Written by Thomas Moore

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It’s all over for the Cleveland Browns.

It’s time to turn off the lights, lock the doors and put a for sale sign on the team headquarters in Berea. Start listing the uniforms on EBay and fold the franchise.

That’s the only conclusion we can come to judging from the reaction pouring in from some corners of Browns nation after the team failed to “do something” on the opening day of free agency in the NFL.

Apparently to some fans, the fact the Browns did not sign someone, anyone, in the first 20 minutes of free agency means the team just isn’t trying.

In this warped view, team president Mike Holmgren and general manager Tom Heckert should be more like Mortimer and Randolph Duke, riding around in a limousine while trying to lure free agents inside with promises of money, clothes, nice houses and “whiskey, all you want.”

Sadly, that’s not the way it works in the NFL if you want to be maximize your chances at being a successful franchise.

There were two examples on the opening day of free agency – involving two players that the Browns could clearly use – that show just how fickle and difficult the pursuit of free agents can be for a team.

The first is wide receiver Pierre Garcon, who has 188 catches for 16 touchdowns in four seasons in the league, all with Indianapolis. Garcon proved last year that he can catch passes from bad quarterbacks, putting up 70 receptions for 947 yards and six touchdowns while catching passes from Kerry Collins, Curtis Painter and Dan Orlovsky.

The Browns desperately could use a player like Garcon to boost the wide receiving position, but Garcon decided his first stop as a free agent would be in Washington to visit with the Redskins.

Somehow, a little more than an hour after the official start of free agency, Garcon agreed to a five-year, $42.5 million deal with $20.5 million in guaranteed money and an $11 million signing bonus.

It seems pretty amazing that a team and a player could work through all the complex details of an NFL contract and come to an agreement in under an hour, especially as teams are not allowed to have any contact with a player or his agent prior to free agency. But we’re sure everything is on the up and up – it’s not like the Redskins would ever try to circumvent the league’s rules or anything.

So, in Garcon’s case, what exactly were the Browns supposed to do? Divert his plane and force it to land at Hopkins Airport? Sometimes a player signs with the first team he visits, sometimes a deal is already in place. It happens and there’s little the Browns can do in cases like this (although just once it would be nice if the Browns were the team on the other end of the scenario).

The second player of interest is offensive tackle Eric Winston, who was released by Houston after having ankle surgery in February and failing his physical (no word on if Winston’s agent went on Houston sports talk radio and got shirty with the Texans).

Winston would be a great pick-up for the Browns, giving the team a bookend to left tackle Joe Thomas and solving the revolving door at right tackle. According to Pro Football Focus, Winston was “consistently one of our higher graded right tackles … with his ability to move laterally and get to the second level. His agility is a big reason why the Texans have had so much success in the run game recently. What’s more, he’s coming off a very good year with his pass protection. Not an easy feat when, for a large portion of the year, you had a rookie quarterback that likes holding onto the ball.”

So what will it take for the Browns to sign him?

Winston was on Sirius NFL Radio Tuesday afternoon talking about how he will approach free agency. He said he will not simply sign with the team that gives him the biggest contract.

He also said that, after going through six years of building a team in Houston and finally reaching the playoffs last year, he doesn’t want to go to a team where he will have to go through that again.

However.

Winston said that doesn’t mean he has to sign with a team that was in the playoffs last year. He’ll look at teams that are close or that he believes are moving in the right direction.

So it won’t be enough for Heckert to be the guy in line with the biggest bag of cash. The Browns would have to sell Winston on the notion that the team isn’t as bad as its 4-12 record last season would indicate. They were able to sell Thomas on that idea when he signed his extension last season, can they do the same with someone like Winston?

And right there is the hurdle the Browns are continually working to overcome.

The team can’t attract a better class of free agents unless they start winning. But they can’t start winning unless they attract a better class of players.

So how do they do that? The one tried-and-true method that still works in the NFL – through the draft.

We know, for many in Cleveland patience is a four-letter word but that’s the reality of the situation.

Plus, free agency isn’t a one-day only shopping event. While headlines win the first day of free agency, headlines don’t win football games.

For all the bloviating from Cleveland’s talking heads about how great the Redskins have been over the past few days because they understand the need to “win now,” they overlook the important fact that the “win” part is far, far more important than the “now” part of that phrase.

Over the past 10 years, the Redskins – for all their spending in free agency and all their trading and all their “win now” philosophy – have averaged six wins a season.

The Browns in that same timeframe? They’ve average five wins a season.

Knowing that, we’ll leave you with one simple question:

Are the Redskins really the team we want the Browns to become?