http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1144912/1/index.htmIT'S A blustery mid-May day in downtown Cleveland, a day that has a football feel to it—which, for Cleveland, can be any of 365 days a year. This is Browns Town. And this afternoon at Public Square, there's the added attraction of Braylon Edwards, the star wide receiver, who is shooting a team promo in his number 17 home jersey ... until a well-dressed man, maybe 25, walks into camera range.
"Dude!" Edwards cries out. "We're filming!"
"Sorry, sorry," says the dude. "I just had to tell you, This is our year!"
Maybe. Cleveland shocked the NFL by winning 10 games in 2007, but as Bill Parcells tells every team he's ever coached or run, "You never pick up where you left off last year." Of the 14 teams that have gone to the Super Bowl between 2000 and '06, for instance, nine failed to even make the playoffs the next season.
But as the Browns enter season 10 of their return to the NFL, it's the first time fans have justifiable playoff expectations. This isn't to be confused with expansion giddiness or misplaced hope after what turned out to be bad drafts and poorly spent free-agent millions. This is hope founded on Cleveland's explosive offense, which scored 25 points a game last year, and young stars such as Edwards, who set the franchise record with 16 touchdown receptions, and general manager Phil Savage's two big February trades that plugged holes in a leaky defense.
The TV networks noticed, giving Cleveland five prime-time games in 2008. That's one more than the Super Bowl--champion Giants. "I've been waiting to play on Monday Night Football my whole life," says Edwards. "I've been waiting to look into the camera and say, 'Braylon Edwards, University of Michigan.' And we've got a Madden game—a Sunday-night game! I can't wait to TiVo the game, go home and hear John Madden say, 'Boom! Look what Braylon Edwards did!'"
Yes, Edwards and his teammates are on unfamiliar turf. Last year was just the second winning NFL season in Cleveland since 1994. So SI kept close tabs on the Browns from last December, when they lost out on a playoff berth, to the final preparations for their 2008 season, which begins on Sunday with a national-TV game against the NFC powerhouse Cowboys. Some of the optimism surrounding the club is well-founded, some is built on shaky ground. This is a story of how a longtime NFL doormat tries to build itself into a playoff team.
DECEMBER 30 AVON LAKE, OHIO
THREE HOURS after Cleveland's 2007 season ended with a 20--7 home win over the 49ers, Edwards tried to avoid the 30 family members and friends who filled his house. He wasn't thinking about that day's victory, which gave the Browns a 10--6 final record, but about the game seven days earlier: Bengals 19, Browns 14. Derek Anderson threw four interceptions that day, and on a third-quarter play that would haunt the Cleveland quarterback for months, he checked down to a safer option and missed a wide-open Edwards in the end zone. The receiver verbally sparred with Anderson on the sideline afterward.
Now, as Edwards shot pool, the Titans were beating the Colts on a TV in the background. Tennessee's victory would give it a 10--6 record and the final AFC playoff spot, by virtue of a tiebreaker over the Browns. All Edwards could think about was how Cleveland had bungled the Cincinnati game. "We didn't deserve it, but the Titans in the playoffs?" he said. "Tampa Bay? The Redskins! You can't tell me we couldn't beat the damn Redskins."
Throughout the Cleveland area other Browns players and staffers clicked off their televisions in disgust. Edwards spoke for them all when he said, "I do not want to feel this way again the rest of my career."
JANUARY 9 BEREA, OHIO
SAVAGE, 43, is an obsessive note taker, scribbling his observations and thoughts during games and meetings, then later typing them into his office computer. At 5'10 1/2" and 160 pounds, he looks more like a former English major and small-college shortstop (which he was, at the University of the South) than a career football coach, scout and executive. He is, in fact, the quietly daring architect of the Browns, with complete authority over the 53-man roster he hands to coach Romeo Crennel in September. Savage loves his job, and his fingerprints are all over this team.
