"I am extremely grateful to Randy Lerner and the Browns' organization for giving me an opportunity as a first time GM back in January 2005 and now to continue with this extension through the 2012 season," said Savage. "We have worked very hard to turn the Browns around, on and off the field, and our team is looking forward to the 2008 season. From a personal standpoint, I want to also thank the many Browns' fans who have been so supportive during my time here."

ClevelandBrowns.com

Not upset at all with this signing.  Nice to see Savage sticking around and, hopefully, finishing what he has started here.

Based on what we drafted this year, it looks like we are going to be heavy on TE, LB, and DL going into next season.

Does this help our Special Teams a lot? We had good special teams last year, and I expect a lot of the guys drafted not to crack the starting line-up, so they have to play on special teams right?

Also, let's say Rucker pans out as a good receiving TE this season (going four wide with him, KW, BE, and DS). And let's also say that Quinn finally becomes the starter by the end of the year.

Does this mean Savage would have two valuable trading chips in DA and KW going into next offseason? What would the cap hits be if we dealt them both? How many multiple picks would we get for each? (My best guess is a 2nd and 5th for DA and a 1st and 3rd for for KW, but that is purely a guess)

So when are we going to get some answers about the Kenny Wright situation?  After the draft?  After we seal up final contracts with our rookies (before OTAs)? 

By now, the Browns are clear as to what happened with the arrest and I feel as if it wouldn't have taken much to make a decision on this relatively mediocre player, no matter how thin the Browns are in the secondary.

Come on Phil, I want the Browns to develop a stronger reputation (not that we have a bad one) for not tolerating high school behavior.

Hey Dawgs By Nature,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Dawgs By Nature from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
7. Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Dawgs By Nature and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Dawgs By Nature now has all the basic information about the Cleveland Browns and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of Cleveland Browns material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

I don't know how many of you know what an RPG is (Role-Playing Game) or have ever played one before but this game looks fun.

The basic premise of the game is create-a-player, have player sign with team, set equipment, tactics, stats, etc, then "play" games (the games are simmed, but can be watched fully afterwards).  Games are played every-other day, and nights after games and 'off-days' you can train your player to up his attributes.

http://goallineblitz.com/game/signup.pl?ref=7190089

On Friday, April 11, Kosar's Cleveland Gladiators will battle Elway's Colorado Crush at the Q. The game will start at 7:00 and be broadcasted on the Radio on 850 AM. Elway is not expected to come to the game. If he did, the Q would fill with boos and he might get attacked! Hopefully Bernie will have some revenge. Go Gladiators!

It'd be really cool if Kosar and Elway played QB for a series with their team during the game but that's not gonna happen.

It just might be me but I think the reason that people like the Gladiators is because their owned by Bernie. If he wasn't apart of teh team, I don't think nearly as many people would like the Gladiators.

Wednesday, Apr 2, 2008 7:32 am EDT

Dallas forced Browns to up Anderson's contract offer
Getty Images
General Manager Phil Savage upped the Cleveland Browns' contract offer to Derek Anderson because he feared Dallas would sign the quarterback and trade him to Miami according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"It didn't matter if I was pretty convinced or just slightly," Savage said Tuesday at NFL league meetings. "The threat of that being there [influenced him to raise the Browns' offer]."

Here's what Savage envisioned if he failed to re-sign Anderson to a multiyear deal and had to give him the one-year contract tender as a restricted free agent: Dallas would have signed Anderson to a big contract and included a "poison pill," which would have made it impossible for the Browns to match the offer. Dallas would have compensated the Browns with first- and third-round picks. They would be the Cowboys' original selections, No. 28 overall in both rounds. Dallas would have traded Anderson and their other first-round pick - No. 22 overall, obtained from the Browns last year - to Miami for the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. The Cowboys then would select Arkansas running back Darren McFadden with that pick.

What's up Dawgs?  A little slow Browns newswise right now since the Browns don't have any picks on the 1st day.  The only remotely interesting draft related thing I've seen regarding the Browns is a reply on some random board claiming that Tony Grossi said on his radio show that the Browns are planning on trading DA for multiple day one picks. Personally, I think that reply is a ploy on somebody's part to get Browns fans to watch Day 1 of the draft.

I'm eternally optimistic, so part of me buys into Savage and Co. finding a gem or two on the second day since they'll be focusing all of their efforts on the lower portion of their draft board.

Anyway, with the lack of pre-draft Browns chatter I thought I could drop a little humor on everybody.  I wrote this blog post as an April Fool's farce: http://www.legendofcecilioguante.com/2008/04/steelers-roethlisberger-to-come-out-of.html.  As you can tell in the comments, Steelers fans didn't think it was as funny as I did.

http://blog.cleveland.com/sports/2008/03/cleveland_browns_sign_houston.html

Seems like a solid linebacker - at least a good tackler, when he's healthy.

I guess he replaces Chaun Thompson.  Are we still in the market for other LBs?  Seems like it would still be worth our while to ink Clark Haggans, since Orr would probably play inside in our scheme.

Here's more information on the Browns free agents.
LB Keith Adams UFA    

FB Charles Ali ERFA March 13 Browns 1 year

QB Derek Anderson RFA February 29 Browns 3 years

DB Gary Baxter UFA March 13 Browns 1 year

WR Tim Carter UFA    

DB Ricardo Colclough UFA March 1 Panthers 2 years

OL Nat Dorsey UFA    

DL Simon Fraser RFA March 7 Falcons  

OL Lennie Friedman UFA March 12 Browns 1 year

LB Kris Griffin RFA    

DL Bobby Hamilton UFA    

DB Daven Holly RFA February 28 Browns Second-round tender[9]

DL Ethan Kelley UFA    

RB Jamal Lewis UFA February 21 Browns 3 years[10]

OL Seth McKinney UFA    

DL Alvin Smith ERFA    

LB Matt Stewart UFA    

LB Chaun Thompson UFA March 14 Texans 2 years

DL Ted Washington UFA    

UFA: Unrestricted free agent; RFA: Restricted free agent; ERFA: Exclusive rights free agent

I'm sure the Browns will not resign Ted Washington, Bobby Hamilton, Tim Carter, and Keith Adams.

I hope they resign Ethan Kelly whcih would give us some cheap depth on the D-line.

With Chaun Thompson gone Savage needs to draft or pick up some linebackers. With the resigning of Gary Baxter, I don't think we need a cornerback as badly now.