By now, I’m sure you’ve all seen the quotes. Jamal Lewis opined that:
This is the NFL, you can’t call it quits until the game is over. But it looks to me like some people called it quits before that. Denver was down, but they didn’t call it quits. They kept their heads up and they finished. We didn’t do that two weeks in a row — at home. Some people need to check their egos at the door and find some heart to come out here and play hard. This is a man’s game. The way we went out there and played two weeks in a row, finishing the same kind of way, it’s not there. I think there are some men around here that need to check their selves, straight up. That’s it. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it ever in my life as long as I’ve been playing. I’m not cut from this kind of cloth. I play physical football, and I come out here and give it my all. I give it my all all week. To come out and be up by whatever — this is the NFL. You can’t call it quits until the game is over.
Some would say that perhaps 18 carries for 31 yards (he had 19 for 60, but one was a 29-yard burst) isn’t really the person that should be running his mouth on this team. But, oh, it gets worse. Josh Cribbs chimed in yesterday:
We can’t figure out what’s in everyone’s head when they’re playing, but that’s what it looked like — that some guys quit. Jamal is a hard runner. He goes out there and busts his tail every day, every game. I do the same, and it hurts when players don’t show the same will and same fire and desire to win. It’s a shame sometimes, but we just have to pull together as a team, weed out those guys and play the rest of the season out. When you have a team like that that comes into our house and we’re capable of beating them, that’s the first thing that comes to your mind, is guys quitting. [Jamal] didn’t say any names, because you don’t know who those guys were. But we know if everybody didn’t quit, we would’ve won that ball game.
Normally, these kinds of quotes tick me off, because they do nothing but lead to in-fighting in the locker room. If you’re going to say that people quit, be a man and say who. And say it to THEM, not to Mary Kay Freaking Cabot. And, while there’s humor in the old Major League 2 team brawl (”And Willie Mays Hayes is now hitting Rick Vaughn… why not… everybody else in the league is”), there are still seven games to go and I’d like to see the team at least trying. Though, in fairness, if there’s one player on the team who can call out effort on the other players, it would be Cribbs (I still don’t condone it, but he’s the one guy that truly leaves it all on the field each and every game).
Then, I re-read Cribbs’ quote. “…we know if everybody didn’t quit, we would’ve won that ball game.” Is he calling out Romeo Crennel, here?? By all accounts, there was some bad, bad play on defense in Thursday night’s game. But it never looked to me like the players stopped trying. Granted, if everyone went as hard as Cribbs does every play, this team would more likely be 6-3 instead of 3-6, but what’s done is done.
But, back to Crennel. His response to all of this under-the-bus-throwing by his players: “As somebody said, if you’ve got a lead, that means you haven’t quit. The thing we didn’t do is hold the lead. That’s what we have to figure out how to do.”
Wait, what? Seriously?
We have to “figure out” how to hold a lead? Haven’t you been coaching football for like 30 years, Romeo??
It’s quotes like that that truly make me wonder if these players aren’t fed up with their coaches. You can’t see your defense hold a team to 13 points through the first 39 minutes of a game (Ravens) only to give up 24 in the last 21 minutes, and not wonder what the heck happened. Likewise, you can’t see your defense hold a one-dimensional team (they were one-dimensional pretty much the whole game, remember?) to 10 points through 40 minutes, and then give up 24 (again with that number) in the last 20 minutes of the game. Seriously, Romeo, what gives??
James Walker over at ESPN has this to say in his weekly division stock report:
Forgive us for picking on Romeo Crennel again this week, but his team had its second straight second-half collapse. The Browns blew a 13-point lead late to a Broncos’ team that lost two healthy running backs in the game and was forced to be one dimensional. Still, Crennel and his coaching staff couldn’t find a way to slow quarterback Jay Cutler (447 yards)and allowed Denver to score 21 fourth-quarter points in a 34-30 loss. The Browns also blew a 14-point, second-half lead to the Ravens on Nov. 2. It will be interesting to see if Crennel can get this team motivated again after these two devastating losses.
