Mark O

I never won a damn thing from those raffles either.

That's basically where I am. Hopefully he uses the fact that he was out of a job and out of the league as a wake up call and doesn't do anything like this again. He deserves a 2nd chance but certainly not a third.

Point to any professional sports team that has that.

Very low risk possible high reward signing then.

Could be just a one year rental or who knows could be longer term. I've not seen what we are paying him at this point.

I believe that is correct as well or at least I read that Browns control his rights after this season.

He's gonna be 24 years old when the season starts. He lead the league in rushing and was well on his way this season as well. If he had just told the Chiefs the truth about this, he's still in KC and they probably win the super bowl with him. Dorsey has a history with him since he drafted him and all and Dorsey isn't afraid of a little PR issues if he thinks the guy can help the team win games. No question that Hunt makes the Browns a better team.

You're gonna need to find a new sport then snowflake. Hunt can help the team win games. Winning games is the goal of any franchise in the NFL (or any sport for that matter). Second, people deserve a 2nd chance to prove they learned from mistakes, and third who the hell are any of us to judge what this guy did or didn't do?

I don't like at all what he did and hope that it was a one time thing and I believe that everyone should have the opportunity for a 2nd chance. The statement is a nice first step but those are just words. His actions and the things he says and more importantly does going forward will tell if he stays in the league or is done before long. From a strictly football standpoint, its a great signing with huge upside and very little downside other than PR hits and that nonsense but who really cares what a bunch of talking heads on ESPN or where ever have to say anyways?

No parties. Just my wife and I watching the game and a big crock pot of chili that we will start making on Saturday afternoon so its good and ready and spicy come kickoff on Sunday. Maybe a beer or two...never know.

I think that probably goes with the length of career which will most often be longer in baseball than football. Although watching two 40+ year old QB's play yesterday, the NFL QB's career can certainly last longer than it used to in the old days. That just doesn't apply to other positions in football though. As long as a guy can hit or get guys out (even for 1 inning) your baseball career can last quite awhile.

It did go downhill quite quickly. For added fuel to the fire. Read somewhere today that Antwaan Randle El who was drafted in both football and baseball said if he could do it over, he'd play baseball instead. So there's that.

