So THIS is what it feels like....

...to have hope for one's football team for the coming season.

Free agency started on Saturday, and already the Browns addressed some HUGE holes from a 6-win team:

LeCharles Bentley - Pro Bowl center
No more will we not be able to pick up 3rd and fucking 1's! This moves Jeff Faine either to guard, or to depth. I'm fine with either, as long as Bentley is playing somewhere in the middle of our line. What's more, he's a Cleveland native, and *gets* what it means to be a Browns fan. When he appeared at his press conference and whipped open his suit coat to show off his Browns 00 jersey (I hope he wins his league petition to wear that number!)... man... goosebumps. He wants to play here. Wow, what a concept!

Kevin Shaffer - Left Tackle
Not the best left tackle ever, but a two-year starter on a team that notoriously runs the ball very well. See above. Supposedly he has trouble with speed rushers (i.e., Dwight Freeney), but who doesn't? At 26, he has promising upside, a mean streak, and a notable work ethic. Browns senior vice president and general manager Phil Savage said he feels, at this point, Shaffer is an upgrade at left tackle over last year's starter, L.J. Shelton. He probably cost less, too.

Ted (Mount) Washington - Nose Tackle
This guy redefines "mammoth." He's listed at 6'5", 365 pounds, but I suspect he hasn't sniffed 365 in the last decade. He's easily 380-390. Weakness #1 on the Browns defense last year was at nose tackle. Our nose tackle consistently got driven off the ball at the snap. By the time anyone could make a play on a running back, he had already gained 6-7 yards. No more. Washington COMMANDS a double-team each play. Sitting him next to newly re-signed Orpheus Roye should free up our middle linebackers to actually play the run, instead of trying to shed the guards that blew past the nose tackle and blocked them. Washington is old (37), but he's a 4-time Pro Bowler, which is more than the entire FRANCHISE of the new Browns can say (seven seasons, exactly 1 Pro Bowler).

Joe Jurivicius - Wide Receiver
This guy is not a prototypical #1 receiver, but what he is is consistent and excited to play in Cleveland (his hometown, see Bentley, LeCharles above). He's a true professional, and has played in 3 Super Bowls in the last six seasons. Surely some of that veteran leadership will rub off on a guy like Braylon Edwards. When these two line up together with Northcutt in the slot, this team will have three dangerous receivers, all of them different types of receivers. Put Kellen Winslow in the mix, and look the fuck out.

Dave Zastudil - Punter
Our punter last year was ho-hum with some stretches of HORRIBLE. This kid is young, had a 43+ net punting average, and ALSO is a Cleveland native who loves the Browns and the weather up on Lake Erie. Since this team lost at least two (maybe three) games with its previous two punters that involved kicks of less than 20 yards, this can only help. For a team that needs to play field position to be successful, this can only help. For a team that needs to educate its players about the plight of Browns fans, bringing in as many guys who were die-hard Browns fans and have been dreaming of playing for the Browns can only help.


It's been rumored that they may go for Kalimba Edwards next. He's a smaller defensive end from Detroit. He would not be able to play every-down defensive end in the Browns 3-4 scheme, but that doesn't matter. The Browns would play him at outside linebacker. He's a pass-rushing specialist. The outside 'backer in a 3-4's main job is to rush the passer and to be a down lineman (defensive end) on third down passing situations. The Browns had a deplorable pass rush last season. As Pee Wee Herman used to say, "Connect the dots! Lala Lala La!"


So, let's review:
Cleveland in 2005: 6-10
Holes in Cleveland's team: run defense, pass rush, offensive line depth, receiving depth, field position
Aquisitions: nose tackle, two good offensive linemen, punter, wide receiver (and possibly a pass-rushing specialist line backer)

Is it unreasonable to think that this team could go 10-6 or 11-5? Who knows. Is it unreasonable to expect that they will have a chance to win every game they play this season? Absolutely not.

Color me: excited.

And the draft is still seven weeks away. This team is a good 3-4 DE and a draft of Bobby Carpenter away from being a defensive juggernaut. OK, maybe not. But, still, maybe so.


In other news, the Tribe is having a great Spring Training, which means that their farm system's depth is better than most other teams' farm system depth.

And, as my colleague Lars pointed out today, Time Warner will be picking up the Tribe's home games in HD. I think I might have just passed out.

The Large Elephant in the Room

Wow. I just got done reading an article that basically confirmed everything I basically already knew, but wow. This book is going to make this year's baseball season very interesting. Especially if the Giants win the NL West as many think they will.

Morally Reprehensible: A Sliding Scale

As some of you probably noted yesteday, my esteemed colleague Justin Neme deftly switched out my Built to Spill mp3 file that was streaming with a note about how distribution of copyrighted materials without permission is morally reprehensible.

While I don't disagree that there is some merit to this claim, I think we should keep this in perspective. My take is that, since only 10 (if I'm lucky) people actually read this blog, and since I'm not actually providing a link and encouraging people to download and steal music but instead am simply embedding a file into my code to allow someone to listen to a tune whilst reading my blog, I'm not exactly "distributing" copyrighted material. I think of myself more like a one-song-per-week radio station with a listening area of ten people on the web.

What I DO find morally reprehensible is how our Chimp in Chief can consistently lie to the Ameircan public, and moreso how a chunk of that same public continually buys into the shit that he says simply because of the fact that he's scared them silly or because of some religious belief he claims to practice.

With the possible exception of Harry Truman, I can't think of another president with more innocent blood on his hands than this one. And Truman gets an asterisk because of the whole WWII thing.

As Lars points out here, so many people seem to forget why we sent troops to the Middle East to begin with. For the president to gloat about how the most wanted man in our country's history being still at large helped his re-election bid makes me want to do a combination of cry, vomit, and punch a lot of people in the face.

Now, THAT'S morally reprehensible.