BL Live Blog: Bad punt costs 3 points

- we are going to really miss Reggie Hodges brilliant punting this year.
- two all pro plays by Joe Haden in the red zone.
- Browns O looked sluggish on their first possession.

BL Predicts: Week 1 vs Cincinnati

This first game of the new NFL season is very hard to predict. There are a lot of new variables all coming together so let's study them:

Negatives
* A new coach together with a new offense and defense. I am very happy with Pat Shurmur and the direction he is taking the team, but for the first game of the year, the fact that he's new is more negative than positive, especially when you consider the lockout and short time Shurmur has had to acclimate his team to completely new ways of playing. Due to the lockout, the Browns lost the entire off season and only had a handful of weeks to teach their team these new systems.
* The offensive line has lost Eric Steinbach to a season ending injury and will start rookie Jason Pinkston in his place. Watch Pinkston's play today early if you want an initial take as to how the game might go. Look for the Bengals to try to confuse and take advantage of Pinkston on obvious passing downs. If Pinkston can rise to the occasion, it should be a good afternoon for the Browns. Otherwise, McCoy might find himself on his back more than a few times.

Positives
* Colt McCoy appears to be ahead of schedule in understanding the West Coast offense.
* In game one, the Browns are at home. The home team wins nearly 60% of the time in the NFL.
* The Bengals will start a rookie quarterback against the Browns. Andy Dalton will likely make a few errors during the game that will assist the Browns.

BL Predicts
Browns 23
Bengals 17

For reference find the Browns depth chart for today's game:
OFFENSE

QB: Colt McCoy
2nd - Seneca Wallace
3rd - Thaddeus Lewis

RB: Peyton Hillis
2nd - Montario Hardesty
3rd - Armond Smith

FB: Owen Marecic

TE: Ben Watson
2nd - Evan Moore
3rd - Alex Smith
4th - Jordan Cameron

WR: Mohammed Massaquoi
2nd - Josh Cribbs
3rd - Jordan Norwood

WR: Brian Robiskie
2nd - Greg Little
3rd - Carlton Mitchell

LT: Joe Thomas

LG: Jason Pinkston
2nd - Artis Hicks

CT: Alex Mack
2nd - Steve Vallos

RG: Shawn Lauvao
2nd - John Greco

RT: Tony Pashos
2nd - Oniel Cousins


DEFENSE

LDE: Jayme Mitchell
2nd - Emannuel Stephens

LDT: Phil Taylor
2nd - Scott Paxson

RDT: Ahtyba Rubin
2nd - Brian Schaefering

RDE: Jabaal Sheard
2nd - Marcus Benard

WLB: Chris Gocong
2nd - Kaluka Maiava

MLB: D'Qwell Jackson
2nd - Titus Brown

SLB: Scott Fujita
2nd - Quinton Spears

LCB: Joe Haden
2nd - Buster Skrine

RCB: Sheldon Brown
2nd - Dimitri Patterson
3rd - James Dockery

FS: Mike Adams
2nd - Usama Young

SS: TJ Ward
2nd - Ray Ventrone
3rd - Eric Hagg


SPECIAL TEAMS

P: Richmond McGee

K: Phil Dawson

H: Richmond McGee

LS: Ryan Pontbriand

KR: Josh Cribbs
2nd - Buster Skrine
3rd - James Dockery
4th - Armond Smith

PR: Josh Cribbs
2nd - Jordan Norwood
3rd - James Dockery
4th - Armond Smith

PRACTICE SQUAD
RB Quinn Porter
FB Eddie Williams
WR Rod Windsor
OT Dom Alford
OL Jarrod Shaw
DL Brian Sanford
DE Auston English
LB Ben Jacobs

Yawn

The lockout has made this preseason harder to get excited about and much less interesting than normal. Not to mention the fact that there have been tons of injuries. Losing Eric Steinbach is a major blow to any hopes of having an above average season.

