Money to burn
With millions to spend, Browns dive into free agency pool
Posted: Monday February 15, 1999 09:39 AM
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Chompin' at the bit: Clevelanders have waited three long years for the return of their beloved Browns. AP |
By John Donovan, CNN/SI
The fans ripped the seats out of old Cleveland Municipal Stadium on a
chilly winter day in 1995 and carted them away row by row, much the way the
reviled Art Modell stole the Browns from the city after that fateful season
seemingly so long ago.
Now, after so much football without the Browns and so much cursing and
three full winters of feeling abandoned and unwanted, Clevelanders are
starting to see their team take shape once again.
Friday, the new Cleveland Browns get back into the NFL in a big way when
they dive into the frenzied waters of free agency. Those players chosen
over the next days and weeks will be the first proven veterans that Carmen
Policy and Dwight Clark believe can help bring a Super Bowl title to
Northeast Ohio.
And, with all the money the Browns have to burn -- nearly $40 million --
there will be some legitimate stars playing again in Cleveland.
"We should have a tidy sum available to spend," Policy, the former San Francisco 49ers' boss
and now the Browns' president and chief executive officer, said the other
day. "Neither cap space nor cash should be an impediment to us going
forward."
What can Clevelanders, and the rest of the NFL, expect in these first days
of free agency?
A lot of talk, for sure. Perhaps a flurry of quick signings. And,
certainly, some big numbers getting thrown around.
"Its going to be interesting to see what kind of a wild card they are,"
said agent Jordan Woy, who represents several NFL players. "I think they
are like everyone else. They'll have a handful or two of players they will
single out, and they will go after 5-10 players.
"[But] if there are three or four teams bidding for [a player's] services
and Cleveland happens to be one, they certainly might be in a little better
situation."
In fact, because of the huge money edge the Browns have -- all the other
30 teams in the league are handcuffed by existing contracts -- they are in
a much better situation than anyone in the free-agent market. And every
team out there competing with the Browns knows it.
Perhaps no one knows it better than the Browns' cross-state rivals, the Cincinnati Bengals.
"We knew that Cleveland was going to drive the free-agent market, but we
didn't know it was going to be as much as this," Bengals president Mike
Brown told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "We thought they would get about
12 [veteran free agents]. Now they can get as many as two dozen. They could
easily get 12 starting players."
Many analysts figure the Browns will go after the skill position players
in free agency, primarily because they stocked up on offensive linemen and
defensive backs in Tuesday's expansion draft. And there are plenty of unrestricted
and restricted
free agents available. All the Browns have to do is convince them that
Cleveland is where they want to be.
Money, of course, is not the only attraction Cleveland boasts. There is
the duo of Policy and Clark, the team's director of football operations who
came with Policy from the 49ers. There is the new, big revenue-generating
stadium rising on the shores of Lake Erie, and the nearly new training
facility in Berea.
And, of course, there is the tradition.
This is a franchise that dates to 1946, a team first coached by Hall of
Famer Paul Brown and a place where Hall of Fame quarterback Otto Graham and
running back Jim Brown played.
The fans are just as legendary. Cleveland is a city where a goodly number
of fans sit in the snow and don dog masks, a place where spending a
freezing winter afternoon in the cavernous old stadium, sitting on the
bleachers with the wind whipping off the lake, was a good time.
It is that history that brought Policy, a Youngstown native, back to Ohio.
It is that history that prompted Jim Pyne, the team's No. 1
selection in Tuesday's expansion draft, to ask his former team, the Detroit Lions, to leave him
unprotected.
"But let's be honest," Woy said. "Everyone can say what they want. But
free agency still comes down --a big, big portion of it -- to the money."
And the Browns have it like no one else.
"I don't think there's any doubt ... they'll be very aggressive in this
market," said agent Pat Dye Jr. "But spending big money and signing
talented players has not always translated to productivity on the field."
That, of course, is the big question once the Browns sign all their
high-priced free agents and draft their rookies and finally field a team
this fall:
How good will they be?
The two most recent expansion franchises, the Jacksonville Jaguars and
the Carolina
Panthers, both made it to the playoffs in their second year of
existence. The Browns certainly can shoot for that.
Ever since Modell followed the money trail straight to his sweet stadium
deal in Baltimore, after the '95 season, fans in Cleveland have been
waiting for their team to return. What Policy and Clark will build in the
weeks to come will not resemble the Browns of old.
But make no mistake about the city by the lake -- or the new football team
that bears the old one's name.
The Browns are back.
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