When you have a good team with a lot of quality starters, eventually a point in time comes when you cannot keep everyone. The team is up against the cap because it has invested in its starters, and in retaining its key backups. Hope was a guy that had unrealistic expectations for his compensation. They already signed his replacement 2 days ago, a guy that will probably come at around half of the price. Remember, Hope took a nice ride on the Droughns express last season. Kimo got a very fair offer for his services from the Jets, so losing him will hurt some, but we resigned his replacement, who is 10 years younger. Bettis rushed for a whopping 300 yards last year, he'll be missed in the clubhouse way more than on the field.
As far as Randel El goes, I will definately miss his punt returns, but he's an average receiver at best, who has extremely shaky hands. I think the front office made him and most of our other guys fair offers, but obviously they weren't enough. And I doubt that they would want to pay a #3 WR 3 million a year. The Skins paid way too much money to him for what he brings to the table.
So while you enjoy a bunch of free agents, I will enjoy the fact that my team picked up a ring. No matter how bad you want to spin it, the refs cheated, all that lame shit,etc, etc, the Steelers have 5 more rings than the Browns do at this point. If the Steelers had blown out the seahawks 42-0 in the SuperBowl, there is a strong likelyhood that no Browns fans would respect them anyways. Defeat is a pretty bitter pill to swallow, it's about time the Browns franchise actually made some moves in the right direction. So I LOL right back at ya, because victory is sweet.
.
