Monday, March 27, 2000
BENGALS NOTEBOOK
Bengals set for Browns' leftovers
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Cleveland Browns predict next month's NFL draft will mirror 1999, when the player they passed over with the first pick will become a Bengal.
“That's the way it looks now. The player we don't take will probably go to Cincinnati,” said Dwight Clark Sunday as the Browns' director of football operations reviewed his team's options.
Clark tried to keep Florida State wide receiver Peter Warrick in the mix publicly Sunday, but Warrick remains the leading candidate to fall to the Bengals.
Quarterback Akili Smith came to the Bengals last season with the third pick in the draft when the Browns passed over him for quarterback Tim Couch at No.1.
Clark tried to counter reports Penn State defensive end Courtney Brown is a lock to go No.1 by saying Warrick is still on the Browns' “radar screen,” and that the club will opt for the most signable player.
“We want to at least have a (verbal) agreement with someone before the draft,” Clark said.
Clark is convinced the Redskins are going to take Alabama left tackle Chris Samuels with either the second or third pick.
The Browns say they are still considering Brown, Warrick and Penn State linebacker LaVar Arrington. Washington figures to take a defensive player with Samuels.
It's clear the two defensive players have moved quickly up the Browns board; Clark said the Browns won't give Warrick a private workout.
“It's not that (Warrick) has dropped,” Clark said. “But the other two guys have moved up.”
MORE RECEIVERS: Speaking of wide receivers, the Bengals don't expect unhappy Carl Pickens to show up next Monday when the club begins working out their quarterbacks and wide receivers. He has also indicated he might not show up at the mandatory April 28-30 mini-camp, which would be a finable offense.
Steve Zucker, Pickens' agent, will be hanging around the lobby here at The Breakers Resort today, where he's expected to make another request of Bengals President Mike Brown to trade his client.
“I'll talk to him, but we still expect Carl to fulfill his contractual obligations,” said Brown of the five-year, $23 million deal Pickens signed last September. “He just signed it, and it's a good contract.”
The Bengals and Ravens apparently still haven't talked about a trade involving Pickens, and Cincinnati doubts Baltimore will do anything because they can get a younger, solid guy with the fifth or 15th picks in a receiver-rich draft.
Cleveland's Clark and Carmen Policy have coveted Pickens since their days in San Francisco, but word from the Browns is they feel he doesn't fit the club's vertical passing game and that Pickens belongs in a ball-possession West Coast offense.
The Cowboys are another team that likes Pickens and probably would have given Cincinnati a second-round pick for him before last year's draft. But not now after they traded for Joey Galloway and have a batch of young, cheap receivers such as former Bengal Jason Tucker, a sixth-round pick in 1998.
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