It was an important day, the start of the annual three-day organizational meetings at the team's training facility. Pro and college scouts, coaches and trainers gathered to assess the 2007 season and get Savage's vision of the future. "It was a good season," he began. "We revamped the offensive staff, established an offensive identity. Now we have to avoid complacency. We have to finesse and manage our quarterback situation. I want to focus not only on Pittsburgh and Baltimore and Cincinnati in our division, but also on the rest of the AFC."
The G.M. laid out these priorities: re-sign power back Jamal Lewis; retain Anderson, a restricted free agent, while developing 2007 first-round draft pick Brady Quinn; and fix a defensive front that allowed 4.5 yards per rush in '07.
FEBRUARY 11 BEREA
CORNERBACK Leigh Bodden, a sixth-year vet, met with Savage and Crennel, looking for a new contract (he was due $4.47 million over the next two years) or a trade. Though losing Bodden would further weaken a poor secondary, the Browns didn't love him. Now they'd have a bargaining chip in any deal for a defensive lineman.
FEBRUARY 27 BEREA
RETURNING FROM the NFL combine in Indianapolis, where, in addition to sizing up draft prospects, he queried other G.M.'s about available veterans, Savage identified two defensive linemen he has targeted for Crennel's 3--4 scheme.
Green Bay wanted a high draft choice for relatively unknown end Corey Williams, who's had two straight seven-sack seasons; Cleveland's mid-second-round pick would be enough to get him. Detroit's Shaun Rogers, a two-time Pro Bowl nosetackle, was on the block as well.
The book on Rogers: plays great when he wants to; weight fluctuations between 355 and 395; smart guy with a reputation for being not totally committed to football. Browns staffers checked into Rogers and decided he was worth the risk. Savage thought he could get him for Bodden and a third- or fourth-round pick.
Cleveland didn't have a first-round pick, having used it in 2007 to trade up to draft Quinn. Yet this raffling of high draft picks was heresy to Savage. To be without a pick in the first three rounds scared him. To keep his picks and miss out on Williams and Rogers scared him too.
Savage convened his kitchen cabinet: Crennel, assistant head coach Rip Scherer, defensive coordinator Mel Tucker and offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski, director of player personnel T.J. McCreight, pro personnel director Steve Sabo and cap analyst Trip MacCracken. "To make the Browns as good as we can be this year, we're going to have to sacrifice something—and it could be the draft," he told his staff. "If we could sign Derek Anderson and trade for Corey Williams and Shaun Rogers, would we be willing to get rid of Bodden and not draft till the fourth or fifth round?"
All eight men in the room said yes.
That night Savage offered Lions president Matt Millen a third-round pick and Bodden for Rogers.
FEBRUARY 28 BEREA
THE NEXT morning some of the Browns' brass were having second thoughts about the offer for Rogers. Millen had responded to Savage by saying he had other teams interested, but was that the sort of white lie G.M.'s told when they were trying to get more out of a deal? "Millen's bluffing," one of Savage's aides told him. Late in the day Savage called Millen to say he'd keep Bodden in the trade but wanted to switch to a lower draft choice.
"We had a deal!" said Millen, who was somewhere between angry and livid. "I won't do it for less than that."
Said Savage, "Let me sleep on it."
A restless night for Savage: It was as if half of his brain reminded him he had to have Rogers to fix a horrible run defense, and the other half told him a third-rounder and Bodden was too much to pay. (And besides, it seemed likely he would get Williams from Green Bay.) Such decisions define a G.M.'s career. By the time Savage went to sleep, he felt as if he were paying tricked-out Escalade money for a baseline SUV.
FEBRUARY 29 BEREA
ON HIS WAY to work, Savage called Millen. "It's too much for us," Savage said. "I think you're going to have to count us out." He hoped Millen's next words would be, "O.K., I'll take a fifth-rounder and Bodden." They weren't.
"Don't worry," Millen said brusquely. "I've got a deal with Cincinnati."
Savage's heart sank. Cincinnati! We lost Rogers to a team in our division!
Savage asked what the terms were.
"A three and a five," Millen said.
When Savage got to the office, he was despondent. And fuming. "Because we tried to get too cute, we not only lost this guy, but now we're going have to play him twice a year!" he told his staff.
