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The end of the 2003 Browns season is a mercy killing.
The Browns play the Bengals today in Cincinnati with nothing but draft-pick
status on the line. The Bengals are playing for a playoff spot.
In a lengthy interview last week that included Beacon Journal columnist Terry Pluto, Browns coach Butch Davis discussed what happened in 2003 and what he expects to happen in 2004.
In explaining the headache of 2003, Davis flashed back to an answer he gave
to a question about one month ago, when he said the Browns were ahead of schedule
in his long-term plan.
"It was a horrible answer because when you're losing, you're never ahead
of schedule," he said. "But sometimes when I answer a question, I
answer as the head coach and sometimes I'm thinking in terms of the whole organization.
When I answered that question, the first thing that popped into my mind was
we were horrible in 2001.
"In 2003, if all these guys aren't hurt, there's a whole heck of a lot
less holes today than there were three years ago. Not for this season are we
ahead of schedule, and maybe this season will set us back some, but I know that
we're closer than we were last year and in 2001 to putting together a nucleus."
The off-season will be about finding an offensive line, about hoping running
back William Green returns healthy in mind and spirit, and deciding on the quarterback.
It will not be about hiring a general manager or personnel man to work with
Davis, but Davis said it will be a continuation of a slow and steady building
job that he said needed to be done when he took over the Browns.
"The plan was -- and this is what Al (Lerner) liked when I interviewed
-- what we did in Dallas and what we did in Miami... not take the short-cut,
one-hit wonder approach," Davis said. "Don't go out and get a bunch
of free agents and make it a Band-Aid approach that makes it look like you're
going to really be good, and maybe you go 10-6 but then you go to pieces down
the road."
Davis said he took the Browns' job in large part because of the "sanity
and business sense and patience of (owner Al Lerner)."
"It wasn't that after two years if you don't show progress you are out
of there," Davis said.
And Davis said that knowing full well that he had replaced a coach fired after
two years with an expansion team.
"In retrospect I just don't think they (Lerner and team president Carmen
Policy) were convinced that (Chris Palmer) was the right guy," Davis said.
The good news, Davis said, is that 49 players are under contract for 2003. The
bad news is these are the same 49 players that produced a 4-11 record this season.
The good news is many of the 49 are young and could improve. The bad news is
that several core veterans will be free agents (including linebacker Brant Boyer,
punter Chris Gardocki and wide receiver Dennis Northcutt), and other core players
are due hefty roster bonuses (Daylon McCutcheon: $1.3 million; Orpheus Roye:
$1.25 million).
Too, the team must make serious financial decisions on well-paid players; Tim
Couch ($7.6 million), Courtney Brown ($6 million), Gerard Warren ($5.8 million)
and Ross Verba ($4.6 million) all have the kind of paychecks that led to the
release of several veterans from the playoff team of 2002.
Davis admitted that those moves -- involving Corey Fuller, Dave Wohlabaugh,
Jamir Miller, Dwayne Rudd, Earl Holmes and Darren Hambrick -- affected locker-room
chemistry and left the players who remained looking over their shoulders and
wondering, "Will I be next?"
"Would we have won any more games if we had kept all those guys? Probably
not," Davis said. "(But) we lost a little bit of that veteran stability
that when things start to get a little rocky, guys can calm them down.
"This football team is the youngest football team that maybe has ever suited
up in football. Which is bad for '03, but is good for '04, '05 and '06."
Davis vowed that the moves were purely salary-cap related and had nothing to
do with wanting to rid the team of Palmer's players so he could bring in his
own.
"If I would have wanted to purge everybody, you do that in Year 1,"
he said.
However, Davis glossed over the question when it was mentioned to him that most
of the excess salary cap costs were tied up in Miller's $14 million roster bonus
and $3.975 million salary.
He did say, though, that some players he inherited felt "entitled"
to a starting job merely because they had been starting for an expansion team
in 1999 and 2000.
Without specifying who, Davis said had some of the players been drafted by an
established team, "They would have earned their way on the field instead
of, `We drafted you, we signed you, you're the starter.' "
That still appears to be the case with some Browns starters, though. Davis draftees
Quincy Morgan and Gerard Warren were immediately given starting jobs. Linebackers
Ben Taylor, Andra Davis and Kevin Bentley became starters in light of the February
salary-cap purge. And Anthony Henry was promoted to starter after Fuller was
cut even though he had an off season in 2002 (compared with a good one in 2001).
Davis gave no indication he's willing to accept a general manager this off-season.
He said when he was hired he did not demand to be a coach-GM, but said he wanted
"significant input" on all decisions related to football.
He said Pete Garcia, his right-hand man, will tell him he's wrong, as will pro
personnel director Jeremy Green.
"I think that it's a strength of mine to be able to watch film and evaluate,"
Davis said.
He pointed out that 28 of the 50 players he inherited in 2000 are out of football,
and 13 of the 24 players drafted in 1999 and '00 are out of football.
Some of the players left are key contributors -- Couch, McCutcheon, Brown, Northcutt,
Orpheus Roye, Earl Little -- but Davis obviously believes in his draft picks
since he has yet to cut any of them (aside from Jeremiah Pharms, who had legal
trouble).
"Obviously these guys are going to start because we picked them and we
needed them and we plugged them in," he said. "But having said that,
some of these guys have played pretty good. And there were so many holes when
you started picking, where do you start? You couldn't name a position group
on this team when I got here and say, `They didn't need any help.'
"Each succeeding draft you started to feel better."
The off-season focus will be on the offensive line, which Davis said "has
been a curse for this organization for five years."
"If you can't win the war at the line of scrimmage, you haven't got a chance
in this league," Davis said.
In 1999, Dwight Clark tried to build a line with free agents. He signed Orlando
Brown and Lomas Brown to play tackle, Wohlabaugh to play center and took guard
Jim Pyne in the expansion draft.
But he did not draft a lineman until he took Brad Bedell in 2000 -- after 423
other players had been picked.
Davis said a good lineman has to be drafted in the top four rounds. In three
years, he has taken two that high -- centers Jeff Faine (Round 1) and Melvin
Fowler (Round 3).
"When we got time to pick some of the guys, the value of the pick was better
than who was there," he said.
As a supplement, he's tried to pick up players like Chad Beasley (a converted
defensive lineman), Paul Zukauskas (seventh round in 2001), Joaquin Gonzalez
(seventh round in 2002) and Enoch DeMar and Craig Osika (undrafted free agents).
He hopes to find some diamonds in the rough there.
And he promised one thing about this off-season: "We've got to get a left
tackle."
He also said the Browns need impact players.
"We don't have a guy who takes the game over," he said. "We don't
have a shutdown corner, a guy who locks up the other guy. We don't have a werewolf
pass rusher, a Michael Strahan that gets 17 sacks whether it's a good year or
a bad year.
"We need impact players. We need some guys who make the difference."
It was pointed out to Davis that he has had three drafts in Cleveland to find
impact players. He said Warren is playing better than people think, and Green
was headed toward being an impact player before off-field troubles got him suspended
indefinitely by the league.
The bottom line: Davis believes the 2002 team topped out, and this season's
team could have had a similar 8-8 or 9-7 season until injuries wiped out the
depth.
In 2003, heading to 2004, Davis said there are things that need to be fixed.
"But there are less holes today than there were three years ago,"
he said.