Tony Grossi, who covers the Browns for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com, says that the Browns blew it by not scooping up Floyd Reese before Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots did. Grossi calls it a "brilliant'' hire by the Pats.

"After he lost Scott Pioli to the Kansas City Chiefs, Belichick realized he needed somebody with quality experience to mentor Pioli's eventual replacement, Nick Caserio, the team's director of player personnel. Reese has almost as many years experience in the NFL (31) as Caserio has on Earth (33).

"Now, wouldn't it have made a lot of sense for the Browns to consider Reese in a similar capacity? Wouldn't it have made their organization stronger to have Reese on hand as a sounding board while Eric Mangini, 38, and George Kokinis, 41, retool the Browns' football operations?''