While We’re Waiting…Browns Offseason Moves, Peyton Hillis Contract, Mike Brown’s ‘Incentive’ System

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.

That time of year for Browns fans: “Here we are.

On the brink of arguably the most important off-season in recent Browns history. Free agency begins on March 13 and the NFL Draft on April 26. The next 60-days will shape the Browns future. Here are some possibilities how the Browns can turn the offense around in one off-season.

The Browns need to define who is their starting quarterback and running back. They also need a top end wide receiver and right tackle. Those three or four moves addressing the offense can help take the Browns from the bottom of the NFL to at no worse the middle of the league in that department in 2012.” [Fred Greetham/OBR]

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Time to cut the cord with Hillis? “You can claim that the media has made more of these situations than meets the eye, and I would probably agree with you. But let me ask you this: name me one other player in the NFL who made headlines like this. You can’t. So when you take a step back, why continue to mess around with a guy who has been just okay, wants to be paid like a premium Running Back, and acts like a fool in the locker room? This franchise would be better off letting him walk, and drafting another back in the third round or later.” [Dawgs By Nature]

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Evaluating in a condensed season: “My point is that I, likely in concert with a host of Cavs fans, have spent more time this season evaluating talent than I did during the LeBron/Playoffs Every Season Era. Byron Scott has a lot of young athletes in his rotation, and fans are trying to figure out the strengths and deficiencies of those athletes on a nightly basis. At times, watching the Cavs is more like study than play.

I wonder, then, what we can learn about the Cavs’ young talent from a season as atypical as this, and how the particular qualities of this NBA season affect the way fans and front offices are interpreting the strengths and deficiencies of that talent.” [Colin McGowan/Cavs The Blog]

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Temporal-spatial analysis the big thing at SSAC this year: “The outlier? Cleveland’s Antawn Jamison, who has attempted shots from more squares than all but five of the above players. It makes sense, when you think about his combination of three-point range and awkward flip shots.

But does Jamison actually shoot efficiently from a lot of those places? Does he hit the one-point-per-attempt minimum that Goldsberry used to find the players who shoot most effectively from the most squares?” [Zach Lowe/The Point Forward]

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Bounty? Incentive? Completely the same, if you ask me: “As a way to entice players to take charges, Lakers Coach Mike Brown used to set up “an incentive program” when he coached the Cleveland Cavaliers.

There, he would shell out $1,000 per month, Brown recalled, usually to Anderson Varejao. The idea certainly pales to the bounty system run by the New Orleans Saints, who, according to an NFL report Friday, compensated players for injuring opponents, interceptions and fumble recoveries. Still, Brown said the NBA didn’t like it. ‘The NBA said we weren’t allowed to do that or else we would get fined as a club,  so we stopped doing it,’ Brown said.” [Mark Medina/Los Angeles Times]