Stalled Renegotiations Killing Browns Offseason.

Tim Couch. Gerard Warren. Courtney Brown. The Browns failure to come to terms renegotiating with these guys has handcuffed the team at the start of free agency. It's basically the story of the Browns' offseason to date, and since free agency began yesterday it has now officially damaged the team for the 2004 season.

I honestly thought that, come early Wednesday morning, we'd hear that at least 1 or two of these guys had new contracts. Instead, nobody is resigned and nobody seems to even be talking about it. The only thing I can figure is the Browns are banking on the fact that, after the initial flurry of big-dollar free agency deals, it will be come apparent to these guys that no one is going to give them a better offer than the Browns. That may work as a negotiating strategy, but it lessens the team's margin for error in the later parts of free agency. In fact, I'd say that margin of error is so small that it's hard to be really optimisitc.