The Cleveland Browns have announced their decision to part ways with wide receiver Donte Stallworth. After one season of activity with the Browns, Stallworth missed all of last season following an automobile accident which resulted in the death of a Miami, Florida pedestrian and a DUI manslaughter conviction. He was in the third season of a seven-year contract.
As most Browns fans are aware, their team is now one of four teams remaining in the NFL that have never been to the Super Bowl. Two of the teams are modern era expansion teams in the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans, the third is our friends up north in the Detroit Lions. And while the Browns find themselves drafting in the top 10 spots once again come April, fans should remember that the Saints were there not all that long ago.
In 2005, the New Orleans Saints finished the season 3-13. Two of their wins were by the skin of their collective teeth, and seven of their losses featured point totals less than 14. Sure, they were playing for a city that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, and played their home games at Louisiana State’s Tiger Stadium. But they were also a team that was led by quarterback Aaron Brooks and a pair of 33-year olds in Antowain Smith and Joe Horn. Their defense was a bit of a disaster aside from a guy that was drafted one year prior in Ohio State’s Will Smith. There were rumors that the team would move, and few wanted to help rebuild the franchise.
Four seasons later, the Saints are lifting the Vince Lombardi Trophy thanks to a few successful draft selections and key free agent additions.
Evan Turner proved why he is one of the top players in all of college basketball on Super Sunday. More on that in a minute. A day after Michigan State dropped their game against Illinois, the Buckeyes to create a tight race in the Big Ten. After Sunday’s action the Buckeyes are 18-6 overall for the season and 8-3 in the Big Ten. The top of the field now looks like this.
Minnesota follows at number 6 with a 5-5 record before it just gets worse. The Buckeyes went out and did exactly what they needed to do taking care of their home court in the last three games against Minnesota, Penn State and now Iowa.
As the Cleveland Indians continue to avoid the MLB free agency period to the best of their abilities, Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer reported this weekend that Mark Shapiro has his eye on veteran outfielder Jermaine Dye.
The 36-year old Dye is a right-handed bat, something that the Indians have been looking for all off-season. The two main issues in Dye’s game (three, if you choose to count his age) are the fact that he regressed mightily during the second half of last season and has diminishing skills in the outfield. Considering that the Indians have one of the younger, quicker outfields in the American League, adding Dye to the mix would not help keep opposing runs off of the board.
Shortly after season’s end, the apocalypse was upon us as Joshua Cribbs was allegedly not a part of the Cleveland Browns plans going forward. One month later, it appears that all is well in the world as contract negotiations between Cribbs and the Browns front office is reported to be going very smoothly, leading to very high optimism.
The OBR reports that a deal should be in place by the mid-April draft, and there is even a chance that the ink has dried on a new contract prior to the official start of the 2010 season in March.
Recall that Cribbs and his team were looking for a contract extension to be discussed approximately four days following the official end to the 2009 season. Team president Mike Holmgren had not had the chance to unpack his bags before player representation was looking to discuss numbers. When numbers were discussed, Cribbs’ team was put off by the alleged low-ball offer of $1.4 million per year. The words “final offer” were attributed to then team executive Dawn Aponte while Cribbs was reportedly looking for $2.5-$3 million annually.
While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com
On fast starts, tough finishes: “Well, a little statistical observation of how the Cavaliers perform from quarter to quarter would be nice. John emailed me earlier this week with a theory of his. He wondered how the Cavaliers performed when LeBron James came out scorching in the first quarter. He is under the impression that his teammates will stand around on offense and that the lack of activity carries over to the defensive end, where the team will let up a lot of points.
So I figured it’d make for an interesting study to chart both the points and assists of LeBron James vs. the team’s scoring margin by quarter. After all, LeBron James is one of only three players (Parker and Hickson being the others) to play in all 51 games this season and, with all due respect to Anthony and J.J., he has always been the driving force of the Cavs offense.” [Mark Cameron/Cavs the Blog]
Join Jacob tonight over at the Plain Dealer’s liveblog of the Super Bowl game from Miami. Jacob will be joining Dennis Manoloff from the PD and our buddy Don Delco from No Logo Needed to cover the game, starting at 5:30 PM.
Happy Super Bowl everyone! The chat link is above and be sure to keep your comments family-appropriate please. Our commenting rules hold true here too folks.
Browns defensive back Brandon McDonald has been accused of assault via his alleged ex-girlfriend Sabrina Parr. Parr, a personality on WKNR’s Really Big Show tweeted the following this afternoon:
From: @MsParrTheHost
Sent: Feb 7, 2010 3:46p
I have never been hit so hard in my life but I promise he WONT get away with this!
Later, she followed with the confirmation that it was in fact McDonald.
From: @MsParrTheHost
Sent: Feb 7, 2010 3:46p
So Brandon Mcdonald put his hands on me & went crazy! I’m definitely pressing charges & sewing his [edited]!
