NFL Notes
Browns OT Verba can leave if ...
Wire Reports
Frustrated that he doesn't have a new contract, offensive tackle Ross Verba will be released by the Cleveland Browns once he repays a $465,000 roster bonus.
Verba and the Browns have agreed to the amicable split rather than drag out a contract dispute that began when the eight-year veteran said the club reneged on a promise to redo his current deal, which will pay him $2.9 million in 2005 and 2006.
Repaying the bonus he received in March was one of two options the Browns gave Verba and his agent, Tom Condon. The other was to give Verba permission to seek a trade.
"The bottom line is they don't want to pay me, and if they don't want to, then I'll play somewhere else," Verba said on WTAM-AM, the club's flagship station.
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!"