Did Alexander keep Aristotle on his 53 man roster?

Over numerous articles, the Plain Dealer has decided that, unless the Browns carry four quarterbacks on the final roster, the loser of the Derek Anderson / Charlie Frye QB competition will be cut or traded and Ken Dorsey will be retained. This all stems from the PD writers' weird fetish for the Browns to have "an experienced veteran" who can "mentor the young quarterback".

If the Browns do want to keep Dorsey around, here is my suggestion:
1) Cut Dorsey
2) Offer him the value of his current contract to stay around as a "special QB" coach

Heck, they can even let him play dress up and wear the uniform on the sidelines, and work out in practice. But it makes absolutely no sense to me to keep him around as a Big Brother for the little orphan Brady Quinn. If he does stay around he will be taking up a roster spot. And if he is taking up a roster spot, who is getting cut in his place? Chris Barclay? Steve Sanders? Chase Pittman? Willie McGinest?

The 53-man roster is a challenge for the teams to strike the balance between developing young guys and fielding a decent team. Unless Dorsey provides us a better back-up QB option than Derek Anderson, he should not take up one of those valuable spots.

Ye Gods!

I've been getting into the stuff they post over at FootballOutsiders.com, as well as reading the 2007 Pro Football Prospectus.

In the 2007 Pro Football Prospectus, the Patriots' section has an article about how the Patriots secondary is always hurt, and last year was particularly bad, and how we should feel bad for them. So they analyzed the number of injuries (looking at how much time players missed). The results confirmed their suspicion that the Patriots far and away have had the most injuries to their secondary over the past five years. However, the Browns were number two on that list.

And when they broke the list down to most secondary injuries in a single season? The 2006 Browns had the single worst secondary injury situation in the NFL over the past 5 years. In fact, 2006 accounted for nearly half of our total secondary injuries out of the past 5 years.

The authors throw out some hypothesis to explain why both Crennel's former and current team have lead the league in secondary injuries. They think that Crennel views defensive backs as eminently replaceable so he does not mind taking a gamble on an injury prone back. I find that one kind of hard to believe. Last year's Browns secondary had injuries to Bodden and McCutcheon who both predate Crennel, and Gary Baxter whose freak injury is just rotten luck. Injury-prone guys get turf-toe and high ankle sprains and knee problems. They do not tear their patellar tendons.

Then just yesterday I was reading this over/under on the Football Outsiders website, and I caught this interesting note:

The other somewhat hidden factor that should bounce back for the Browns this season? Injuries, particularly on the defensive side. The Browns, as a whole, were more hurt in 2006 than any team has been in the six years we’ve tracked injuries. A likely regression to the mean on those injuries would result in a healthy, deep team. There’s a serious success story brewing here, and a real chance to make money.

As much as I bitch-and-moan about injuries, I am glad to finally see some statistical backing that the Browns truly are getting the short end of the stick. Although, I do not buy into their point that we will regress to the mean. Sure, in theory the injuries should let up, but this is the Browns. We don't regress to the mean, we skew the entire distribution.

Oh no, he's playing well

Even when a Brown has a great performance, it is bad news.

Quinn's 13 for 17 performance against the Lions' soon-to-be-cut defense probably does not tell us anything we did not already know about him. But it does make him look more NFL-ready than either of the erstwhile starters.

It is going to be a long season if Frye and Anderson can't keep the "Brady" chants to a minimum.

Under Maintainence

I'm trying to figure out this Blogger thing. So over the next few days the format might change a few times.

Scratch yesterday's post

I am recalling yesterday's post:

After posting yesterday, I emailed Profootballtalk.com to call him out for claiming credit for an idea I had already emailed to him. Pft responded to my email to say that he had never read my original email explaining the holdout theory. He even included a screen shot of his inbox listing it as unread. I'll take his word at it. So he didn't intentionally rip off anyone's idea.

Also, Ryan Tucker sat down with Patrick McManamon to explain his steroid issue. He says the steroids were part of his mental health regimen, and had nothing to do with gaining an advantage. I'll take his word at it. Sounds like he was in a tough position.

Then we changed our name to "The New Originals"

Profootballtalk.com has a blurb with this headline:
ARE RAIDERS, BROWNS SECRETLY HAPPY ABOUT HOLDOUTS

It goes on to talk about how a holdout is a good tool to guarantee the guy won't play too early. The only problem? The editor goes out of the way to point out that it is his "original" idea. Dude, WTF??

Both Bitterfans and I have both pushed such an idea, and I have seen it referenced other places, too. And what's worse, last week when pft asked Browns fans to write in their thoughts about the Quinn holdout, I emailed him and spelled it out for him, in case he's not a regular of the Browns blogosphere. His report was that all Browns fans were ticked off by the holdout, which seems in direct contradiction to most of what I've read.

I still frequent pft just because it is free and to the point, unlike most other NFL "news" sources. But man, my opinion of this guy keeps getting worse and worse. He's a Pittsburgh fan, and the worst kind of Browns-hater: the kind who pretends he doesn't hate the Browns, like a political idealogue who claimes that they're really just a moderate independent. He has had numerous offenses against the Browns that I usually don't bother commenting on because his opinion isn't worth wasting my time on. But this one got to me because it's personal.
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So Ryan Tucker is all juiced up with no place to go? I don't care too much because we have alot of depth, but, man, this is how catastrophes start: A strong position has one or two guys go out, and all of a sudden its a position with problems. Don't get me wrong, I still think that even with one or two backups playing this year, our line could be better than last year's line. But it is almost surely weaker without Tucker.

The thing that annoys me is that Tucker doesn't seem sorry about it. He says that he did what he needed to do to come back. Well I hope for his sake that the 'roids gave him more than four week's training would do, because now he is just going to be using his bigger bulk for holding the bench down. Idiot.

Some depth?

Profootballtalk.com reports that the Colts are going to cut Corey Simon. He would fit right in with the Browns over-the-hill, injury-waiting-to-happen defensive line.

He would be a risk, and an expensive risk, but after three years of drafting d-linemen no higher than the 6th round, we need to start making such moves just to stop the bleeding.

Sounds about right

You know you're a Browns fan when an injury announcement comes as a relief:

OBR reports that Orpheus Roye is going to have knee surgery. The surgery is to clean out some cartilage, and the hope is that he will be back in time for the season opener.

Of course, if I remember correctly, that was the EXACT same story that was used for Daylon McCutcheon last August, and not only did he not come back for the opener, but he never came back at all, and was cut this spring.

Not that we should expect the same thing for Roye. Clearly management had been preparing to cut Cutch, so maybe the surgery/injury was just a cover to free up the roster spot without creating a PR issue. Assuming that management isn't ready to cut Roye, this should be a different situation.

I say that this comes as a relief, because I'm expecting the injuries to mount, especially at some of our older positions without alot of depth. The fact that its finally here and not a season ending injury is kind of a relief. Although, maybe this is just a preview of what the football gods have cooked up for us.