Good morning Browns fans!
The Newswire wrap is arriving a little later this morning, because the system we use
to publish articles was cranky. Fortunately, using his years of experience and
technical expertise, your webmaster was able to provide just the right sequence
of backhands, expletives, and thrown objects to convince the balky web server
that cooperation was in its best long-term interests.
With that accomplished, we can now turn our attention to the contents of
this morning's
newswire.
The optimism of Browns head coach Butch Davis,
which we reported on
yesterday, has
survived intact into the fishwraps, with some additional information that
was withheld from all but the daily newspaper writers, who were invited to a
separate session with Davis.
Among these tidbits was the unexpected revelation that OL Enoch DeMar, who
had been playing with the first team at left guard,
will be primarily focused on work at left tackle. The Browns did use Joaquin Gonzalez at LT in camp, and also drafted Kirk Chambers, who played LT for four
years at Stanford.
The tackle situation, which the team had hoped to address during the
off-season, was clearly considered to be too dependent on the health of Ross Verba, leading to the team's new focus on DeMar as a back-up.
The primary beneficiary of the new approach is OL Chad Beasley, who moves
into the tentative position as the #1 LG. He will still be facing competition
from Melvin Fowler, Paul Zukauskas and others, and will have to win the role in
training camp. Beasley, a converted defensive lineman, has been a Browns project
since the 2002 season.
There are also
some
shake-ups at linebacker, if the stories accurately relay Davis' comments.
While Chaun Thompson remains the starting strongside linebacker, the Browns have
moved Kevin Bentley over to the weakside (which we knew), but are now saying
that Ben Taylor will back up Chaun Thompson on the strong side. Warrick Holdman
will compete with Bentley.
This morning's articles also discuss the signing status of draft picks, with
Tony Grossi providing the information that
conversations with Kevin Poston will continue via telephone now that the
agent has left Berea after four hours of discussion yesterday. The Browns
continue to zero in on signing Luke McCown to a five-year deal, although the
quarterback and his agent are hesitant about the five-year length of the deal.
This afternoon on Bernie's Insiders, look for the first part of Swerb's look
at training camp (to be completed Friday morning), and my take on the Browns
approach to signing rookies. We have also been continuing to update our player
profiles and will be updating the depth chart this afternoon.
See you on the forums!
NOTE: Fans reading this article via Yahoo, Fox Sports, or copy-and-paste
in message boards can click through to linked articles by visiting
BerniesInsiders.com.
LINK:
Today's
Newswire
URL: http://www.fanmonster.com/browns/news/btng_newswire.asp
FORUM: The
News Room Forum