Loot in hand

With the addition of former Patriots linebacker Willie McGinest today, the Browns have closed the door on their big-game free agent hunting. In the span of six days, the Browns have added six frontline players who figure to play big roles with the 2006 team.
GM Phil Savage is eyeing some of the players as franchise cornerstones. Others are short-term upgrades who will need to serve as mentors to younger players.
Below are capsules on each of the Browns' free-agent acquisitions, and their potential long-term or short-term impacts.

LeCharles Bentley, center
Impact: long-term
Young, charismatic and with hall-of-fame potential, Bentley was signed with the expectation that he will be the glue that holds the offensive line together for years to come.
Bentley's presence will be expected to help jell a veteran unit that sometimes seemed like a hodge-podge of mismatched parts last year. Once Joe Andruzzi, Cosey Coleman and Ryan Tucker have come and gone, Bentley will need to be the rock that younger offensive linemen can lean on for stability.
Bentley has an opportunity to take a sub-standard offensive line and make it an excellent unit. He has the talent to be the linchpin. In short, Bentley is the most important free-agent acquisition the Browns have made in quite some time.

Kevin Shaffer, left offensive tackle
Impact: long-term
Shaffer may never be a perennial Pro Bowler. At his position, it will be difficult to do when he is now sharing a conference with the likes of Jonathan Ogden.
But the Browns aren't necessarily looking for greatness out of Shaffer. They are looking for stability, and that's the tag Shaffer arrives with.
Shaffer has started 39 of the past 40 games at left tackle for the Falcons. That's the type of player Savage envisions. Someone whom coach Romeo Crennel can plug in at left tackle and leave there for five to seven years.
Shaffer's arrival should finally stabilize a position that has been tossed and turned about since the Browns were re-launched in 1999. If he suits up for every game and does B-level work in terms of a letter grade, Savage and Crennel will probably be very pleased.

Dave Zastudil, punter
Impact: long-term
It has been a long, strange trip for the Browns' fourth-down unit since Chris Gardocki was given the quick hook by Butch Davis. After Derrick Frost crashed and burned in 2004, Kyle Richardson was signed as a stopgap and performed like one.
Zastudil, who has nimbly handled the punter duties for Baltimore since their Super Bowl season of 2000, is another player the Browns want to be able to plug in and forget about for the next half-decade or so.
Strong-legged and still in his mid-20s, the Bay High School graduate should be able to keep his net yardage well-inflated for a long while. A drop in net yardage was the excuse Davis gave for booting Gardocki out of town. We know what happened next. Gardocki, now a Steeler, will have a Super Bowl ring to polish later this year.

Ted Washington, nose tackle
Impact: short-term
The soon-to-be 38-year-old is still one of the best sides of beef you can find for your defensive front seven. But 38 is still 38, and it is unlikely Washington's stay will last more than the two-year duration of his contract. That's hardly long enough to help the Browns all the way back to Super Bowl contention.
The onus is on Savage to draft a stud defensive tackle this year or next and let Washington, a four-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champion, mentor him. If Savage doesn't take full advantage of Washington's experience while he can, that will be a major organizational whiff.

Willie McGinest, linebacker
Impact: short-term
McGinest is three years younger than Washington, but his situation is very similar. At 34, his athleticism could start to wane rapidly. There is no guarantee he will be able to do the things in Cleveland that he did in New England, where he made it to a pair of Pro Bowls and helped win three Super Bowls.
If the Browns get two years of top-flight play out of McGinest, they'll be doing well. Once again, Savage is charged with finding talented young linebackers for McGinest to mentor while he is here.

Joe Jurevicius, wide receiver
Impact: somewhere in-between
Jurevicius is 31, so he's entering the back nine of his career. Many of the waning-athleticism issues that McGinest could face could also plague Jurevicius after a couple of years.
Having said that, he also plays a position where the biggest hazard is getting your lights knocked out by Ray Lewis on a crossing route. Wide receiver is generally not a rough-and-tumble position that wears players' bodies down, like linebacker or running back. Receivers usually have longer shelf lives, and can be impact players well into their 30s.
Jurevicius is capable of being a No. 1 receiver for the next couple of seasons. After that, his legs might slow and he could be recast as a possession receiver. But hopefully by then, Kellen Winslow Jr. and Braylon Edwards will be fully healthy, fully adjusted and ready to shine.