While Cliff Lee has been an amazing story all season for the 2008 Cleveland Indians, it is the Indians’ recent success that has people taking notice right now. While Lee was becoming the 8th pitcher since 1920 to start a season 19-2, the Indians were hammering Detroit pitching en route to a 10-2 victory. Cleveland now sits at 64-67 and just 1/2 game behind the Tigers for 3rd place in the AL Central and with 9 wins in their last 10 games they are the hottest team in baseball over the past 10 games. Not only is the season now looking respectable, while still a disappointment, the Indians can now shoot for finishing 2008 over .500 and should have a better idea of the talent they have on their roster heading into the 2009 season.

The 2007 NFL season for the Cleveland Browns started with Game #1 against Pittsburgh destroying the Browns and leaving all Cleveland fans to wonder how much suffering they would have to go through over the course of the season. But the trade of Charlie Frye to Seattle and promotion of Derek Anderson to starting QB seemed to energize the Browns’ offense and the fans alike. When all was said and done Cleveland finished 10-6 and only missed the playoffs thanks to a tie-breaker lost to Tennessee.

The 2008 season is expected to be a bright one, but the Browns do have a very challenging schedule. With success comes expectations and the 2008 Cleveland Browns preview from Pro Football Fans takes a look at these expectations and evaluates the Browns for the 2008 season.

The 2008 offseason has been an interesting one for the Cincinnati Bengals. Chad Johnson wants a trade, then he’s happy with the Bengals (and now says he can swim faster than Michael Phelps). Chris Henry finally gets released only to be brought back during the preseason due to injuries to Johnson and TJ Houshmandzadeh. Carson Palmer alienates tens of thousands of Ohio State fans by saying how USC will pound the Buckeyes in September. What a crazy offseason.

Now it’s time to look ahead at the 2008 season, and the Bengals think they can once again make some serious noise in the AFC North. With Baltimore under a new coaching regime and the Browns and Steelers having two of the toughest schedules in the entire NFL, the door may be open for the Bengals. The 2008 Cincinnati Bengals preview is now live in the ProFootball-fans.com 2008 NFL preview and details the Bengals 2008 chances as well as their hopes for extreme improvements on the defensive side of the ball.

The Cleveland Browns defense has gotten much of the attention this offseason thanks to the trades for Shawn Rogers and Cory Williams, and they started preseason game #2 off well with a stop against Eli Manning and the defending Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. The Browns offense then responded with a couple of first downs and a 56-yard field goal by veteran Cleveland kicker Phil Dawson. Dawson’s career long kick is 52 yards coming into to the 2008 season, but while tonight’s kick will not count towards team records being in the preseason, it’s good to see the power and accuracy from Dawson.

The Cleveland Browns are in the Meadowlands facing the Giants live on ESPN and trail 7-3 currently with 8 minutes remaining in the 1st half. Manning found former Akron Zips WR Domenik Hixon in the back of the end zone for the Giants’ TD on their second possession.

With LeBron James in Bejing at the Olympics with Team USA, Cleveland Cavaliers GM Danny Ferry is hard at work back here in the states trying to make the Cavs a better team for 2008-2009. The NBA announced a 3-team deal on Wednesday that sends former Cavaliers G Damon Jones to the Milwaukee Bucks and F Joe Smith to the Oklahoma City franchise in exchange for scoring PG Mo Williams. Williams, a 25-years old point guard entering his 6th season in the NBA this year, scored 17.2 ppg with 6.3 assists/game last season. He also averaged 1.2 steals/game and shot a career-high 48.0% from the field and 38.5% from 3-point range and made $7.75 million in 2007-2008.

Considering what the Cavs gave up, this looks very good on paper for Cleveland. The Cavs now have Williams and Delonte West at PG andthe loss of Smith is not bad when you have Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Anderson Varejao & Ben Wallace on your roster. LeBron should now have plenty of scoring around him as James, Ilgauskas, Daniel Gibson, West & Williams all scored over 10 points per game last season and Wally Szczerbiak is a 15.0 ppg career scorer.

The Cincinnati Reds implosion continues as the National League’s home run leader, Adam Dunn, joins Ken Griffey, Jr. on the former Reds list. Dunn was traded today to the Arizona Diamondbacks for minor league pitcher Dallas Buck. Buck, a near 1st round selection in 2006, is currently in Single A as he’s coming back from Tommy John surgery. It is reported that the other two prospects from Arizona will both be players to be named later.

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