From Peter King, football morning in America column today: One by one in the early days of the new year, coaching candidates were grilled by the Browns’ braintrust (owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, GM John Dorsey, strategist Paul DePodesta, EVP J.W. Johnson, personnel people Eliot Wolf, Alonzo Highsmith, Andrew Berry), the interviews lasting six to eight hours apiece. Interim coach Gregg Williams first, then ex-Colts and -Lions coach Jim Caldwell, Minnesota offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski, Saints assistant head coach Dan Campbell, Pats linebackers coach Brian Flores, Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus … and last, interim offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens. The Browns were looking for a leader of men, a respected man who knew their team, and not the best available offensive mind, which was the flavor of the month. They were looking for the best coach, in terms of presence, building a team, and scheming a modern offense and defense. That is why I respect what Cleveland did in hiring Freddie Kitchens, who, despite his success as offensive coordinator in the second half of the season with Baker Mayfield, had to be better than six other men who spent at least six hours apiece with the interviewers over the course of eight days. This is a coach no one currently in the organization knew—and I am not exaggerating—when he was hired to coach the Browns’ running backs last winter. I don’t know if Kitchens will succeed or fail. But I do know this: The Browns worked to identify strong candidates, ignored the most obvious one (Mike McCarthy, despite his closeness with Dorsey) on the market, and did not know at the start of the process three weeks ago who they would hire. If you think the fix was in for Kitchens, consider that the buzz around the team, before the Kitchens interview, was that Stefanski of the Vikings was the favorite. They loved Stefanski’s interview and thought he’d be a good match for Mayfield. Then Kitchens had a blunt and boffo interview, and Stefanski and Kitchens were the two leaders in the clubhouse, and they came back for second interviews, and Kitchens won it. Shouldn’t that be the way teams hire coaches? Denver GM John Elway told me last week, effectively, that the fix was in on Vance Joseph. Elway had “pre-drawn” (his wording) the case for Joseph entering the 2017 coach search after Gary Kubiak, and Elway said he’d never do that again. In this case, if the Browns had a list of 100 names on their head-coach list at the start of the 2018 season, Kitchens would not have been on it. Ditto GM Chris Ballard in Indianapolis last year; he didn’t have Frank Reich anywhere near his list at the end of the 2017 season, and Reich ended up with the job, and he led the Colts from 1-5 to a playoff victory in 2018. Freddie Kitchens. (Getty Images) I asked Kitchens last week for the short version of what he said to the Browns’ committee when he met with them Jan. 7. “The Cliff’s Notes version … okay,” Kitchens said Friday from Cleveland, the southern twang still prominent in his voice 21 years after he left the University of Alabama, where he played quarterback. “I am going to get to know the players. I am going to ask the players their opinions, and I am going to listen to their input. I am going to convince them that we’re all in this together, and I can’t do it without them. They are going to trust me and respect me. Once they know you trust them and respect them, you can have tough conversations. It’s nothing personal. It’s just real. It doesn’t mean you’re a players’ coach. If I’m a players’ coach, I never would have been able to work for coach [Bill] Parcells [in Dallas in 2006]. I’ll make every decision based on the team and on the player. This is truly, probably, the ultimate people business. Coaches like to make it about themselves, but coaches aren’t playing the game. It’s a players’ game. A coach might survive two or three years without the buy-in of the players, but without that, it’s over and they’ll have to move on to the next team.” Pause. “That’s about it,” Kitchens said. “When I had the chance to run the offense this year [after Hue Jackson was fired in midseason], I felt the players respected me and trusted me. I haven’t invented the wheel. Trust me. It’s football, and a lot of people are great at teaching and coaching football. But this team, this offense, I felt we had respect for each other and I felt like we were getting results.” Kitchens was amazed at the people the Browns called to fact-find about him. Adrian Peterson and David Johnson (coached by Kitchens in Arizona in 2017), Patrick Peterson and Larry Fitzgerald (who witnessed him for several years), Carson Palmer (coached by Kitchens from 2013-16), Kurt Warner, Bill Parcells (Kitchens was on his last Dallas staff in 2006) … and A.Q. Shipley. A.Q. Shipley? “I see this number come up that I don’t recognize, and I almost didn’t answer,” said Shipley, a center for the Cardinals since 2015. “Then I pick up, and this guy says, This is so-and-so from the Cleveland Browns, and I was hoping I could ask you a couple of things about Freddie Kitchens. I thought, ‘Wow. They must be serious about Freddie, calling me.’ But I love Freddie. And I told them that. When I got to Arizona, Freddie was the QB coach at the time, and for the first time I’d seen this in football, the quarterback coach, the offensive coordinator, the quarterback—Carson Palmer—and the center—me—would meet during the week. Communication between the center and the quarterback is so important for protections and other stuff, and Freddie understood it would be a good idea to communicate multiple times every week, between Wednesday morning and Saturday night. It was a great idea. They also asked me how I thought Freddie would be up in front of the full team. I told ‘em he’ll be great with players. I think they must have already known that, from how Freddie did with Baker Mayfield late in the year.” “What are you calling me for?” Parcells told the Browns. “You been around this guy for the last nine months. You know him.” When Kitchens heard Cleveland would interview six coaches before him, and that he’d be last, he loved both of those things. When he heard all the people they’d called about him, he loved that too. “I really was wanting them to have a thorough search,” Kitchens said. “One reason and one reason only: I wanted the organization, and I mean everyone in the room, to think, ‘He’s our guy.’ I didn’t want them to have any doubt. I didn’t want them thinking they wished they’d interviewed other guys. So if I got the job, I got the job because I was the best man. I got it for the right reasons. That’s what impressed me about this process. I didn’t know John Dorsey when I got here a year ago. He didn’t hire one of his friends. He didn’t hire someone to win the press conferences. He hired who he thought was the best coach for his team. He saw something in me I was always hoping someone would see—13 years coaching in the NFL, seven years coaching in college, just doing my job, trying to make players better. Nothing else. If nobody ever saw that, I’d have been fine, because I always liked my job.” Curious: Mayfield was a top 10 NFL quarterback the second half of the season under Kitchens. What did Mayfield think of him getting the job? Coachspeak. In-house. Time to be the head coach. “You’ll have to ask him,” Kitchens said. “But I am pretty sure he’s not disappointed.”

