MLB News: OF Ezequiel Carrera claimed off waivers; David Huff clears
April 2, 2013
WFNY Podcast – 2013-04-02 – Terry Pluto talks Twitter, Facebook, tailgating culture and more
April 2, 2013The Browns today announced that they have released safety Usama Young and linebacker Chris Gocong.
Gocong tore his right Achilles during practice and missed the entire season. He had 2 years left on his contract, and was due to make $4.62 million this season. Young would have been a free agent after the 2013 season. He was due $2.4 million this year.
The Browns won’t be in a hurry to sign a replacement for Gocong with the moves already made in free agency, but the secondary is already pretty thin.
While the team may certainly look for a safety in the draft, don’t be surprised if new defensive coordinator Ray Horton doesn’t make a push to bring in free agent Kerry Rhodes who played for him in Arizona.
The Browns also signed a kicker. Brandon Bogotay. From the team-
“A three-year letterman as a kicker at the University of Georgia (2009-11), Bogotay appeared in 14 contests, while kicking behind current Minnesota Vikings kicker Blair Walsh, who as a rookie in 2012 was voted to the NFC Pro Bowl squad. During his collegiate career, Bogotay handled kickoff duties as eight of his 29 career kickoffs went for touchbacks. He also converted all seven career PATs. As a senior, he made one of two field goal attempts, as his only miss came from 52 yards.
Before attending the University of Georgia, Bogotay spent one season at Grossmont College in El Cajon, California, where he was named a First-Team All-Southern Conference selection after converting 15-of-23 field goals with a long of 52 yards. Born May 8, 1989, the 6-3, 207-pound Bogotay attended Patrick Henry High School in his hometown of San Diego, California.
Gocong was acquired in a 2010 trade with Philadelphia. Since that time he started 32 games and totaled 141 tackles with 5.5 sacks, six passes defensed, three fumble recoveries and three forced fumbles. He spent all of last season on injured reserve with a ruptured right Achilles sustained in training camp.
Young was signed as an unrestricted free agent in 2011. In his two seasons with the team he played in 29 games with 19 starts and posted 118 tackles, four interceptions, 1.5 sacks, eight passes defensed and a fumble recovery.”
[Related: Fair shots at the end of the McCoy era]
31 Comments
So the first attempt at replacing Phil Dawson attempted a total of 3 FGs in college, and not since 2011. http://espn.go.com/college-football/player/stats/_/id/482771/brandon-bogotay
According to his twitter feed, he is also a Heat fan. https://twitter.com/Bogotay32
This should be…interesting.
I’m wondering if they are bringing him in purely as a kickoff specialist? If so, he wasn’t that amazing of a kickoff specialist at UGA, so either way I don’t really get it.
yeah, I also dont know why you would get a kickoff specialist before having a placekicker that requires an accompanying kickoff specialist…
Quite true
i’m not worried about replacing Gocong and Usama. but, ILB and S are already pretty thin spots that we haven’t addressed in FA. hopefully, we can get some depth in there.
as of now, projected starters are JMJ (ILB) and Gipson (FS), right?
just sign a bunch of legs and have them fight it out in OTA’s, July, and August. there are only 32 spots open in the NFL and some of them get taken up for 15+ years. we should have plenty of interest.
Trimming the dead weight, nice.
What is wrong with Gocong?? Too expensive? This puzzles me a bit. I feel he played decent for the Browns. At the very least, wouldnt he have been our 5th LB?
The Heckert/Holmgren purge continues…
Probably something to do with the fact he tore his Achilles
no Banner just wants all the Heckert picks gone, including linebackers that we need badly.
I’m beginning to think Banner failed high school math. if you add up the number of players signed to contracts, and the number of draft picks we have, we won’t have enough players to fill some positions. Either Banner is bad at math or he is expecting players to play multiple positions on offense and defense.
Not that I love Young or Gocong but we need bodies at this point.
0 FB
-1 WR (mo mass)
-1 starting TE (lost our 2 starts and replace with 2 back-ups)
-1 backup lineman (cousins)
-1 RB (Jackson)
-3 DBs (Short a CB and Gipson or Hagg is our starting free safety!)
-1 D-line (cut 2 signed 1 but move to 3-4 makes this a push)
LB is a push (lost 2, signed 2)
punter is a push
Still don’t have a legit kicker yet either…
We picked up a pick in the McCoy trade but unless we sign some surprise free agents, we are going to need a lot of UDFs to become starters.
Banner and the Staff have more info on Gocong and his rehab than anyone. I’m sure they wouldn’t have released him if they thought he could be productive for us. The injury and release are certainly unfortunate, I thought Gocong was decent in 2011. Usama Young, on the other hand, was probably my 2nd least favorite Brown behind Owen Marecic. Took the worst tackling angles ever, thought he was really subpar. Glad to see the team agreed.
Not surprised at all. I was hoping we could try trading them, but obviously there weren’t many takers. Next up, “Hands” Marecic.
Exactly. Just look at Zuerlein and Walsh. This won’t be our last K signed. And if it is, boy I hope Bogotay enjoys unfair comparisons and lofty expectations.
So after these cuts we are back up to $34.5M+ in cap space right?
how ya figure, sports fan? Have they also cut Gordon, Little, Richardson, Schwartz, Sheard….
Fuzzy math much?
THATZ THE NEXT SHOO 2 DROP! U WATCH!
So, now we have an enormous amount of cap space. But, for what?
Is Banner positioning himself on making a Chris Grant-like run at an Uber-Free Agent in the future? (ie. LeBron 2014) If so, who?
His past history does not indicate him to be intelligent enough to pull something like that off.
While i didn’t expect either player to make the final roster, the timing seems odd. Why didn’t we clear that cap space before the start of FA? If we’re going to wait, i don’t understand why we wouldn’t wait until after the draft so as not to not tip our hand.
As for Kerry Rhodes, just sign him already. I don’t like the thought of someone on our current roster starting at FS if we don’t get who we want in the draft.
Oops, I mean Lombardi.
you know there’s this thing called the draft…
And Young was horrible.
Gipson is already better than Young IMO, but surely they will bring somebody in at safety. I don’t know if JMJ is better than 2011 Gocong, but I’m assuming they either didn’t think we were getting the 2011 Gocong back or that he would struggle in the new scheme. I believe the starters are set at LB and we’ll just see some depth added in late rounds of the draft at this point.
It’s still possible to sign more players, you know. I’m going out on a limb here, but I fully expect to start the season with a full roster of players.
That’s all but like 6 guys, lol.
yet you don’t comment on the linebacker situation…
OLB: Sheard, Kruger, Groves, ??
ILB: DQ, JMJ, Fort, Robertson
compared to our DB situation, the LBers are solid.
This roster will be incomplete this year. Banner said as much. It had a ton of holes and moving to the 3-4 created more holes. They filled a bunch, but you can only do so much in a year.
riiiight…b/c that’s the unit that’s thin…