Without fail, negative preseason press continues to roll in for the Browns. In ESPN's power rankings, the Browns are 28th out of 32 teams. They list the Chiefs, Raiders, Rams and Lions below the Browns.

Pete Prisco of CBS Sport wasn't so kind. He ranks Cleveland as the 31st best team in the league. Fortunately for Browns fans the Lions exist. They are the only team Prisco has lower.

Of the Browns Prisco says: "Their biggest issue is picking a quarterback. I would pick Brady Quinn, but Eric Mangini said it's an open competition. The Browns will be feisty this season, but they won't win more than four games."

According to several reports, the Browns have come to terms with wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi. The team's second pick in the second round signed a four-year contract, according to Pro Football Talk. The deal is worth a maximum of $3.636 million.

Former Ohio State wide receiver Brian Robiskie is the only rookie the team has yet to sign.

For his career at Georgia, Massaquoi caught 158 passes for 2,282 yards and 16 touchdowns.

Remember the brown pants worn by the Browns against the Giants in preseason last year? Probably not, because they were so hideous you pushed it out of your brain.

In his story Sunday, Tony Grossi of the Plain Dealer intimated that the Browns might be considering the look again.

But rumors have surfaced recently that Mangini intends to surprise everyone by dressing his team in brown pants for every road game this year.

A Browns official could have shot the rumor down. But when it was posed to Neal Gulkis, director of public relations, he responded, "No final determination has been made."

I'm all for the occasional uniform delineation –- love the random orange jerseys — but brown pants were really ugly. The only person I want to see in brown pants is the UPS man, and that's only if he's delivering a package of tasty baked goods. And imagine if they went for brown jerseys and pants? Awful.

Training camp can't get here fast enough, right? I just made a post about fashion.

From Pro Football Weekly:

TE Steve Heiden, who tore the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his right knee last December expects to be cleared to practice when Browns veterans take the field on July 31, his agent, Jack Wirth, recently told PFW. “He’s made great progress,” Wirth said, noting that Heiden has told him the only limitation he could have in training camp is that he might be limited to one practice a day.

Notes…
Steve Doerschuk of the Canton Repository makes the case for Gary Collins to be in the Hall of Fame. Collins was a star receiver for the great Browns teams of the 1960s.

Chris Steuber of the expansive Scout.com network breaks down the team's top 10 prospects. He classifies a prospect as "a player entering his third-year or under 25 years old." Because of that definition, Joe Thomas is still a prospect.

Quarterback Graham Harrell, whom the Browns invited to mini camp, will play professionally for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League. If you remember, Harrell is probably most famous in Cleveland sports history for eliciting this comment from blog reader "Julio Franco":

Forget about Derek Anderson and whatzizname from the Jets. Graham Harrell is the only QB the Browns have who can come close to competing with Quinn for the QB job.

This is an astounding pickup for the Browns. For those who say Harrell was merely a product of the system at Tech, mebbe you should consider implementing the system with the Browns!

Ah, that made me laugh all over again. Good work, fake Julio Franco.

When Browns veterans report to training camp on July 31, expect to see specials team/experimental wide receiver Josh Cribbs in attendance.

Cribbs assured as much while on the air with Mark "Munch" Bishop of WKNR (AM-850) saying "No. 16 will be on the field, proudly." He said contract talks have not been furthered, but he's happy to have a job.

"I don't have the contract I would like, but nonetheless I have it better than others," he said.

Cribbs is in the first half a of a six-year, $6.77 million contract and wants it to be restructured. He's set to make a reasonable $690,000 this season.

Even as he's threatened to ask for a trade and skipped some "voluntary" workouts, he insists he wants to play for the Browns and will continue to work hard.

"I'm going to still play as hard as I can," he said. "I don't know any other way to play. I don't want to go anywhere else, I want to stay in Cleveland. I'm going to do everything I can physically and business-wise to stay in Cleveland because this is where I want to be. If something else happens, I don't think it's on me.

"I can't make every person understand my point of view and a lot of fans just don't understand the nature of football and the contract situations and everything. I'm just going to keep playing and I don't mind any fan express any point of view to me and I will respectfully converse with them. I want to see us win big and be a part of that when it happens. Hopefully that happens this year and I'm on that team."