Totally agree. Long term, more money in baseball assuming he makes it to the majors but no guarantee there that he does, plenty of first round picks don't make it. Immediately, he will make more money playing in the NFL.

How am I way off? How much is he going to make playing for the Stockton A's in single A baseball next season? Starting pay is between $1100 and 2100 per month. Lets say because he's a first round pick he makes 10 grand a month for his minor league deal. That's still peanuts compared to what his rookie contract as a first round pick in the NFL is worth. I already posted what Jackson got as the 32nd pick in the first round. The No. 32 overall pick signed his rookie contract Tuesday, the team announced. The deal, according to NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport, pays out $9.47 million with a $4.97 million signing bonus. The signing bonus for being a first round NFL pick was higher than he got from the A's and his initial contract is much higher than hes going to get playing in single A and riding a bus through central California. Explain to me again how I'm way off in saying that he would immediately make more money playing in the NFL than he will playing baseball.

And the problem there is what exactly??

Of course they do...and in a lot of ways he's still a kid as well at only 21 years old. Immediately, there's more money in football. Long term (assuming he makes the majors and is as good as his draft position) he would play longer and make more money in baseball.

That's what I said. His career will be longer in baseball. But he isn't playing for the Oakland A's next season. Every baseball person I've heard says he will be playing for the Stockton A's in 2019 and best case scenario he ends the year in AA and then has a chance to play in Oakland in 2020. That's the best and fast tracked through the minor league system but there's no guarantees of that. Lots of first round baseball draft picks flame out and never make it to the majors. A much higher percentage than first round draft busts in the NFL.

Baseball career is almost definitely longer. Immediate money and chance to play in the big time is in the NFL. He's 3 years at least away from even being in major league baseball. That's a lot of bus rides and playing for peanuts as opposed to being a first round draft choice and being in the NFL. Will he have a long NFL career? No one knows. I doubt it because of his size but there's no guarantee he's making it to the majors either. First round draft picks in baseball flame out and are never heard from again much more often than they do in the NFL.

Could be right. I think he just looks small and skinny, more like Manziel than Brees/Wilson/Mayfield who despite not being tall, look to be solidly built.

Its not really my argument.....just pointing out the other side and there's a lot more money immediately to be made in the NFL. But it all depends on his draft position. Nice that it's something we don't have to think or deal with because we already have a QB. I agree with you that he looks kinda small to me. I didn't watch as much of OU this past year as I did the year before but he seems small.

Im really only repeating what I've heard and that is that he's a first round QB in this year's draft. Hell Kliff Klingsbutter said he'd pick him number 1 overall so maybe the Cardinals will take him first and trade Rosen. Who knows.

I'm only going by what i heard on the pregame shows on Sunday and they were saying that he's a potential first round pick. Now, if he's mid to late round or undrafted NFL QB then I definitely change my thoughts. But as a first round pick, he's gonna get at least through his rookie contract in the league and probably get another deal somewhere unless he totally shits the bed.

The signing bonus for a first round pick is basically the same amount in the NFL. Lamar Jackson...last pick of the first round: Lamar Jackson signed a four year contract with the Baltimore Ravens worth $9,471,652 on June 5, 2018. Jackson received $8, 055,062 in guarantees including a $4,968,472 signing bonus. The other guaranteed portions of the contract are Jackson's entire 2018, 2019 & 2020 salaries and $355,000 of his 2021 salary. Jackson was the 32nd pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. Murray is being talked about as a first round pick so he's going to make AT LEAST that much in the NFL. Then there's this from an article I"m reading right now: But Murray was facing a long road through the minors on minimum wage at best, apart from his signing bonus, which would be the most money he’d make until he was at least three or four years into his big league career, by which point he’d be into his arbitration years. And he’d be traveling that road in working and living conditions that would’ve been a substantial step down from what he enjoyed as a football player at Oklahoma, and certainly from what he’ll enjoy in the NFL. I get it that he's likely to have a much longer career playing baseball, but right now there's a lot more money immediately to go play in the NFL. The A's signing bonus doesn't matter since he'll get the same thing or more as a first round pick in the NFL. He' ain't gonna make $350k per season playing in the minors in baseball.

It could....but he'll get a few years of NFL money which is more than he's gonna make playing in Modesto next season.