(We know you're out there somewhere).
Less than 48 hours after the preseason Week 4 in-game tryouts of Casey Redfern and Mike Palardy landed with simultaneous thuds, the Browns have turned to veteran Britton Colquitt to alleviate their field-position needs. Cleveland signed the 31-year-old punter to a one-year deal on Saturday and waived Palardy, the team announced.
Colquitt was cut by the Denver Broncos on Tuesday, drawing the ire of at least one former professional specialist who felt the movedidn't reflect the punter's performance.
The signing is the latest savvy move on the part of Sashi Brown, Browns executive VP of football operations, who hasn't constructed a contender for 2016, but has stocked the cupboard with a handful of young talent and even more future high draft picks. It fills a void created by last week's deal that sent Lee to the Carolina Panthers for a fourth-round pick, which, when considering the Browns just gave up nothing to secure a near-equivalent veteran punter (Lee's 2015 average net yardage: 40.1; Colquitt's: 39.7), looks to be quite a coup.
Add in the Aug. 25 deal that garnered the Browns a fifth-rounder for Barkevious Mingo, a linebacker who was very much on the bubble and even more likely to get cut, and the news that Philadelphia traded starting quarterbackSam Bradford to Minnesota (Cleveland owns Philadelphia's 2017 first-rounder), and it's been a pretty good couple of weeks for Brown and Co.
