On Shaq, Phil, Brady, Josh...and Sweet Lou Brown

Caught the Cavs’ preseason game Wednesday night against Washington. LeBron James was out with flu symptoms, so it was up to Shaquille O’Neal to make things interesting, and he did, scoring 13 points and grabbing six rebounds in less than 20 minutes of action. You don’t get much from preseason games, but:

-- O’Neal looks good. If he averages 13 and 6 this season, he’ll match what Zydrunas Ilgauskas put up a year ago. If last night’s game was any indication, he’ll exceed that. He remains a force.

-- O’Neal is also entertaining. All eyes were on him, especially with LeBron out. He handles the attention and adulation with ease and is calm and unflappable. That will rub off on his teammates.

-- Ilgauskas looks lost. Sure, he’s adjusting to coming off the bench. But Mike Brown has to find a way to make Big Z feel like he’s an integral part of what’s going on out there. He was mostly on the floor with second, third and even fourth-stringers, and he didn't appear to be comfortable.

-- Anthony Parker and Jamario Moon are going to make a big difference. In fact, if this team stays healthy, they will be incredibly deep and versatile.

All that said, there was no real electricity in the arena last night, and that’s because LeBron wasn’t there. Anyone who doubts how much he transcends the sport today simply isn’t paying attention. It’s his team, his city, and, for that matter, his league. No one on the floor last night comes remotely close to James in talent. Dan Gilbert needs to do whatever is necessary to keep Number 23 in a Cavaliers uniform.

Browns fans can relax: Phil Dawson is on the mend! Let’s face it, the co-MVPs of this team are Dawson and punter Dave Zastudil (last week’s AFC Special Teams Player of the Week) -- at least, that’s how it seems. Dawson, who has been nursing a sore hamstring for two weeks, may not kick against Pittsburgh this week, but should be fine for the Packers the following week. I’ve said before that Dawson has quietly put up numbers that make him one of the all-time greats in Browns history. You can read my thoughts on the subject here. Maybe the new Browns marketing slogan should be, “We’re Kickin’ in Cleveland!”

So Brady Quinn has put his house up for sale. Wouldn’t you? All the right things have been said this week, by Quinn and the Browns. But the situation is curious, if not ominous. Reports say Quinn is unhappy with his benching. Ah, yet another young quarterback casualty in Cleveland. What a mess. Eric Mangini seems committed to Derek Anderson, who has steered the ship through two close games. Yet Anderson’s 2-for-17 performance against Buffalo was so astonishingly inept that it’s impossible to believe he’s the answer. But, as Terry Pluto pointed out in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Browns think their running game has improved because D.A. is a threat to throw deep. So Anderson it is, and, one way or another, Quinn will be moving.

Peter King of Sports Illustrated thinks Josh Cribbs is the best special teams player in the NFL. He’s not alone. I joked with a guy at the stadium recently that the Browns should line Cribbs up 30 yards behind the quarterback on offense, and then have Anderson turn around and throw a high lob pass back to him. In other words, simulate a punt or kickoff return on every play. The law of averages, not to mention recent evidence, says that Cribbs would return one for a touchdown more frequently than the rest of the offense would ever score.

Cribbs was an explosive offensive weapon at Kent State (right), where he played quarterback for four seasons, leaving as the all-time total offense leader with 10,839 yards. He also holds school records in completions, passing yards, touchdowns and total points. Twice, he rushed and passed for over 1,000 yards in the same season -- one of only four players in NCAA history to accomplish that feat. His senior year, he completed 64.5 percent of his passes for 2,215 yards and 17 touchdowns, against just six interceptions. He also rushed for 893 yards and nine TDs! He is the only player in NCAA history to lead his team in passing and rushing for four consecutive seasons.

And we’re lamenting the fact that he isn’t a true #2…receiver? The mind reels. All I know is, when Josh Cribbs steps on the field, there is hope. Make of it what you will.

Good one, Big Ben – very funny: Read an item that said when Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, an Ohio native, was passed over by the Browns in the 2004 draft – they traded up to take Kellen Winslow – Big Ben was upset. Now, he admits he “wouldn’t trade where I am now for anything. . .I’m kind of happy here.” No kidding.

The Indians are interviewing Manny Acta for their managerial position? Really? Acta went 158-252 in two-plus seasons managing the Washington Nationals. I mean, could we please bring in a proven winner? Is it that hard?

Then again, it is the suddenly moribund Indians. The mind wanders to the classic line from that wise sage Lou Brown (left) in the movie “Major League,” when fictional GM Charlie Donovan calls him at the auto shop where he's working and asks him if he’d like to manage the Tribe: “Let me get back to you, will ya’, Charlie? I’ve got a guy on the other line asking about some white walls.”

Till next time…

In Praise of Phil Dawson

The Browns outlasted the Buffalo Bills Monday night, but that’s not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about Phil Dawson.

Had he kicked for the Browns in just about any other era, he’d be thought of among the team’s all-time greats.

For one, he’d have scored a lot more points. The poor guy had only 53 in the offensively challenged season of 1999, the year the Browns returned to the NFL. He kicked just eight field goals the entire year, and only 23 extra points. Not a lot of opportunities, there.

There would be another season of offensive woe in 2000 before Dawson and the team began to climb out of the abyss, culminating in last year’s 10-6 turnaround (or tease, depending on how you look at it), during which Dawson tallied 120 points -- a respectable total in anybody’s book.

Could you imagine if he’d been kicking for those Browns juggernaut teams of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s?

As it is, Dawson has totaled 852 points in his 9-plus seasons, and one has to believe he’d be well over 1,000 by now had he teed it up for the Browns of eras past.

But it’s a look inside the numbers that is startling.

Dawson has connected on 83 percent of his career field goal attempts. Eighty-three percent! Hall of Famer Lou Groza (left), known as “The Toe,” connected on just 58 percent of his attempts in 17 glory-filled seasons. Don Cockroft, Groza’s successor who spent 13 years with the team, connected on 66 percent.

Breakdowns by yardage aren’t available for Groza’s era, but a comparison of Cockroft and Dawson is even more telling. Including last night’s game winning 56-yard field goal -- a career best -- Dawson has made 10 of 14 career attempts beyond the 50 yard line, a 77 percent success rate. Cockroft? Try 3-of-19, for 16 percent.

This is not to take anything away from Cockroft (left), who doubled as the team’s punter for most of his career. But that’s a stunning disparity. It’s just as significant in the 40-49 yard category, where Dawson has connected 68 percent of the time, to Cockroft’s 52 percent.

Last night’s win over Buffalo illustrated perhaps as much as any game in recent memory why Dawson is so valuable to this team. He was 5-for-5 on field goal attempts. Add in the two extra points and he had 17 of the Browns’ 29 points. Without his steady foot, the game would have been lost.

Dawson is the only remaining player from the 1999 roster and has quietly defined excellence for a decade of seasons wearing the orange and brown. His field goal success rate is the fifth-best in NFL history.

Dawson has gotten stronger, and better, as he’s gotten older. He’s a seasoned veteran with ice in his veins, and quietly gets the job done week in and week out. In fact, there's hardly a time when Dawson comes out on the field when you don't think he's able to make the kick.

In my book, he’s already one of the all-time Cleveland greats. We should enjoy his work and appreciate him while we can.