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Cleveland: The barking is back

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Posted: Monday July 26, 1999 11:49 AM

This is the first in a series of postcards Sports Illustrated's Peter King will e-mail from his annual NFL training-camp tour.

Sunday, July 25

TEAM: Cleveland Browns

SITE: Browns training complex, Berea, Ohio. The $12.5-million Browns facility was built with Art Modell 's (borrowed) money early this decade but still holds up as a top-notch facility. The practice fields were re-sodded in the spring, and, despite droughtish conditions in the United States from Illinois eastward, were pristine for the Browns' first day of full-squad practice.

PLAYER I SAW WHOM I REALLY LIKED: Right tackle Orlando Brown . I'd better like him, for the $27 million it took to sign him. At 6'7" and 350, if this is possible, Brown looked quick Sunday. In one drill run by tight ends coach Ray Perkins , Brown and 269-pound rookie tight end James Dearth were pulling right to block two outside rushers. When Dearth was pulling a nanosecond too slow for Brown's liking, Brown stuck his right hand out and, bullet-like, shoved Dearth in the left rib cage. It's like he was saying: Get over! Get over! Well, Dearth got over. He rolled as if hit by a Pathfinder. I'll be surprised if the pro personnel guys I respect aren't calling Brown an all-pro player soon.

CAMP ODDITY: The starting tackles for the Browns are Brown (Lomas) and Brown (Orlando).

THE FOOD: I am going to disappoint all the people who read these postcards last year and said: "I just loved it when you talked about the food at these camps." Or: "Did you really have stuffed shrimp at Cowboys camp?" Because on this trip, all I had was a banana and spring water while interviewing Chris Spielman , who was munching on sunflower seeds. I promise I'll do better gastronomically over the next three weeks, beginning with my next postcard Thursday. The banana, by the way, though slightly green, was of perfect texture and quite tasty.

Dear NFL Junkie:
There's so much optimism here. I feel bad when I tell somebody what I really think -- that the skill players on this team are light years behind most of the rest of the league, and no expansion team ever won six games by average scores of 13-10. Watching the running backs at the first full-squad practice with USA Today sage Gordon Forbes, I had to agree when he said: "No Leroy Kelly s out here."

Running back Terry Kirby , a journeyman from Virginia, is the nominal starter, though the star of the rookie work earlier in the week was oft-injured Arkansas product Madre Hill . Kirby knows the spotlight's on him, probably for the last starting shot of his seven-year career. And he has the blind optimism that so many Browns, naturally, have on the first day of training camp. "Look at our team on paper," Kirby said after the first practice of the rest of the Browns' life. "We can succeed here. We're not just one of those so-called expansion teams." He might be right. But my money says Chris Palmer 's checking the waiver wire for backs and receivers over the next six weeks.

Great to have football back here, by the way. Fans deserve it. And they were barking at 8:10 this morning, when punter Chris Gardocki made his way onto the practice field. Tim Couch followed shortly. I walked with him for 50 yards or so.

"Been barked at yet?''

"Yeah," Couch said. "Happened a lot this week at rookie practice. You can really see the love affair these people have with their team. It's great."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Check back soon for more Postcards from Camp. To send a question to Peter King's Mailbag, click here.

 

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