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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Bentley mystery solved
A day after triumphantly returning to the practice field but saying he didn’t necessarily need to play for Browns, offensive lineman LeCharles Bentley is a free agent.
His agent, Jonathan Feinsod, this afternoon told Cleveland.com that Bentley asked for his release and it’s been granted.
Bentley passed his physical Tuesday and practiced lightly with the team that morning. Wednesday, he missed practice and a team meeting and the Browns said they didn’t know why.
Now they know. And so do we.
“LeCharles doesn’t want to be an insurance policy,” Feinsod told the Web site. “He’s going to play somewhere in 2008.”
And thus ends the Bentley era in Cleveland.
Bentley was seen leaving the practice facility shortly after noon, apparently after speaking to GM Phil Savage and head coach Romeo Crennel.
A clue on Tuesday came when Bentley said he saw himself starting somewhere in ‘08. The Browns’ line is too good at the moment for any such guarantee along those lines to be made. Besides which, Bentley still needs to go to training camp and show he can hold up under the rigors of contact.
Now he’ll be doing that somewhere else.
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Bentley skips practice, meeting
Offensive lineman LeCharles Bentley missed practice and a team meeting this morning. Then, when he finally showed up in the building, he requested to meet with GM Phil Savage and head coach Romeo Crennel.
No word, only wild speculation, on what this might be all about. Is Bentley, who on Tuesday received clearance to practice with the team after a two-year, injury-related absence, reconsidering his comeback? Does he want his release so he can shop for another team?
Crennel seemed flummoxed when he met with the media just a few minutes ago. “We’ll find out what the situation is,” he said. “I’m not going to speculate.”
It’s otherwise a beautiful day in the neighborhood, no rain in sight, so the Browns are practicing under bright sunshine as opposed to within the stuffy confines of the Casey Coleman Field House.
And if they needed a wakeup call, there was always defensive tackle Shaun Smith to provide it.
“It’s a great day to be out here,” Smith warbled as individual drills began around 10 a.m. “Where else would you want to be?”
The routine is pretty much the same as a training camp practice. Early stretching, then positional work, followed by the team period, which is the best time to be watching because it gets fairly competitive.
The first fight of the week broke out this morning between Nathan Bennett, a rookie offensive lineman from Clemson, and veteran linebacker Antwan Peek. Nothing much came of it. I mean, it didn’t degenerate into anything like the teamwide skirmish that marred Baltimore Ravens minicamp a few weeks ago.
“It’s just competition,” Crennel said. “And it’s hot.”
Say this about these Browns. They are a hungry and serious bunch after coming so close to making the playoffs last season. It’s part of what led veteran running back Jamal Lewis to re-sign here. Well, OK, a three-year contract extension probably had the most to do with it, but it’s not as if he didn’t have options.
Oh, and another thing from this morning: Receiver Joe Jurevicius (knee surgery, staph infection) insists he’ll be ready for opening day.
