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Former NFL star Kellen Winslow Jr., 35, was convicted on Monday of raping a 58-year-old homeless woman in Encinitas last May by a jury in Southern California. Winslow was also found guilty of indecent exposure toward the woman and of lewd conduct. But the jury remained deadlocked on six other felony charges, including two more counts of rape involving a 54-year-old hitchhiker last year and an unconscious 17-year-old girl in 2003.

Browns general manager John Dorsey said last week that he was opening to hiring a woman as Cleveland's next head coach, and there is one prominent name on the team's wish list to interview. The Browns would like to interview former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for their head-coaching job, a league source tells ESPN. If the Browns follow through on it, Rice would become the first woman ever to interview for an NFL head-coaching job. Cleveland's interest in interviewing Rice comes at a time when women recently have moved into decision-making roles in men's professional sports. The Spurs hired...

Rookie Baker Mayfield entered for his NFL regular-season debut late in the second quarter and brought the Browns back from a 14-0 deficit to prevail 21-17, snapping a 19-game winless streak dating back to Dec. 24, 2016 -- a span of 635 days...

Former Cleveland Browns linebacker Mychal Kendricks pleaded guilty to insider trading charges on Thursday, and faces up to 25 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter asked Kendricks why he was pleading guilty. “I’m making the decision because it’s the right thing to do,” he said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I know that I made the decision to accept information, secret information, and it wasn’t the right thing to do.” Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 18.

There will be a celebration on tap when the Cleveland Browns win their first regular-season game: Fans will get free beer. Anheuser-Busch, whose Bud Light brand is the official beer of the NFL and 28 of its 32 teams, including the Browns, on Tuesday will begin placing eight-foot "Victory" fridges filled with Bud Light bottles into 10 Cleveland-area bars that purchased them.

If you’re planning to watch the Super Bowl but you can’t stand the NFL take-a-knee protests, you may want to root for the Philadelphia Eagles. Not a single Eagles player sat or knelt during the national anthem, one of just seven teams with perfect non-kneeling records, in a season that saw 684 such incidents, according to a study released Thursday by Sports Pundit. The other Super Bowl LII team, the New England Patriots, landed in the middle of the pack with 17 incidents of anthem sitting or kneeling, wedged between the Buffalo Bills with 16 and the Cleveland Browns with...

This is a must read for both college and pro football fans. The best NFL coach of this generation has been friends for more than 30 years with the best college football coach, a fact that is remarkable but not entirely surprising. This is the story of a friendship that has made a lasting impact on the sport. They agreed to meet in West Point, N.Y., at a little hotel with a name neither can remember. For two men with deep connections to Navy, the locale was a surprising choice. All the better. This was in the late 1980s,...

His former team is a laughingstock — to its own fans’ admission — and he now can see the route to another team. It was a good weekend for Johnny Manziel. On Sunday, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats announced they had begun negotiations with the NFL flameout, which included the Canadian Football League squad making him an offer. Manziel has not commented directly on negotiations, but he did have some words for the 0-16 Browns. Manziel got in a dig at his former employers early Sunday morning, a day after Cleveland fans mock-celebrated the Imperfect Season with a parade. “0-16szn,” Manziel first...

Cleveland Browns fans gathered at First Energy Stadium in Cleveland on Saturday, January 6, 2018, for the "Perfect Season Parade" after the team finished the 2017 NFL season 0-16, marking only the second time that has been achieved. DILLY DILLY !!!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bNoVrQf_A

The obituary published in the Sandusky Register says Paul Stark, of Huron, died Wednesday at a hospice facility after a brief illness "exacerbated by the hopeless condition of the Cleveland Browns." The football team was 1-15 last season and 0-15 this year ahead of Sunday's finale at Pittsburgh. Even so, Stark's obituary included a nugget of the optimism voiced by some long-suffering fans. It says the 80-year-old Mansfield native "passed just before the Browns were prepared to turn the corner."