One year ago, the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA title for the 15th time in their historic franchise history. This occurred in June despite the fact the Lakers actually finished the regular season with one fewer victory than the Cleveland Cavaliers. What this means is that there there was something else more important than the sheer number of wins during the season. That main difference was that Cleveland struggled mightily throughout the year in their biggest games while the Lakers coasted through all the way to the championship.
Cleveland’s inability to win big games eventually led to their conference finals defeat at the hands of the Orlando Magic. Thus far this season however, with both teams having played 52 out of 82 total games, the numbers below start to show that there is a significant role reversal in comparison to what happened a year ago. While the Lakers are struggling against the top teams in the league, the Cavaliers are riding a season-high 11-game winning streak and appear to be the team to beat in the NBA.
The NBA stats guru at ESPN strikes yet again with his latest blow to the Cavaliers franchise. Despite the fact Cleveland is currently on an 11-game winning streak, has the best record in the league at 41-11 and is directly on par with their 66-win mark a year ago, John Hollinger ranks them as the third best team in the NBA.
This is the second time is as many weeks that Hollinger’s rankings have caught my eye. First, I saw that Utah held the #1 spot and now, the Lakers have also passed Cleveland on the heels of their win last night against Portland. These are statistics-based rankings and Hollinger did issue a statement when Utah started moving all the way up. No matter what though, it seems that the rankings are just as out of touch with reality as the BCS standings. Ask any player or coach and they will say Cleveland is the top team, and deservedly so as they are two games better than any team right now in the league.
[John Hollinger's daily rankings via @TheAkronHammer on Twitter]
One of the great things about this site is the submissions that we get from readers, other bloggers, and friends. Sometimes, these three worlds collide, and we end up with a Triple Venn Diagram situation. This post is a vision, if you will, based on a submission that came from the center of said Triple Venn territory. A bit of prose, for you to enjoy on this snowy Sunday. It is sports related, Cleveland Browns related, in fact, and I hope you enjoy it.
Sometime in recent years, in a small factory somewhere in Hong Kong, a worker named Liu Wei puts the finishing touches on an orange stuffed bear. This bear has been made in anticipation of the American football team in Cleveland, Ohio picking a footballer early in the first round of that year’s draft. There are many like it, but this one is mine the one we’re going to follow.
Liu Wei transports the bear, along with 200 of his orange bear bretheren to an embroiderer. The bears will be customized with the name of the man who is to save lead the newly formed Cleveland Football Browns. Children will laugh with joy as they play with their stuffed bears that BEAR (get it?) the name of their hero. These bears will accompany American children as they grow up along with their hero – the man that will help lead thier favorite football team for years.
So there a foobaww game today, and a lot of folks may be interested in watching is, as it is their duty as Americans. Since most of us have no horses in this race (woah – deep joke, with the Colts!), we thought it would be prudent to put together a guide for the Cleveland (and Ohio) sports fan. If you want to join Jacob this evening, he’s going to be liveblogging the game along with Don Delco and some other Cleveland sports bloggers at the Plain Dealer’s website – we’ll provide a link later on.
First things first – if you want recipes for good food for the game (and just because Mr Cleaveland asked), check out Black and Gold Chotchkes. Yes, it’s written by a Stiller fan, but she’s also quite cool and puts up pretty awesome recipes. Since I’m no Bobby Flay by any stretch of the imagination, I leave you with this one suggestion.
Next, we have the players who attended college in Ohio:
The Cavaliers utilized yet another massive first quarter run and held on for dear life last night in their 113-106 victory over the NY Knicks. The win pushed their current streak of W’s out to 11 games, tied for the best in the NBA this season and the team looks to break the mark Tuesday against the New Jersey Nets.
It was a tale of two Cleveland teams as much as it was a tale of two LeBron’s tonight. The Cavs first came out dominating the paint, including a quick eight-point burst by J.J. Hickson and some nice moves by Shaq to take a 28-21 lead with 3:28 to go in the first quarter. That was the end of the silence however, as just under six minutes later in the ball game, LeBron James had accomplished the feat of providing 24 straight points for his Cavaliers team.
While We’re Waiting is where we help you find neat things on the net. If you see neat things, we like neat things and we like to share neat things, so send those neat things to us at our tips email address.
–
Ohio State Buckeye Dick LeBeau has been inducted into the Pro Football HOF, but Cris Carter has been denied. [H/T 11W]
–
This whole “ask anybody in New York about LeBron” thing is getting out of hand. VinnyG23 has the details. ['64 and Counting]
–
The 40-11 Cavs continue their nice February stretch of games tonight at the Q against the 19-30 New York Knickerbockers (WTAM 1100, FSN Ohio). The Cavs have won their last 10 straight, while the Knicks are coming in 3-7 over their last 10 games.
The Knicks do, however, have more participants in the upcoming All-Star Weekend (salty point! LET’S ALL REVOLT!!!), with Nate Robinson scheduled to require 15 attempts at each dunk defend his title in the dunk contest, and Danilo Gallinari representing the Fightin’ New York Pants in the Three-Point Contest.
Team Statistics:
