Zombo said:

We are officially blaming the Russians.

Zombo

--Just click on "report" and we will flag them as spammers

Thanks, Zombo. Wasn't sure where/how to do that. I've just reported the latest one.

Sorry if this isn't the right place to report this, but is anyone else having an issue recently with spam private messages here? I've had two this week, including some pornographic photos.

I'm not here very often, but I've shut off notification of private messages for the time being.

One of my lasting memories of that event (there were many) was the protest outside the owners' hotel. The WBAL sign was a mobile billboard towed by a pickup truck with one guy in it. I think it said "Baltimore and the Browns...A great team". A few of the Atlanta BB guys spotted it and headed that direction. Mayor White sprinted after them, blocked their path and said, "No, no, no. This isn't what we're about." They rejoined the rest of the group.

For the record, they did pay the guy towing the sign a friendly visit after the rally. I believe he had to call AAA after all of his tires inexplicably went flat. Wisely, he didn't put up a fight.

@kshutchins said:

Glad to oblige! A real blast from the past. Is Pat still around?

lolololol ... over the computer .... lolololol

You can tell Jim from me that one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life was at a talent show. Two guys "performed" to dueling banjos with penlights illuminating their noses in time with the music. I laughed until it hurt.

Woofie aka The Baroness

I haven't heard from, or about, Pat in many years. I got to meet her at the first game back in 1999, but lost touch with her after that. She was very nice, but quiet and rather shy. When I was doing the Atlanta BB thing, our members wondered how I got the information for our weekly newsletters. I always gave the credit to Pat.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Baroness! I'll have to send Jim a link, to remind him how much of a goofball he could be back then!

For the youngsters:

Prodigy: One of the "Big 3" computer services, along with AOL and Compuserve. They were the first to allow their users to send and receive e-mails to/from other services. There was a thriving Browns board there, the highlight of which was Pat Hadad re-typing the day's Browns news for we expatriates.

NVN was "National Videotext Network". A bunch of us were active there, as well as the old Prodigy and AOL boards. It's how many of us met all those years ago, when nobody actually met people they conversed with online. (Actually, we didn't call it "online", but "over the computer".) It was a great service until they abruptly closed up shop one day.

Hey Woofie, remember this one:

"I'd settle for semi-reliable rumor."

@kshutchins said:

Hey, Sam. Good to see you here.

Great to see you too, Woofie!

(Still settling for semi-reliable rumors, BTW...)

@furnier said:

In 19 parts! All the original commercials...the pre game, all the Howard, Dandy Don and Keith....and of course...your 1970 Cleveland Browns!

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I'm old enough to remember staying up late to watch that game....Ugh...

@riffer-x said:

Deyballs did really well toward the end of the year, I don't understand how people didn't see this. Wipe out the first ten games or so, he wasn't playing with a full deck, especially with old man Lewis clogging up the running game.

Yes, the running game was clearly better, and it was a key reason we won the last 4 games. However, our passing game is full of huge holes. Little things like QB, WR, TE and RT.

• While DA or BQ may never be superstars, they can't both be that bad.
• How many times did you see our QBs and WRs not make the same read on a play? There are issues with the offensive scheme, coaching staff, or both. (Or maybe we just have unusually stupid players who are unable to do what's asked of them.)
• Massaquoi and Stuckey are not physical enough to be viable #1 WRs.
• Evan Moore is an interesting TE, but the jury is still out on him.
• St. Clair was a liability.

You can't win in the NFL with a one-dimensional offense.

It certainly should feel different now. Time will tell whether "different" = "better", but there is cause for optimism.

For the first time in a very long time, we will have experience, credibility and talent in the front office.

Our coach, who seemed to have major control issues last season, will be able to do nothing but coach. I'd like to see him trade a player without approval from Heckert and Holmgren! I'm interested to see what Mangini does now that his sole focus is on the on-field product instead of having his hands in the minutia of the entire organization.

My bigegst concern is that we retained our offensive staff. Did Holmgren not watch us play much last season? Our offense was embarrassingfor at least 10 games. Yes, the ground game came on at the end of the year, and I'm excited about that. But you can't win in the NFL with a one-dimensional offense. Holmgren had better provide Daboll with a copy of "The West Coast Offense for Dummies", and test him on it before minicamp.

I had a message from Furnier the other day, inviting me over here. Some of you might remember me from the old Prodigy, AOL, NVN, CompuServe and Usenet forums, as well as BFWWN, Save our Browns, and the OBR.

So...Hi, everyone!