NFL fans not otherwise preoccupied with thoughts centering upon the Super Bowl are beginning to focus on their favorite team's off-season.

Once this new month of February is over, action can commence on matters such as trading, free-agent signings and other key machinations related to personnel adjustments.

Among the questions being contemplated are: With coaching-staffs essentially settled around the league, what personnel adjustments will occur? Who will remain viable among 2008 free agents after the franchise tags have been applied? What trades might be out there for the hometeam? Will our team's GM attempt to move up or down in the April draft to help remedy what roster deficiencies existed last season? Are there draft sleepers worth knowing about? Can enough be accomplished in this single off-season to make our club legitimately competitive?

For some, the so-called off-season carries more appeal than the actual in-season of regularly-scheduled league contests. More fanciful than fantasy football, the art of pretending to be a GM  during the trade-and-free-agency stages of the calendar year occupies more than a few classified as fans.

Rumors run amok this time of the year. Speculation is rampant regarding those who might be dealt or otherwise disposed of via buyouts, releases and other measures designed to ease salcap crunches, though the sport has nicely acclimated to the free-agency era and characteristically manages to retain its most cherished commodities.

Still, there is enough movement to foster a cottage industy or two. Ancillary characters subsisting almost entirely upon guessing, predicting, foreseeing and conjecture are nowadays as well known and recognized as the actual decision-makers handsomely compensated by the professional organizations employing them.

This writer is not among those acknowledged or celebrated---surely for very good reasons---but those realities won't discourage him from opining a bit, nonetheless.

Should it be true, for example, that Dallas is considering making available to others DE Marcus Spears, OLB Bobby Carpenter and ILB Akin Ayodele, then Cleveland GM Phil Savage would be wise to think about parting with one of his fairly-early selections in order to get those pieces in Brown and Orange.

Reportedly, all three are being thought of as non-starting Cowboys, which would make their contracts burdensome, particularly since they'd not transition especially well to contributing as special-teamers.

Spears and Carpenter, who has yet to emerge as a starter in Big D, were both number-one draft picks. Ayodele arrived as a fairly-expensive free-agent acquistion from Jacksonville. All three might project as strongside starters in Cleveland, though Carpenter would have a lot to learn from incumbant LOLB Willie McGinest.

Were Dallas interested in packaging them, Cleveland's fourth selection (or third, if necessary)---coupled perhaps with sign-and-trades involving a trio of  less-costly backups with 'team experience currently heading into free agency: DE Simon Fraser, OLB Matt Stewart and swingman LB Chaun Thompson---might amount to sufficient compensation. After all, Dallas is otherwise facing outright releases, awkward restructurings or individual later-round alternatives.

For a GM who has yet to get a single starter out from any of his four previous fourth-round selections, gaining three for a single one in '08 would be quite a coup, don't you think, Mr. Savage?

Only Ayodele is an explosive upfield talent, but Carpenter has the requisite skill set for the strongside and Spears is already an accomplished run-defender, though he brings little to the table as a game-deciding playmaker. Pass-rushing is not a forte.

Such a transaction would liberate Savage considerably on Draft Day and afford him focus on other needs, such as for an edge-rushing threat to help Kamerion Wimbley collapse a pocket. Nabbing such an asset in the middle of Round Two---or dealing-up slightly to secure one---would not be a bad way to begin that spring day. (Cleveland's first-round pick already belongs to Dallas, of course, having been spent last April on the falling ND QB Brady Quinn.) This direction assumes both QB Derek Anderson and RB Jamal Lewis will be retained for at least another campaign together.

WR might appear as the club's next priority, though the seemingly-patient nurturing of Phil's 2006 third-rounder, Oklahoma's Travis Wilson, might mitigate that perceived need. Should it/he not, a quick-strike target with the ability to stretch a defense and open both the crossing routes and the running lanes may manifest as essential. Someone able to replace the nearly-invisible Tim Carter and step soon into Joe Jurevicius' slot opposite Pro-Bowler Braylon Edwards would be ideal. In fact, such a weapon might even supercede the aforementioned OLB for Round Two.

Should the Browns go the free-agent route for a veteran edge-rusher, by the way, keep in mind the name of former Purdue, Chicago Bear and New England Patriot OLB Rosevelt Colvin. Nettlesome injuries have wasted his past two seasons, so the market for him figures to be lessened. In a rotational role with a rising club like Cleveland's, Colvin just might rediscover himself.

Another solution to consider for WR would be Jax's Matt Jones, the former Arkansas QB whose marvelous straight-line speed and 6-6 237-lb. frame encouraged the Jaguars to nab him at 18 in Round One of Wilson's '06 draft class. Maybe Wilson, in a mutually-accomodating exchange of draft day disappointments needing a change of scenery, could bring back Jones. Or a three-way---sending Wilson to Tampa for WR Michael Clayton, who in turn moves along to Jax for Jones---may be the way to go.

All three young wideouts figure to experience career-altering developments this off-season, either elevating once and for all or relocating, with or without compensation. Jones might benefit greatly from exposure to Jurevicius' savvy as a similarly-built pass-catching NFL target. 

Since the Browns cannot rely exclusively upon Lewis' endurance among the league's better running threats, identifying a sleeper at the position seems advisable. South Carolina's under-the-radar RB Cory Boyd is such a character. He is somewhat Earnest Byner-like with his toughness and versatility, a force between the tackles, as a chain-moving pass-catcher and as a blitz-stifling pass-protector. Not flashy or particularly elusive, Boyd is nonetheless formidable on delays, draws, screens and dump-offs and possesses a nose for the endzone. He is likely to merit a higher profile on the professional level than he achieved for himself collegiately.

These are the kind of thoughts that occupy a fertile and imaginative mind once his team is eliminated from post-season participation. It is typical of a fan with too much time on his hands and the desire to fix what ails the roster of his favorite team. There is a lot of this going around this time of the year, becoming even more evident as time marches toward late-April.

Avoid it at all costs, unless you, too, have an appetite for off-season NFL personnel conjecture.