We will try to get excited once the regular season starts.

Terrelle Pryor's Freedom Train derails

Terrelle Pryor might have thought he was escaping the bondage of the NCAA, but he discovered this week that his Freedom Train has derailed, at least for five more weeks. The NFL has stood by it's farm system partner (or should we say plantation system), the NCAA, who suspended Pryor for having profited off the sale of his own personal property. Why does the NCAA treat its "players" like criminals when they profit? Because the NCAA does not appreciate when it's slaves take from the hand of their master. This is understood, what is harder to digest is how the NFL can take 5 games salary out of the pocket of Pryor for his so called infraction. There is no good reason other than perhaps the NFL wishes to perpetuate the plantation system which develops players gratis for it's big league partner.

The NCAA and it's universities make well over a billion dollars a year in profits on the back of their players, most of whom will never play in the pros. A common sense solution should exist to share this wealth with players, many of whom come from poor families and struggle to get by even if the university pays room and board.

The hypocricy of the NCAA and it's treatment of athletes has one answer, the establishment of professional football minor league system like that of pro baseball. NFL owners would never do that, considering that the NCAA already does this job for them. So for the 18 year old football player what is left to say? All I can think of is "I have a dream".....

Hats off to Roger Goodell

Over these years, The Brown Log has been consistent in our support of many actions taken by NFL commish Roger Goodell. He has been tough on bad behavior and he has been a strong and reasonable voice in managing operations. With regards to the now concluded labor troubles, I believed Goodell would find it nearly impossible to manage the private club of owners without damaging the league and it's players in some way. In the end, the issues were solved without affecting the regular season and believe me, balancing the owners and players needs was no simple task. Blame would have been absorbed 100% by Goodell has this unrest continued through and caused games to be canceled. Therefore the credit for a great solution and 10 upcoming years of labor peace must go to Goodell.

Thanks commish, you did a helluva job!

Eric Wright picks Detroit

Eric Wright has signed with Detroit. Wright is replaceable but he was, without doubt a solid if average NFL player. One of those players who should not start but often comes in handy as a role player and back up.
Browns: Cornerback Eric Wright picks fresh start in Detroit

Free agent signings

The Browns have signed the following free agents. Most of these players won't make the final roster but a future pro-bowl player may be in this list too. 

In any case, it's a good sign that the Browns got out of he gate quickly signing free agents. 

Here is the list so far:

LB Brian Smith of Notre Dame 

6'5" WR Chris Matthews of Kentucky.

QB Troy Weatherhead of division II Hillsdale College

Tennessee State LB Sidney Tarver

 Oregon State CB James Dockery

UTEP RB Donald Buckham

DT Kyle Anderson of Georgetown

OG Dominic Alford of Minnesota

Maryland Alex Wojciak  LB

Appalachian State DT Jabari Fletcher

Jarrod Shaw OG Tennessee

It's over!

Now that owners and players have done the right thing and ended the lock out, we can get back to having fun.

It's going to a crazy and critical few weeks as team general managers try to squeeze nearly 4 months of activity into a few short weeks. We will try to keep up with the action.

Tressel resigns

Professional football today lost one of it's great coaches with the resignation of Jim Tressel.

It's exhausting to me just to think about how Tressel's resignation will be reported on and interpreted. There will be the "realists" camp that says he "just got caught" and there will be the "moralists" that say he was just another dishonest coach and that the vast majority of coaches do play by the rules. The truth is somewhere in the middle but who cares about the truth?? There really is a much more important issue at stake here and that is the blatant inconsistency of using student athletes to generate billions in profits for universities.

Tressel is clearly guilty of something. My guess is that Tressel thought he had found a perfect "work around" NCAA rules and regulations by stretching but not breaking them. The problem for Coach Tressel is that he was either naive or stupid. One cannot set up a wholesale "work around" operation with numerous persons involved and not understand the inevitability of that system eventually morphing into something abusive. And thus, "tattoo gate" and "used car gate" have come to be Tressel's waterloo.

