While We’re Waiting… Cavs Preview, Leon Powe, Eric Wedge Interviews
October 9, 2010Open Thread: #2 Ohio State vs. Indiana
October 9, 2010This week’s football story of interest across the state of Ohio has been the T.J. Ward hit on Jordan Shipley from Sunday’s Browns-Bengals game. With the rookie receiver out this week for Cincinnati, it continues to leave those from both parties talking about the incident.
According to Browns defensive coordinator Rob Ryan however, that wasn’t even the most outlandish play in last week’s surprising Cleveland victory. Flipping the tables on the national media and the Bengals, Ryan utilized his new conference yesterday to discuss another important cheap shot, according to the Plain Dealer:
There’s a big hullabaloo about [Ward’s] penalty but … those guys need to shut up. This is our team, they don’t coach our team. We do. … If they want to worry about a cheap shot they ought to look at first-and-10 on the 35, third quarter, 4:24 left — make sure you get that down — and watch their guard Nate Livings.
Our kids played great the whole game. They want to [complain] about [Ward] and he hit a guy in the face. This kid hits our guy in the back after he got a sack for a forced fumble, Fujita, and a blocked field goal over him.
Then this kid dives and hits him in the back of the legs. If you want to talk about cheap, talk about this [expletive]. Excuse me, Nate Livings. We are the least penalized defense in football. If we aren’t, we are always one of the tops. That’s how we teach. We teach a hard, tough, smart brand of football. We don’t give away yardage.
People think we are out to hurt them, we are out to hit them. We are not out to hurt anybody or maim anybody, we are out to hit them and they are going to get hit. To be honest with you, I think we took Cincinnati’s best shot, and we won. That’s the facts.
Earlier in the week, Ward was suspended $15,000 by the NFL for his hit on Shipley. The borderline play in the end zone led to some continued chatter from Carson Palmer and Terrell Owens in defending their new teammate.
On the other side however, no penalty was ever assessed to Nate Livings for his play on Fujita. Ryan was not the only one to point it out, and time will tell in the next few days if Ryan’s words will be the last of this news cycle.
Either way, it is impressive to see the Browns involved in a war of words such as this. In the past, the team didn’t have the players nor the coaching staff that would ever be involved in this sort of situation. Ward is a hard-nosed fighter despite just being a rookie while Ryan will always speak his mind in any similar circumstance.
Now let’s see if Ward and the Browns can keep up the intensity against the Falcons tomorrow.
—
(Photo via Joshua Gunter/Plain Dealer)
6 Comments
And King Triton from the little mermaid let’s it be known the TO and CP will not talk smack about one of the soldiers in his watery kingdom.
1- Great pic, and @1, King Triton, hilarious
2- Man I love Ryan. He is exactly what this team, and more specifically, this defense needs. He’s not afraid to speak his mind, and I dont know if any other coach could get the effort and results out of the bunch of guys we have (to be fair, I dont know because I really dont know that much about other coaches in the league). I could care less if we lose Mangini and Daboll, but I hope Ryan is here to stay.
3- Does anyone have a link to the play he is talking about? I’m at work and don’t have time to search right now.
4- If Ward just happens to lay a hit that gets him fined on Braylon or TO the next time ’round, I’m pretty sure the fans would be willing to chip in a buck or two to help pay it off.
Love it. We need more Ryan brothers on our team.
Glad Ryan is defending his guys, but you don’t need to downplay the hit on Shipley to play up the Livings’ hit.
TO complaining about something, I am shocked.
I like having a coach stand up for players and all, and I do like Ryan as a coach, but has he done anything yet? Unless im mistaken he hasnt had a top 10 D in the league. Sure, he was in Oakland and now here with less the average offenses to help the D, but so far this season I have not been impressed with our D. I was expecting it to be a strong unit, and so far its the same old bottom 10 in the league.