The Browns secured their 0-16 season after losing to a Pittsburgh Steelers team that featured mostly backups on the road. The Browns had their chances at avoiding the wrong type of perfection, and just fell short in a 28-24 loss. As only the Browns could, the game was filled with highs and lows. Of course, as most Browns games do, it ended with a low so deep that you could only feel bad for the Browns. Their first possession was a disaster. I suppose things could have been worse, like throwing a pick-six on the first play or fumbling it...

The Sashi Brown era in Cleveland is over. Brown, who ran Cleveland’s personnel department the last two years, was fired this morning, according to ESPN.

CHARDON, Ohio -- The Geauga County Sheriff on Tuesday barred any of his deputies from working off-duty security at future Cleveland Browns games because of their protest during the national anthem. Sheriff Scott A. Hildenbrand in a memo to his employees posted on Facebook said the Browns protest, which came in response to President Donald Trump's statements that NFL players who kneel during the national anthem should be fired, was "disrespectful" to veterans and police officers alike. "I'm concerned when the main act stands in front of the crowd, before the game even starts, and commits a blatant disrespectful act...

The Cleveland Browns are trading the No. 2 pick in this year's NFL draft to the Philadelphia Eagles for five selections over the next two years. The Browns get the 2016 first-round pick (No. 8 overall), the Eagles' third-round and fourth-round picks in 2016. They also get the Eagles' 2017 first-round pick and the Eagles' 2018 second-rounder.

The Cleveland Browns have signed quarterback Robert Griffin III, the team announced Thursday. Griffin’s contract is for two years and $15 million, and can be worth up to $22 million including incentives, reports USA Today’s Tom Pelissero.

immediately after the regular season ends. Browns owner Jimmy Haslam has already made the decision to fire coach Mike Pettine, multiple sources say, and it is likely general manager Ray Farmer will be shown the door, as well. Pettine leaves after just two seasons full of quarterback movement and a woeful defense. Farmer likely will leave despite never hiring his own head coach. Haslam has already laid the groundwork for the move, doing work on potential candidates and seeing who will be available to him. It ends a tumultuous tenure for Cleveland, filled with dysfunction, in-fighting, failed player acquisitions and...

After 12 weeks of the NFL season, the New England Patriots are still the heavy favorite to win the Super Bowl. Using Nate Silver's "2015 NFL Predictions," a model that rates each team and then projects how the regular season and playoffs will play out, we can get a better sense of which teams are the true Super Bowl contenders. Heading into Week 13, the New England Patriots are still the favorite with a 28% chance to win the Super Bowl, down from 33% a week ago. The Carolina Panthers (20%) are the favorite in the NFC. In fact, according...

God has a voodoo doll. It has a Cleveland Brown jersey on. And He stuck another pin in it Monday night. For Clevelanders, I don’t know how a loss can be more brutal than this one. Cleveland 27, Baltimore 27. Three seconds left, Browns lining up for the game-winning field goal. You’re on the verge of sweeping the team you hate the most, the despised Ravens, the team that you’ll always think was stolen from you and kept your city without football for three seasons. The kicker, Travis Coons, is 18-for-18 as a Brown. In another miserable year at the...

Tied 27-27, the Browns lined up for a game-winning 50-yard field goal attempt. Kicker Travis Coons was a perfect 18-for-18 on the season entering the play so there was reason to be optimistic. Browns fan Matt Alberson was excited and ready to capture the moment. Except disaster struck and the Ravens ended up winning on a blocked kick touchdown return.

Johnny Manziel lost his starting spot after cameras caught the quarterback partying during his bye week. Browns coach Mike Pettine called the behavior, which comes after an offseason trip to rehab, “disappointing” and “frustrating.” Manziel’s bye-week carousing spoils his national coming-out party previously scheduled for Monday night’s game against the banged-up Baltimore Ravens. Pettine announced on Tuesday Josh McCown will start the game at quarterback. TMZ spotted Manziel on Thursday at the RIO Rooftop & Restaurant nightclub in Austin, where he partied the evening away with friends. The Summit Rooftop Lounge, where he spent the evening boozing on champagne, served...