Dolphins general manager Randy Mueller was first to call and [Givens’ agent Brad] Blank told him they needed to know if at least $20 million over five years was too rich for Miami’s blood. Mueller told Blank, ”Put him on a plane,” and later that morning Givens headed to Miami, but before he left Blank had already arranged a trip to Houston Sunday, was still in daily contact with Pioli, and had a discussion with both Givens and the teams he was visiting to ensure neither tried to ”kidnap my client.” Then everything fell apart.

”About 12:45 a.m. Mueller called,” Blank recalled. ”He said, ‘What the [expletive] are you doing to me? Do you think I’m an idiot?’ I had no idea what he was talking about.”

What upset Mueller was that the Browns had posted a press release on their website claiming Givens had agreed to terms with them when he hadn’t even scheduled a visit. Blank was shocked but he knew this was the kind of disinformation that could knock his client out of the marketplace so he hit his speed dial, frantically trying to learn what had happened. Eventually it became clear an error by a Browns website employee caused the mistaken posting of three bios of players the Browns were pursuing but hadn’t signed. All three came down within minutes but Blank feared the damage had been done.

In the sensitive world of free agency, anything can tip the balance, so trust is important. Blank called all the teams he’d spoken with and told them the report was untrue but his sense was people he’d had past dealings with, such as Texans director of contract negotiations Don Ferens, accepted his explanation while those less familiar with him, such as Seattle’s assistant director of pro personnel, Lake Dawson, were skeptical.

”Dawson kept saying ‘It’s on their official team website,’ ” Blank recalled. ” ‘How do I know who to trust?’ “

Blank understood this was a problem unique to the Internet age, where every word written, true or false, travels fast. Fiction mixes with fact until reality becomes distorted and negotiations become difficult if not impossible. Because of that Blank spent part of his Saturday on the phone with three of the Browns’ lawyers arguing over the wording of a retraction the Browns were reluctant to make. Although they grew to learn otherwise, Cleveland kept insisting a hacker had gotten into their computer system and posted the erroneous report.

While this was going on, Givens was in a first-class seat headed for Miami while Blank was arguing with the Browns, trying to negotiate deals for former Walpole High quarterback Todd Collins, Arizona safety Quentin Harris, and Jacksonville defensive end Marcellus Wiley, as well as tend to the Givens calls that continued to mount. Many balls were in the air and the problem with the Browns was an unwelcome distraction, although ultimately it was corrected before real damage was done.

All this talk of lawyers, retractions, and hacking paints a pretty clear circumstantial case concerning what happened to Dawg Talk. That’s the official site’s fan message board. It was taken out of service without explanation shortly after the fiasco of the premature signing announcements. Over nine days later, it remains offline, supposedly “under repair.”

It surely seems like the team got backed into a very defensive position. As such, they would feel the need to clamp down on any information originating from their official site. Even though it was more of a fan forum (though with rather heavy-handed moderators) than news organ, the message board was apparently part of this information lockdown.

It’s not hard to envision what kind of conversation might have taken place among the Browns’ lawyers and team execs. Statements like these are entirely plausible:

This Givens debacle might cost us millions.

What the hell else might happen?

If it’s on our site, we’re the publisher.

Anybody can write anything on that message board, right?

What kind of controls do we have in place over that?

We better take that thing down until we’re sure we’re covered.

Right now?

Yes, especially right now. Free agency is just starting. And it’s not like those message boards are a profit center anyway.

Yeah, they’ve been a headache for a while now anyway.

So meanwhile, a community of fans is suddenly abandoned by their host, by their team, in a new and unexpected way. Not through any fault of their own, but in response to the team’s own fumbling.

Some might say, hey, it was a free service anyway, and it was suddenly deemed to be a potential liability. That’s too lawyerly for me. If I showed up at my favorite grocery store with a long list of shopping to do, and I found that they had suddenly taken away all the carts, well …

I suppose I’d take my business elsewhere, for a while, at least. It would give me a chance to reflect on why that store had been my favorite. I’d certainly feel unvalued that they would remove a free but important service without warning or adequate explanation. If they’d treat the public that way, what else might they do? But if I really liked, say, their deli, then I’d probably go back for that limited purpose. But I’d be disinclined to do anything else to fatten their wallets. Even if carts came back.