BROWNS WOOING A STAR DEFENSIVE END A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY THIS TIME
By STEVE KING
The Browns are still interested in Jadeveon Clowney.
And the standout defensive end is still interested in them.
That’s the only conclusion that can be reached after reports that he will visit the Browns on Wednesday.
The Browns need a quality defensive end to play opposite of, and complement, their young budding superstar end, Myles Garrett, and Clowney needs a home, one where he’s needed and will fit in on a team that has a chance to not just go to the Super Bowl, but also to win it.
However — and this is the most important part of the story — it has to work financially, and realistically, for both sides, It just has to. If not, then this is all just wasting everybody’s time.
Just because the Browns have money to spend, they’re not going to throw it all — or at least a significant chunk of it — at Clowney to get him to sign.
And just because Clowney is out of work — not offers, mind you, just a job — he is not going to throw himself at the Browns and sign with them for less than what he thinks he’s worth.
This cat-and-mouse game reveals just how much free agency has changed since it began in its current full-fledged fashion 29 years ago.
It was in that first year, spring of 1993, that the Browns and Green Bay Packers staged a highly-publicized, highly-important, high-stakes holy war against one another for the services of defensive end Reggie White, formerly of the Philadelphia Eagles. Browns owner Art Modell went so far as to buy White’s wife, Sara, a mink coat, thinking that if she was happy, then her husband would be, too, and sign with Cleveland, where he would play for two excellent defensive minds in head coach Bill Belichick and defensive coordinator Nick Saban.
The coat sure helped push White toward the Browns, but in the end, though it was a tight battle, he decided in the end to sign a four-year, $17 million contract with Green Bay, where he would play for head coach (and future Browns President) Mike Holmgren), with his wife keeping the somewhat less-expensive coat.
With White on board, the Packers soon got to where they hadn’t been in a while, the Super Bowl, and their third world championship.
Without White on board, the Browns soon got to where they had never been before, Baltimore, but not before going out in 1994 and signing star free-agent wide receiver Andre Rison to the exact four-year, $17 million deal, which is chump change now but was a whole heckuva lot of money then.
The Browns are still waiting to go to the Super Bowl — their first one. Clowney could help that process along nicely, becoming a scaled[-down version of White with the hopes he could do for them a lot of what the Pro Football Hall of Famer did for Green Bay.
And if there’s a coat involved this time, it will have to come from the Browns team shop.