But there was a hang-up in the Cincinnati deal over the $1 million bonus Rogers was owed on March 1. The Lions wanted Cincinnati to pay it, but the Bengals insisted that Rogers pass his physical first; the Browns had been willing to pay the bonus, no strings attached. At 3 p.m. the NFL said it would not allow the trade to go through unless there was a binding agreement on the bonus. The Bengals held firm, as did Millen. "If I'm paying him the million, he's playing for us," said Millen, who had another team, the Bills, waiting to trade third- and fifth-round picks for Rogers in case the Cincy deal blew up.
By then Savage was desperately trying to reach Millen. He left a cellphone message saying the Browns would accept the original terms: a three and Bodden for Rogers.
Millen returned the call. "Don't go back to Cincinnati," Savage said. "We'll do the deal right now." Millen said yes, and Rogers was a Brown.
By sunup the next day Savage had completed trades for Rogers and Williams—filling two big needs but also eradicating the top of Cleveland's draft—and signed Anderson to a three-year, $24 million deal that had $7 million in bonuses due over the last two years. (Lewis had been given a three-year extension on Feb. 21.) Thus, if the quarterback's 2007 season turns out to be a fluke, the Browns will be able to cut him after a year without taking a huge cap hit.
Now the question was, With some big holes still left on the depth chart, could Savage fill them with four low-round picks?
MARCH 17 ANN ARBOR, MICH.
OVER A St. Patrick's Day lunch at the Brown Jug, a University of Michigan campus hangout, Braylon Edwards, the former Wolverine, picked the brain of one of his off-season workout buddies: current Wolverine Michael Phelps. Swimming, Phelps told him, is the ultimate cardio workout. A light went on over Edwards's head: You can't sprain an ankle in the pool. You can't wear down your joints. Edwards quizzed Phelps on setting up a workout. "This is what I'll do to stay in shape between minicamp in June and training camp in July," Edwards said.
APRIL 23 LARGO, MD.
THIS WAS crazy. Instead of huddling with his scouts in Berea and massaging the draft board, Savage hopped a 10 a.m. flight to Baltimore, rented a car, drove 24 miles to Prince George's Community College, and shook hands with one of the most marginal prospects in the 2008 draft: outside linebacker Alex Hall of Division II St. Augustine's College, in North Carolina.
The draft was three days away, and here was Savage, looking at a player he might take in the seventh round or try to sign after the draft as a long-shot free agent. Why? Because he was panning for draft nuggets, and one of his scouts, 25-year-old Bobby Vega, assigned to small colleges in the East and South, told Savage this was his top prospect at any position. Savage had watched some video of Hall and seen speed and production (26 sacks in three seasons). But before committing a precious pick, he needed to see Hall in person.
Savage placed a football eight yards beyond a line of four cones and asked Hall to high-step, fast, over the cones to the ball. Hall ran, knees high, over the cones and, without being told, accelerated to the ball, scooped it up in full stride and ran back. The athleticism stunned Savage. Vega was right. Hall had a chance to fill a void, and he might last till the seventh round.
APRIL 26--27 BEREA
WITH NO pick on the first day of the draft, Savage jogged through his Bay Village neighborhood west of town. On Day 2 the Browns did not get a cornerback—every one they had listed on their draft board had been taken. But as Cleveland's final pick, No. 231 overall, approached, Savage called Hall at his Glenarden, Md., home and asked him if he had the TV on. Hall said yes. "Well, look at the bottom of the screen," Savage said. "You're going to see your name." In a moment Hall saw it. His family exploded in celebration. Hall said what all draft picks essentially say: "Now that they're giving me this opportunity, they'll never be able to get me out of there."
MAY 20 BEREA
THOUGH THE Browns were talking to a few teams about acquiring a corner, they were trying to convince themselves they'd be O.K. with a marginal crew of Brandon McDonald and Eric Wright as starters and Daven Holly as the nickel, none of whom had been in the league for more than three years. But during a seven-on-seven drill pitting receivers against corners, Edwards and Holly both went up high for a pass downfield, and their legs entangled. Edwards came down hard on his right leg, pain shooting through his hip. Holly came down hard on his left foot, buckling his knee.
