Davis/Darnell Bing mold. I think there will be an urge to make him a linebacker.

just a small quibble: thomas davis had to become a LB because he wasn't fast enough to be a true safety without getting burned all the time, and darnell bing's a man without a position who can't find the field on a guided tour of a stadium. mays has the top-end speed to have an actual career at S - in a thread last year before he decided to stay in school, alo and i settled on bob sanders as an appropriate comparison, though mays' size is a marked difference between the two and will possibly keep him healthier over the course of his career by distributing the impact of his hits over a larger frame.

don't get me wrong - berry is definitely a better overall prospect and, like everyone is saying, should have an outstanding career, but mays will be more than a decent player, too. i just think that the coach who even considers tampering with something that's worked out very well so far is courting disaster, though i'm kind of assuming that you're only saying that it's something a coach would consider and not necessarily your recommendation.

@deadwombat said:

Against the Lions missing 3 of their receivers... yes, we may have a D.

a d that still didn't manage a single sack. not encouraging.

you can find a great breakdown of how the 46 works here at dawgsbynature.com, a site that's definitely worth checking out if you don't already know them.

the long and short of it is that the 46 is essentially just a one-gap 3-4 with the strong safety in the box, but there's also a fairly detailed breakdown of some basic play possibilities that the browns could use.

it's a far better read and tutorial than any credentialed writer from the mainstream media has put out and definitely worth your time.

AdaM said:

Completely disagree. Shaq takes us to the finals next year. Then he is traded/retires. 20 million off the books on the biggest freeagent year ever. We get LeBron the superstar of his choice and presto, dynasty.

the 20 mil coming off the books in '10 is great and should help us land chris bosh, but shaq can't guard dwight howard. howard's too agile for the old man.

this trade doesn't make us better, happened too early and got rid of the cavs' most valuable asset, ben wallace's expiring deal, for someone who will be, at best, marginally effective this year.

i hate the trade. shaq's far over the hill, immobile and doesn't defend the pick and roll well. how, in any way, does he help us against the magic (or against any other team with agile big men, for that matter)?

atlanta's cutting salary; josh howard, while mercurial, would have been a far better player to pursue. he's young, blocks shots, can run the floor and is an unstoppable dunker. he could develop the strength to bang with howard or, barring that, is fast and agile enough to harass him like lamar odom did. on top of that, he's 23, so he's got his best years in front of him, and coming to a winning atmosphere like the cavs would only add to his development.

this trade assures us a playoff exit before we get to the finals...again.

the only problem with seeing the human INT machine early in the season is he'll actually be focused and motivated in week one. if we were getting him in weeks thirteen through seventeen, when the season's gone to shit, the vikes are eliminated from the playoffs and he's trying to play poorly enough to get pulled, it'd be a lot easier on the defense, but a motivated, hungry favre is a dangerous man.

we'd better hope the williams wall is suspended for the first four weeks of the season. otherwise, week one is looking more and more like a loss, especially considering the vikes' running game against our D.

Zombo said:

Now THIS gets me excited.

2,400 posts about how Derek Anderson sucks .... nothing.

1,475 posts about Donte Stallworth's punishment ...not a thing.

i agree completely. it's great to know that ryan really was hamstrung by al davis' corpse in oakland and that he'd prefer to run an aggressive, attacking defense as opposed to the garbage that he was forced to play.

it's also great to see we'll be using some 4-6 looks, though i hope we'll be using more 4-6 concepts and keeping a 3-man front.

though it's more related to the 'what will satisfy you as a fan this year' thread, i didn't post what will make me happy, but it's an attacking defense and 30+ sacks. i don't care how many points we give up, i don't care how many big plays we get gashed for, and i don't care where we're ranked.

all i want us to do is attack the offense, dictate what they can get instead of reacting to what they're doing, and make plays in the backfield.

regardless of the offense's performance, i'll be happy with 2009 if the defense plays well.

it was a leg injury, but there's no word on how severe it is yet. however, it did keep anderson out of afternoon practices.

ratliff played the role of backup in his absence.

d'qwell jackson is making $640,000 in the last year of his rookie deal and wants a new contract. This hasn't been much of a story because he's been at OTAs, but it's starting to get some play now. i'd expect to see him get a new deal before dawson, and possibly before cribbs, especially considering that mangini all but called DQ untradeable when he came in.

@shepwrite said:

I'm not counting out Paul Hubbard. He's got the stuff you can't teach -- size, speed, natural athleticism, leaping ability -- and he seems to be learning the stuff you can teach, like running routes and catching the ball.

i'd just argue that catching the ball, particularly in traffic or with a DB draped all over you, is something that's intrinsic, innate, inherent, and not a learned skill. there's a level of concentration that some guys have and some guys don't; it's what separates consistent receivers that every team wants, who always have success and who play the majority of their careers for a single team from guys who bounce around the league every two years as fourth or fifth receivers.

it's why we drafted robiskie. he doesn't have the most impressive physical tools, but he's got just enough, and he's also got great hands to compliment those tools, which will make him a dependable receiver.

@playgroundlegend said:

Hubbard has been mentioned a few times thus far, he caught 2 td passes I believe, and a long one from Quinn

i'd love it if hubbard would develop into a reliable receiver, but catching the ball is the most important skill a receiver can have, and hubbard's hands are nothing if not inconsistent.

it's not to say that he won't learn to catch, just that the odds are against him. track guys learning to play football don't often pan out all that well. you've got to be a football player or have a comparable skill set (antonio gates) instead of just being able to run fast and jump high.

the biggest thing in his favor is that he hasn't been playing football that long, so it's possible he has the innate ability to block out everything but the football and hold on to it, but it's far likelier that he's another in a string of guys who have the physical tools to get separation but don't have the hands or concentration to reel in the catch, like michael jackson/dyson, troy williamson, yamon figurs, bethel johnson and a litany of other busts.

bell's a fourth-round draft pick of the old regime. expecting him to contribute is like expecting hubbard to contribute. they're both essentially camp bodies at this point.