Some coaches in the NCAA do follow the rules without trying to bend them, but human nature is that when there are hundreds of millions to be made in profits for each university and each coach, it is unrealistic not to expect greed to take over.

There is only one solution. We must put an end to the NCAA "for profit" system. Above all else, the disporportionate undercompensation of players is patently unfair. These athletes have limited years in which their body can endure the punishment of professional football and the current system robs them of four of their best years. A professional system that more closely mirrors professional baseball's minor league system or even better Europe's professional soccer system would eliminate the money from college football and create new professional sports teams and hundreds of paying jobs for football players, who could always get an education once their careers are finished. What would be left for universities are players not good enough to play professionally, in other words, student athletes.

RIP: Ron Springs

Ohio State great Ron Springs recently passed away . He was co-captain of the Buckeyes in 1978.

Over the years, it's easy to note how many former NFL players die young. Springs was 54, there are many others. Reggie White was 43, Corey Stringer was 27, Mike Webster was 50, the list goes on and on. NFL players make sacrifices and endure damage to their body and as a consequence many die young.

Springs is one more bit of evidence that a football career creates serious risks for a player.

in the current labor dispute, a central point is NFL owners want to put a rookie salary cap in place for the first 1-3 years of a players career. The average career length of an NFL player is 3 years! The vast majority of players DO NOT play more than 3 years.

NFL owners are greedy and without conscience. It is a terrible wrong that the NFL wants to impose a socialist salary cap on players income instead of allowing the free market to guide salaries. Especially when you consider that the NFL are asking these same players to take physical risks that may indeed significantly reduce the years a player actually lives.

Browns #1 Draft Pick Phil Taylor: He's a Bomber!

After giving it a couple of days to digest the 2011 NFL draft, I can reach but one conclusion regarding the Browns. Well played! They acummulated picks for this draft, stockpiled picks for next year's draft (including 2 number ones) and filled several needs. But the real kicker is the Browns first pick. Not only will he be able to immediatley come in and help stop the run (a badly needed assest for the Browns) he was the original drummer for Motorhead! If Philthy Animal beats his man half as well as he beat the skins behind Lemmy, then the Brownies are set to rule the AFC North with an Iron Fist. Taylor is a real Hellraiser. One word for Browns fans: Oragasmatron! Way to go Brownies!

Blake Griffin hypes Brown's draft pick Jordan Cameron

Here is a video of Jordan Cameron dunking a basketball.
Now if only the NFL would add a rim in the endzone

Draft comments

The Brown Log is staying locked out too in solidarity with NFL players, but since the owners opened their doors for a few short days after losing a court ruling a few days ago, we will unlock a short comment on the draft.

Most would agree the Browns had a very good draft. The absolutely one sided trade with the Falcons should go down in history as one of the most lopsided draft day trades in NFL history. 5 good players for one, another coup for Holmgren and team.

The only pick I would disagree with is using the 102nd pick to select USC back up tight end Jordan Cameron. I guess his athletic ability was too hard to resist but this guy could not even start for USC, how the hell is he supposed to play in the NFL?????????? Yes he can dunk a basketball but there aren't any rims in the end zone folks. As the Brown log has said a million times, football is a game, not a track meet.

Here is a short write up on Jordan Cameron

Moving on to the lock out, it's now back on after a court ruled that pending their review of the original decision the owners could in fact lock out the players. This week will be huge, if the courts rule in the players favor on Monday May 2, we will likely have a season in 2011. If the courts rule in the owners favor, it's very hard to imagine the 2011 season taking place in full.

The bitter irony is that conservative judges favor the owners and liberal judges are siding with the players. This in spite of the fact that the owners seek socialist solutions and the players seek only to let the free market rule.

Free market principals are the foundation of the laws that guide a judge's decisions yet conservative judges still side with owners, it's pure politics.