by They even picked up Kameron Wimbley, a tremendous pass rusher out of Florida State with the 13th pick in the NFL draft. As a senior, he recorded three multiple sack games and lead the ACC in sacks. He also led the team in quarterback hurries with 17 and set career-highs in season sacks and tackles for a loss. Despite being injured part of the season, Wimbley was named second team All-ACC and was named All-America by Pro Football Weekly.
The free agent frenzy for the Browns continued as On March 15, 2006, they signed Patriot All Pro linebacker Willie McGinest, reuniting with head coach Romeo Crennel, who was the Patriots’ defensive coordinator during McGinest’s stint in New England. McGinest signed a three-year deal worth $12 million with $6 million in guarantees and bonuses.
For the fist time since the 2002 playoffs, it felt good to be a Browns fan and you were allowed too once again be proud. The enthusiasm and wishful thinking wouldn’t last long however. LeCharles Bentley tore his patellar tendon on the first play of the team’s first 11-on-11 training camp session on July 27, and he missed the entire 2006 season. The very first play of training camp, it literally took one play for all hope to come back to reality. Because of a series of staph infections (yet again) to follow, he would never play again.
What hope was left, seemed to go out the window on the very first play from scrimmage during the season opener. On the very first snap of the season, the Browns and Crenel were determined to show fans that things would finally be different. They ran a flea flicker that saw Reuben Droughns take the handoff and then pitch the ball back to Charlie Frye who launched the ball 74 yards down the field to a wide open Braylon Edwards for a touchdown.
First Energy Stadium went nuts as the winds of change seemed to be blowing and perhaps the football Gods had decided to stop poking needles into the Browns voodo doll. Just like the signing of Bentley, the excitement would be short lived as the played was called back on a Kevin Shaffer holding penalty and the Browns never recovered. Cleveland would go on to lose to the Saints 19-14 as Charlie Frye was up and down all game, finishing with three touchdowns and two interceptions.
The loss to the Saints was a sign of things to come, as the Browns would finish 4-12, and get blown out in 5 of their last 6 games. Charlie Frye didn’t progress as they would have liked. The Zip finished with just 10 touchdown passes next to 17 interceptions in 13 starts. He missed 3 starts due to injury and his backup Derrick Anderson was even more dreadful. Anderson tossed 8 interceptions during that stretch.
Reuben Droughns fell back to earth as he started 12 games and only rushed for 758 yards. He would depart for the Giants in the offseason. While he may have fizzled, the combination of Kellen Winslow Jr and Braylon Edwards took off as hoped. Edwards had 661 yards on 84 catches with 6 touchdowns while “The Soldier” had 89 catches for 879 yards and 3 touchdowns. The best stat for those two, they played all 16 games!
Perhaps Randy Lerner was too busy watching his Premier Club Aston Villa F.C on the pitch to notice that his head coach Romeo Crennel had now gone 10 – 22 in two seasons at the helm. Not to mention the fact that Crenel would now be on this third offensive coordinator in three years as he went from Maurice Carthon to Jeff Davidson to Rob Chudzinski. It didn’t matter, and the highly luxurious and low maintenance “Camp Romeo” was open for year three.
Heading into 2007, little to anything was expected of the Browns, despite the fact that they had two top 6 picks catching the ball in Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow Jr. They still needed a left tackle to block for Charlie Frye, and someone, anyone, to hand the ball off too. They wasted no time addressing both issues early into the 2007 offseason.
Cleveland Browns GM Phil Savage looked like a genius the year prior with the free agent class he brought in, and he was about to do it again. With the hopes of Bentley returning long gone, they needed line help and got it. On March 3, 2007, the Browns signed former Cincinnati Bengals All Pro offensive guard Eric Steinbach to a seven-year contract. The team also signed former Miami Dolphins offensive guard Seth McKinney to a one-year contract. It was also clear to Savage that Charlie Frye wasn’t the answer, so they went after Trent Green from Kansas City, but couldn’t nab him as he would be traded to the Miami Dolphins.
Savage wasn’t done yet however as he still had the huge hole in the run game to fill and did so but taking a stud back away from the enemy. Jamal Lewis was drafted 5th overall by the Baltimore Ravens in the 2000 draft out of Tennessee and instantly took off. He ran for 1364 yards in his rookie year, and then after missing his sophomore season with injury, cam back to run for 1327 yards in 2002.
In 2003, he was the top back in the game as he rushed for 2006 yards. It was just 40 yards short of officially breaking the all-time single-season rushing record, which remains Eric Dickerson’s 2,105 record-breaking yards in 1984. Earlier in 2003, on September 14, 2003, Lewis broke Corey Dillon’s single-game rushing record of 278 yards by running for 295 yards against, you guessed it, the Cleveland Browns. He would go on to be NFL MVP in 2003.
He remained a top back in 2004, 2005 and 2006 as he rushed for 3,004 combined yards. The problem for Baltimore GM Ozzie Newsome was that Lewis numbers were slipping a bit, and he had Mike Anderson chomping at the bits to play. They released Lewis and the Browns finally caught a rare inter division break.
Even with the bump on the line from Steinbach, Savage knew the Browns needed a left tackle, and with a high pick in the draft, went out and got one by selecting Joe Thomas 3rd overall. Thomas was as blue collar as they came, playing his college ball at Wisconsin and being out on a boat fishing when they picked him. Savage showed faith in Lewis with that pick as well, as he passed over dynamic running backs Marshawn Lynch and Adrian Peterson.
The selection of Thomas wasn’t exactly a stretch. Thomas won the Outland Trophy as the nation’s top interior lineman, and he was recognized as a consensus first-team All-American. No one disputed him as the top lineman in the country, and the Browns, like they did with Edwards a few years back, had the best player in the draft fall in their laps.
Then, the draft got interesting, very interesting as Notre Dame quarterback and top prospect Brady Quinn began to slide. Almost every draft pundit had him going top 5, and by the 10th pick, with him still on the board, ESPN and the NFL Network began to show him after every pick, becoming more and more frustrated.
Like Frye, Brady was another Ohio born product, growing up in Columbus and playing his High School ball at Dublin Coffman. He tore it up at Notre Dame in 2005, averaging 110 more passing yards per game than he had as a sophomore while increasing his number of touchdown passes from 17 in 2004 to 32 in 2005. Quinn was named to the 2005 AP All-America Team as a third-team quarterback.
In 2006, he only got better, Quinn finished the season with 3,426 yards on 289 completions out of 467 attempts for a completion percentage of 61.9% and 7.34 yards per attempt. He threw 37 touchdowns to only 7 interceptions, and was sacked 31 times. Quinn finished the regular season with a passing efficiency rating of 146.65. Quinn won numerous awards, including the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award for he best college quarterback in the nation as well as the Maxwell Award for the best college football player. By the time he left Notre Dame, he had thrown for 11,762 yards and 95 touchdowns.
Once ESPN showed him taking a phone call after the 21rst pick, Cleveland fans became excited and started to wishfully think. They didn’t have another first round pick, but when they helmet switched from the Cowboys to the Browns, and a trade was announced, the Quinn frenzy took off. Many fans wanted the Browns to take Quinn at 3, so to get him at 22 and still get Thomas at 3, seemed like Nirvana!
In typical fashion, Quinn would become a holdout at camp, causing him to fall to third on the depth chart behind Derek Anderson and Charlie Frye coming into the season. Quinn eventually signed a five-year deal with the Browns worth a reported $20.2 million, with $7.5 million guaranteed and up to $30 million in incentives which allowed him to play and light it up in the third pre-season game.