You can listen to the entire interview here. The interview is about 20 minutes long, but worth the time. Cribbs talks some about his community involvement before getting into the contract situation.

What makes it so interesting is that Cribbs continually talks about wanting to play in Cleveland and being a hard worker. Moments later, though, he says that playing in the NFL was his dream, just not necessarily with the Browns.

He's clearly a conflicted player. It's hard to tell which is more important to him – the money or the opportunity. From the standpoint of a jaded Cleveland fan, it seems a little too much like the former.

Following the news earlier that the team has come to terms with rookie linebacker Kaluka Maiava, it looks like the Browns have signed another draft pick.

Carlos Holmes of the Dayton Daily News is reporting that the team has signed cornerback Don Carey to a four-year deal.

Carey was the team's first of three players selected in the sixth round. A four-year starter at Norfolk State, Carey finished his collegiate career with 179 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, 10 interceptions and 35 pass deflections.

Carey impressed Browns head coach Eric Mangini during minicamp in June.

"He's impressive in terms of the questions he asked," Mangini said. "I saw that in the very first meeting I was in, the very first meeting he was in where he asked a question most vets don't ask a month down the road. He caught it right away and asked it. At that point you know he's paying attention and he's very bright."

The Browns' Don Carey should not be confused with the Portage County Don Carey who is growing 7,000 tobacco plants.

According to John Taylor of the Orange and Brown Report the Browns have come to terms with Kaluka Maiava, a fourth-round pick from Southern California.

Taylor says the four-year deal for the outside linebacker is likely worth just under $2.5 million.

At USC, Maiava only started his senior year, but played in 51 career games. During that time, he had 164 tackles, 15.5 tackles for loss, 2 sacks and 7 pass breakups. In 2008, he was named to the Pac-10 all-conference second team.

He was twice named the Trojan's co-special teams player of the year. It is likely he'll be a backup and special teams contributor for the Browns.

Maiava is the second Browns draftee to receive a contract following the recent signing of running back James Davis.

Notes…
Scott Wright of Draft Countdown just reviewed the team's draft. He gave the Browns a B-. Here's an excerpt:

Whether or not Cleveland’s new braintrust will finally get the franchise on the right track remains to be seen but their performance on Draft Day was not very encouraging. There is no question that the Browns bolstered their roster with a bunch of quality players but none of the guys they brought in offer much in the way of upside or impact potential.

Apparently getting multiple starters instead of crapshoots out of a draft is a bad thing these days.

According to Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Talk, the Browns have come to terms with rookie running back James Davis.

Davis, a sixth-round draft pick, reportedly signed a four-year contract worth $1.85 million. He is the first of the Browns' eight draft picks to sign.

For his career at Clemson, Davis rushed for 3,984 yards and 47 touchdowns. He also caught 51 passes for 526 yards and two touchdowns.

Davis had an up-and-down college career, rushing for 1,219 yards as a sophomore but only 751 as a junior. One aspect of Davis' game that was consistent was his hands. In 805 carries, he only had two fumbles.

Is it odd at all that none of the eight Browns draft picks have signed with training camp beginning July 31? Even the Bengals are busy signing seventh-round players.

A couple quick links to check out:

- Beacon Journal columnist Pat McManamon was the guest chatter with the Orange and Brown Report's Barry McBride last night. Read the chat, if you get a few minutes. It's some good insight on covering an NFL team.

- Continue to check out Dawgs by Nature, the SB Nation Browns site. There's always some great analysis going on. Right now, head writer Chris Pokorny is breaking down each position going into training camp.

Tickets for the 2009 Cleveland Browns season will go on sale at 10 a.m. starting July 11. Tickets can be purchased through various TicketMaster outlets. You can buy tickets at the Cleveland Browns Stadium ticket box office beginning July 13.

Ticket prices start at $32. If you pick up some tickets, let us know the game you're going to, how much you spent and where you set is located. And don't forget, if you're ever interested in having your game day pictures ran here on the Bulletin, e-mail me.

If you recall, the Browns went a woeful 1-7 at home last season.

Notes…
The Browns are officially on Facebook and Twitter.