Edwards got up. Holly stayed down. Within an hour Holly, 26, was lying in an MRI tube three miles away. This was his first major injury, and his mind was racing. Will my speed be gone? My quickness? I'll come back. I won't come back. I'll be fine. I'll never be the same. For 45 minutes he didn't know what to expect.
Then, in the exam room, team physician Tony Miniaci looked at the MRI and told Holly, "You do have some ligament damage. We'll have to operate." Holly's stomach hit the floor. He would miss the season.
Now what were the Browns going to do? With Tony Romo and Ben Roethlisberger (combined touchdown passes last year: 68) coming to town the first two weeks of the 2008 season, Cleveland had a crisis at cornerback. The Browns signed Terry Cousin, a veteran nickelback who had been released by Jacksonville. It was not how they wanted to go into the season.
JUNE 12 BEREA
THREE NEW additions impressed the Browns in spring workouts, which culminated in a full-squad minicamp.
Rogers looked good. The coaches, in fact, left for summer break somewhat giddy over him. He was willing to move from the knifing, pass-rushing tackle in the Lions' 4--3 to the noseman in Crennel's 3--4, occupying two blockers to free teammates to make plays. Still an enormous man with one of the biggest heads in NFL history (topped by a Mohawk), he was a good 30 pounds lighter than the player Crennel saw on 2007 video of the Lions. "I'm not going to lie," Rogers said. "I was too heavy last year. The first nine games, I was the Man. After that I got too heavy. I'm going back to being a force this year."
Wide receiver Donte' Stallworth, dreadlocks flowing from under his helmet, pleased the staff by returning from a family funeral on a red-eye at 6:30 this morning, just so he could have one day of practice with the first team. "I love the guy," Edwards said of the free-agent pickup. "Derek cannot overthrow him."
Hall, the seventh-rounder, ran around like a colt, often not knowing what to do but doing it frenetically. Once, Hall, wearing number 96, and third-year rush specialist Kamerion Wimbley, number 95, were attacking the passer at the same time. When scouts watched tape of the play later, one of them said, "If you didn't know Wimbley was 95 and Alex 96, it'd be hard to tell which was which."
JUNE 26 ANN ARBOR, MICH.
THANK YOU, Michael Phelps. In the second week of his pool workouts at Michigan, Edwards alternated track drills in the water—high-knee, hurdler motion mostly—with swimming laps. One day track, the next day freestyle; one day track, the next day breaststroke; one day track, the next day butterfly.
Edwards was sure this was taking his fitness to another level. So he and Phelps made a friendly wager. "For every gold you win in Beijing," Edwards told the Olympian, "I've got to score two touchdowns this year."
JULY 10 SCAPPOOSE, ORE.
IF ONLY IT were this easy in the NFL. Derek Anderson, in his postcard setting of a hometown, with Mount Hood looming to the east, is playing a game of team keep-away at the Derek Anderson Football Camp at Scappoose High. Kids running and jumping and cavorting; the NFL quarterback motioning and yelling, "Go deep!" to eight-year-olds, then airing it out and afterward signing autographs for every parent and child and hanger-on for an hour. "Derek's made for this," said his dad, Glenn, watching from the sideline.
But is he made for leading a team to the NFL playoffs? Drafted by the Ravens in the sixth round in 2005, the former Oregon State star has gone from being a Baltimore practice-squadder to going on waivers to fighting for a spot on the Browns roster to being Cleveland's surprise starter.
In '07 only four quarterbacks threw more touchdown passes than his 29; only eight had more passing yards than his 3,787. In the off-season Scherer, the assistant head coach, worked hard on getting Anderson to look to his left rather than immediately locking onto the receivers on his right. Watching 2007 game tape, Scherer grilled Anderson whenever the passer made a mistake.
