PATIENCE.
It's the one word that football fans across the country dread to hear, a concept that represents past failures, current hardships, and a future that has no guarantees.
A great philosopher (or perhaps a fortune cookie) once proclaimed patience to be a virtue. If that is in fact the case, then the good fans of Cleveland should applaud themselves for their moral excellence. In eight short (ok, very long) years, the Browns have been a perennial expansion team, following failed regime with failed regime, and landing smack-dab right back in the top-five of yet another draft. Nevermind the time that passed between the team leaving for Baltimore and the time when it was replaced with........something other than.
It's a good thing the impending free agent period and upcoming draft carry such excitement, because outside of this window, the city of Cleveland has had very little to be excited about. In fact, besides a five second window some four-plus years ago when a pass left the hands of Kelly Holcomb and bounced off the hands of Dennis Northcutt, the Browns have hardly been worth getting excited about at all.
So why should the city believe that their patience will finally be rewarded? The short answer is: They shouldn't, at least not yet.
Phil Savage was brought in with the reputation of being an elite scout, a man who knew good risks from bad when it came to the crapshoot that is the Annual Player Selection Meeting, commonly referred to as the NFL draft. To that end, he's been hit and miss with his first two attempts, but in all fairness, it's too soon to judge. He's acknowledged one of the teams biggest weaknesses by bringing in several new starters along the offensive line. Some were short-term fixes designed to plug the holes in the dam, while one was supposed to be the anchor for the next six-to-eight years. We know how that turned out. He inherited a team filled with has-been's and never-wasses. He was very clear when stating that this was going to be a long-term process, not one filled with short-term fixes leading to promises of a Lombardi Trophy. Some players looked like long-term solutions, others like failed experiments. For every Wimbley there's a Thompson, for every Bodden a McCutcheon. Even when things appear to be going right for a guy like Winslow, his carriage turns into a pumpkin and he ends up with Microfracture surgery. Savage's job certainly isn't an easy one. So now he gets another crack at a great player, his reward for finishing dead-last in the AFC North once again. This we know for sure: The pick needs to be more like Wimbley and less like Edwards, who, while talented, has proven to be a head-case and the posterchild for what's wrong with today's NFL. So what does Savage have to work with in the upcoming months?
We know that the Browns are the proud parents of around $27 million dollars in cap space, a fat baby heavier than all but about five others. That's the good news. The bad news is that there's very few prized players to be acquired and a ton of holes to fill, so the big number suddenly becomes much smaller. Ying and Yang be an evil concept. It feels somewhat like patience, doesn't it?
We know the Browns will be picking no worse than fourth and thirty-fifth in the draft. That's again good news (assuming one managed to banish the nightmare that was the 2006 season from his or her memory). The bad news is that there's a chance we could be facing a situation where we're making a decision on taking a wide receiver or a quarterback, neither position fixing the weakest parts of the roster. Ce la vie. If Savage manages to do what all other GM's in the league have done over the past decade, which is tamper like Hell at the combine, he should manage to lure at least a couple marquee names to Cleveland. If he's late to the party, he could be stuck holding a bag filled with money but nobody worth spending it on. All dressed up but nowhere to go? It's safe to say he won't allow that to happen, as LeCharles Bentley can attest. Still, there are more holes on this team than Savage can address in one offseason (where have we heard that before?). McKinley went hot and cold throughout the year and Roye's age showed. Washington put in a good body of work, but he's not too far from waking up in the morning and asking himself which Bingo hall he's going to attend that evening. Options for 3-4 trench players are limited. Fortunately, there are several solid if unspectacular names available at guard, where the team needs two new starters. 'Druzzi got by on guts last year, but he's been getting by on that reputation far too long now. Coleman regressed badly and should have Mayflower on speed-dial. Sowells? A project who's been hit with the dreaded "swingman" tag, which usually means he's not good enough to start. Shaffer was always a candidate to be moved and clearly doesn't look like a solid NFL left tackle. His feet and balance simply aren't good enough. With Tucker running on fumes and struggling with demon's that we can only guess at, the team may get lucky and have Joe Thomas fall to them. Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but it never hurts to dream. Then there's the sad case of Gary Baxter who's a longshot to get back to the league. Signing Nate Clements would shore up the corner position while simulataneously replacing the soon-to-be departed Dennis Northcutt as the punt returner. His pricetag will be steep, but when one considers the costs involved in paying two seperate players high-end money to fill both duties, the money becomes far more palatable.
So with all that in mind, what do we really know? The odds are good that the Browns will be a better team this upcoming season than they were during the previous one, though the odds are poor that they'll be markedly improved. So will that be enough to keep the fanbase patient?
That's the real question.
What's the magic marker here? Four wins in the first eight games? Two in the first four? How about four of the first ten? Are we looking for improvement from key players, or simply more wins? One school of thought says it's now time to win games, while the other says this was a true five-year plan, and that developement from key players like Winslow, Edwards, and Frye is what we should look for. In all honesty, it should be a little of both, but even the loudest calls for patience become subdued during a three-game losing streak.
The bottom line to this equation is that a .500 record is the attainable goal, but it shouldn't be the line in the sand that determines whether or not an entire season was a success or a failure. It would be wise for the fans of the Cleveland Browns to try to exercise a little more of that word which no fan wants to hear.
-Ribbit