Looks to me from all of the quotes that Lewis and Cribbs are the ones doing the motivating, and not Crennel. Looks to me like RAC’s not only just presided over two of the more ugly collapses in my memory, but has no idea what to do about it.
Looks to me like he’s completely ineffectual.
I know we’ve had the discussion here about who you’d replace him with, but this team has enough talent that I just can’t stomach watching them go 4-12 because their current coach has no idea what he’s doing. Am I alone on this??
Author: DP
DP is a native north-eastern Ohioan who has been living in Columbus since 1999. DP's main area of concentration here at WFNY is the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team, and you can catch his weekly 5-Hole columns each Tuesday. During the summers, you can also catch up on all the Columbus Clippers news that's fit to print in his Clip Show columns. In his spare time, he works in publishing, plays the drums, and wastes hundreds of dollars on Browns season tickets.DP has written 252 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
Well, frankly, I like hearing the players speak out. Send a message. Nothing infuriated me more about DA than his whole “Oh, nothing’s wrong here, life is peachy” demeanor. I love players with passion and pride and competitive fire, and by hearing Cribbs and Lewis speak out just shows me at least 2 guys on this team who actually care and are bothered by all the losing.
Normally if this talk came from someone like Edwards I would brush it off as banter. However, coming from two respectable guys like Cribbs and Lewis who give it all, every play I think you have to listen to them. In fact I think it’s about time someone said something like this! Now if we could only get them to say how incredibly inept Romeo is that would be the icing on the cake. I cannot believe how in the name of God he is still our head coach. He may be a great defensive guy (although should I start to question that after these two collapses) but is by no means head coach material. No leadership, no emotion, no inspiration.
I agree – get Lewis a “C” patch on his jersey. I feel that Cribbs has done more than enough to prove he’s earned his – which is more than I can say about a few of the captains on the team.
If Lewis is going to step up and be a guy who’s willing to speak out, more power to him.
I dont think you can say that Jamal didnt keep his motor going the whole game. he is still out there trying to get as many yards every down, and did get it in the endzone still. I want the players to say what they think at this point, let people know who should stay and who needs to get out. I didnt make the Romeo connection, but i did see his comments before i honestly dont understand what the fat man is trying to say. quiitting happens during the game, lets say whne you have a 13 point lead going into prevent to find a way to lose…..
I have no idea what RAC was trying to say there either. Trying to figure out how to hold a lead? I could think of a lot of ways, from clock management, to not dropping passes and moving the chains, not giving up 96 yard TDs because safetys are out of position, etc. I think he should be fired right now. I didn’t think so before, not because he didn’t deserve it, but because it didn’t seem like there were better options in the short term. But this is insane. I agree with Rock, I am glad Cribbs and Lewis said something, and I was pissed at DA for the nothing was wrong comment earlier in the season. I just don’t see how we can recover from the blown games without some sort of change. I don’t think RAC can just fire the D Coordinator and that be enough, he should be gone as well.
Fire both, right now. This cannot continue down into mediocrity. Fire them and send a message to the players. And this offseason, try to move Edwards for anything, and don’t resign Sean Jones.
ya know, jamal doesn’t say a whole lot, he’s a pretty quiet guy. so for him to come out and say this… it seems like he’s pretty sincere about it, it’s not a knee-jerk reaction, or just his emotions getting the best of him. it really seems like he may be right on this, that guys did quit.
not to mention, he didn’t do this after the first blown double digit lead, he did it after they blew it twice in a row. so it was almost as if he felt he needed to say this.
there are a lot of young guys on this team that just don’t get it. and they blame the schedule, the scheme, everyone else.
josh cribbs and jamal lewis play to the final gun. those guys bring it each and every sunday. i have no problem with a guy like that letting his thoughts get out.
maybe it’ll fire guys up, although who really cares, because we blew our chances at a playoff run already.
