I'm scratching my head a bit about what the great minds at Cleveland Browns headquarters in Berea are cooking on these days. Having just waived their best pass rusher, best cover corner, and leading tackler from last season's already disappointing defense, and having admitted their salary cap problems, one can only wonder if we are moving forward or backward defensively.
Now I trust Butch Davis to be the guy to eventually get us where we want to be, and I hear the company line on biting the bullet now so we won't continue to have these cap problems down the line, but in the meantime we're going to be awfully young on D, unless there are significant free agent signings (not a ripple to this point) coming up. That's not how playoff contenders are typically constructed.
I am not as concerned as many people are about the O-line. In Verba and Tucker we have two adequate tackles, and while we need to fill the funnel with young talent for the future, (yes, draft some OL's) we saw how fans (and writers) stopped complaining about the dreadful O-line when William Green started averaging 100 yds/game in the second half of the season.
Posted by dan at March 7, 2003 11:45 AM