At a restaurant across from Scappoose High, Anderson settled into a side table and talked about the mistake he can't forget, that Week 16 pass against the Bengals. It was early in the third quarter, and the Browns trailed 19--0 with third-and-seven at the Cincinnati 20. Edwards ran a post-corner route, sprinting on a diagonal to the goalpost, then cutting to the corner of the end zone. Anderson was supposed to wait for Edwards to come open, but when the corner went in front of the receiver, Anderson, instead of giving Edwards one more split second to get free, checked down and threw to Joe Jurevicius at the nine. That was enough for a first down, but Edwards, who ended up running free in the end zone, was miffed.
"Next play I threw an interception in the back of the end zone," Anderson said. "Instead of throwing the TD and we're back in it, we're still way down. I kill myself for that throw to this day."
The following week against the 49ers, Savage wrote this note to himself as he watched Anderson in the Browns' last game of the season: 3's a little shaky, not as confident.
The five games in December came down like a hammer on Anderson, who had a 53.1% completion rate, seven touchdowns and eight interceptions that month. Though it appears the players and coaches and front office are very happy to have their passer back this year, Anderson has to overcome that mediocre December and finish the season strong to convince people he's a long-term, winning NFL quarterback. "Last year we just came out swinging and established an identity," Edwards said of the offense. "This is the year we see if Derek makes the passes under pressure and on Monday Night Football."
It's only Cleveland's season that rides on Anderson. "We've got to validate what we did last year," he says. "I've got to play football the way I know how. I can't play timid."
JULY 23 BEREA
"FELLAS, YOU haven't done anything yet," Crennel told his players at the start of training camp. "You haven't won a division. You haven't made the playoffs. Before you buy into all this hype about how great you are, just remember this: You've got five national-TV games this year. If you fail, they'll tear you down faster than they've built you up."
Twenty-five hundred fans showed up for the first workout. Four minutes in, a chant arose that told the Browns all they needed to know about those fans' expectations: "Su-per Bowl! Su-per Bowl!"
"This could be a special year," said former NFL great Jim Brown, 72, a team adviser, who watched practice from a golf cart. "I love this team. I love being back here to share the adventure."
The first reviews were upbeat. Rogers weighed in at 359 and spent part of the afternoon practice overpowering the middle of the offensive line. Williams, at left end, showed more quickness in pads than the coaches thought he had. Wimbley, whom Tucker had been working with, exploded off the line. Anderson's primary weapons—Edwards, Stallworth, Lewis, tight end Kellen Winslow—were all together for only the second day since the 2007 season ended, and Winslow, angling for a new contract, looked fast and powerful coming off the line as a tight end or a slot receiver.
At dinner that night Savage was beaming. "When camp opened three years ago I put on a happy face but knew we'd get our teeth kicked in," he said. "Two years ago the big free agent we signed, LeCharles Bentley, went down for the year on the first play of training camp, and it was like pulling a piece of thread on a cheap suit. Last year it was the drumbeat of whether Romeo would [last through the season as coach]. This year what I'm concerned about is not getting our players hurt before our first game. We can compete."
AUGUST 5 BEREA
IS THERE NO end to the bad news for the secondary? The Browns learned that cornerback Gary Baxter, the big-money 2005 free agent who was to come back from double knee surgery 22 months ago, needed another operation, this one arthroscopic. The Browns prepared to waive him.
"Heartbreaking," Savage said. Baxter was a beacon of hope in his bid to return from having shredded the patella tendons in each knee on a play in Week 6 of 2006. His new injury and pending surgery turned the atmosphere at camp funereal.
But the show must go on, and one of the corners scheduled to start, Wright, was at least talking a good game. "I hope teams want to come after us," he said. "We'll be ready."
Oh, teams will be coming after Wright and McDonald. Rapidly, however, the safety net under them was disappearing.
AUGUST 16 BEREA
ANOTHER LATE night for Edwards, who was captivated by the swimming in Beijing. The previous night, he had left a screaming message for Phelps after his friend won the 100-meter butterfly by a fingertip for his seventh gold medal. On this night, near midnight, Phelps called Edwards from Beijing soon after he won his final gold medal and reminded him of their bet. "I got eight," Phelps said, "so that means you've got to get 16 touchdowns this year."