I feel I should reiterate two things:
1) I’m not mad that they said anything; more, I just wish they’d say it in the locker room to the people they’re trying to motivate, rather than put it in the papers. Lord knows I love the passion Cribbs has and brings on every play. But, if they’re going to say people are quitting in the paper, I want to know who you’re talking about, and I want to know that you went up and said, “Hey, [player], I thought you quit out there on Thursday night.” That’s what I was getting at, albeit somewhat poorly.
2) The point I was trying to get to is that it’s the head coach’s job to get the players to play, to focus, to not QUIT. He hears the things his players have said, and all he can say is: “If you’ve got a lead, that means you haven’t quit. The thing we didn’t do is hold the lead. That’s what we have to figure out how to do”??? That’s it??
So I’ve been in Buffalo a fair bit lately, and of course have tuned in to their sports talk radio station. Their offense has been terrible lately, and after the hosts and the callers debated for an hour about how to fix it, you know what they came up with???
Play Cleveland.
Congrats Cleveland, we’re even a joke to Buffalo now.
Romeo’s comments throughout the seasons should be enough to fire him. Is anyone else sick of the “try” comments, ie. “we’ll try to win some games” we’ll try this try that. Then the “figure out” comments like this. This is the NFL trying and figuring out is what you do in high school football. I will always be a browns fan no matter what, but I cannot stand to have this man be our HC for a minute longer. (although I agree firing him midseason will not help the team) it just better be done when the last second ticks away from the clock in our final game this season.
romeo must go..to donatos!
can someone tell me why ray lewis was at the top of the home page? i’m glad he’s gone…but why was he there??? very concerned.
We lost a bet with Dewey at Blogimore Ravens on the Ravens game last Sunday. Had the Browns won, they were going to have Shaun Rogers terrorizing their banner for a week. Alas, the Browns played a prevent in the third quarter, and we all had to look at Flexin’ Ray for a week.
While I could care less if certain players think others quit or not, while at the game on Thursday I did not to others around me that Braylon’s body language seemed to be “pouting” during the game and the defense was exhausted/out of shape by the 4th qtr–whether or not that is quitting I don’t know.
As far as this comment: “I know we’ve had the discussion here about who you’d replace him with, but this team has enough talent that I just can’t stomach watching them go 4-12 because their current coach has no idea what he’s doing. Am I alone on this??”—yes you are alone on this. Defensively this team has one maybe two players with real “talent” and play making ability. The offense is very weak at WR–even if Braylon was having a good year–no depth at all. The Qb position is average at best at this time and a real unknown going fwd. Offensive line has been sporadic at best–every time I watch Thomas or see replays of him he is blocking air…overall RB depth and quality is above avg. Special teams are very good. Coaching is horrific–again. Combined with a very difficult schedule, as Dennis Green likes to say “they are what we thought they were”—another double digit loss season.
Here is my take on these quotes, and it’s a little late, but I think they were great for the team’s morale. I’m not even kidding. If Lewis and Cribbs had actually said some players’ names and called them out for quitting, those players would have responded with name-calling and sulking. Most of the players in the NFL are little more than children in the bodies of full grown adults. However, by allowing the players to remain anonymous, everyone on the team takes a mentality of “I’m not going to be the one who looks like he’s quitting this week against Buffalo.”
I suspect the Browns defense will show up on Monday Night and we’ll thrash the Bills. What happens after the success in week 10 is anybody’s guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the players who didn’t give their all in weeks 8 and 9 go right back to that mentality after a big win in week 10.
Honestly I believe the browns have enough talent to win. DA could be a better QB in my opinion then what he showed, although i dont think that he should get another chance in cleveland. Brady will be a smart QB and has the playmakers around him that will allow him to just “manage” the game. If hes more then terrific. And to point the o-line to be sporadic is just singling them out. If i can remind you the D held the giants to 14 points. In the off season they definitely need to get D help, and try to stay healthy on offense (to remind everyone, joe j will be back next year which will add much needed depth to the wr position, and tucker will be back assuming no more complications, depth/ consistency they need on the o line) and get coaches that have proven themselves in the NFL.