"News flash," Edwards said. "I did that last year. I'll give you 17."
AUGUST 18 EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.
"My God," Ron Jaworski, the ESPN analyst working the Giants-Browns preseason telecast, said during a first-half commercial break. "We've got these guys [on Monday night] three times this year!" He was reacting to what he had seen in the first 17 minutes: Wright had been beaten badly twice by the less-than-immortal Domenik Hixon; Anderson had flubbed a goal line handoff to Lewis that the Giants recovered and ran back for a touchdown; Anderson had been steamrolled and suffered a concussion when his protection broke down; punter Dave Zastudil had booted the ball into one of his blockers for a safety; and the Giants had returned the ensuing free kick for a touchdown. New York led 30--3 after barely a quarter of play.
Crennel fumed. Players shrugged. "It's the preseason," said Savage. "You never know what it means."
The next day Savage traded a seventh-round pick to the Dolphins for nickelback Travis Daniels, which was like sandbagging a flood. Imagine what Romo and Terrell Owens were thinking about the season opener as they watched Eli Manning strafe the Browns' secondary.
AUGUST 21 BEREA
WITH LINEBACKER Willie McGinest nursing a strained groin, the Browns promoted Hall to the first team for the time being. Later, as they do three or four times a week, Crennel and Mel Tucker met to dissect the defense position by position. "The guy who keeps showing up is Hall," Crennel said. "He can rush, and he keeps showing an ability to cover that I didn't expect from a kid who didn't have to do that in college."
"He's a football player," Tucker said. "The game's not too big for him."
"Give him more chances," Crennel said.
Both men wished they had such a solution for the secondary. "We need them to grow up," Crennel said of the defensive backs, with a hint of resignation in his voice. "I hope Monday's a wake-up call for Eric, because in this league they're going to keep coming at you."
AUGUST 24 BEREA
BACK AT CAMP the day after another embarrassing loss, this one in Detroit, Savage told Crennel that what happened in the preseason games shouldn't shake the solid foundation the coaches and staff had built. Eight starters (including Anderson, Edwards and Lewis) were among the 15 players who missed the Lions game because of injuries. And though Brady Quinn produced only six points in six sputtering possessions against the Lions, he most likely wouldn't be needed when the real games began; Anderson had assured the staff that the mild concussion he'd suffered against the Giants wouldn't prevent him from playing on Sept. 7.
"The Giants lose [Osi] Umenyiora for the year. [Tom] Brady and [Peyton] Manning haven't even played yet," Savage told Crennel, adding that the Patriots had looked awful in losing their first three preseason games. "Nobody knows anything right now. Let's just get through this week and get to the Dallas week healthy. The preseason's a mirage. We'll be fine."
Said Edwards, as he prepared to return to action after cutting his foot in a fluke practice accident two weeks earlier, "When I come back, I'll provide energy, swagger, playmaking. The preseason sucks. We all know that. We're preparing for Dallas, not these games."
AUGUST 30 CLEVELAND
AFTER A fairly painless cutdown to the final roster, Savage scouted the Boston College--Kent State game at Browns Stadium. Putting down his binoculars for a moment, he considered whether his team was fortified enough to win its first division title since 1989.
"This is going to be a grinder of a season," he said. "Our schedule's tougher, and no team in our division will be able to win five, six games in a row. I felt so good about our team before camp that I knew we'd be fine, as long as we didn't get any of the injuries that can kill a team, and we didn't. Now it's the opening kickoff. I think we're ready."
Savage, his staff and his players believe the Browns are talented enough to win the AFC North, but they also realize they could crash and burn if Anderson is erratic, Rogers disappoints and the corners don't step up. That's the fascination of early September in the NFL and the reason why, from the dude on Public Square ("This is our year!") to the hounds in the Dawg Pound, all of Cleveland will be in full throat when the season starts on Sunday.
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