<3 my steelers, can't wrap my head around what's up with the browns.. This is a perfect WTF moment.. Sorry Hopwin
Honestly, this is a matter of heart/motivation. I say heart because Josh Cribbs is the heart and soul of that team and he plays like it. He isn't playing for money (he is woefully underpaid, $620k/year) and regardless if he sat on his hands some team will throw a ton of green his way next year. He is playing because he loves football and wants to win and now he has single-handedly beaten the Steelers and Chiefs back-to-back. Based on the impact it had on Harrison I think he's contagious.
Rodney Harrison said it best on "Football Night in America'' Sunday night: When's the last time the best player on a team has been a special-teamer or a return man? Cribbs set an NFL record with his seventh and eighth career kickoff returns for touchdown Sunday, and they were both telling. The first, a 100-yarder in the first quarter, was a combo platter of moves and speed and physical play, with Cribbs breaking two tackles. The second, a 103-yard darter in the second quarter of Cleveland's 41-34 win, was a speed race up the left sideline.
We're watching a return man very nearly the equal of the best return man of our time, Devin Hester (though his prime was short), and a special-teamer who's physical and willing. And he's rapidly becoming Eric Mangini's favorite player.
Because everything in Cleveland is so politically charged right now -- with two friends of Mike Holmgren telling me over the weekend they expect him to take the czar job after turning down a late rush from the Seahawks Saturday -- and Mangini's future in doubt, you have to take everything players and coaches say there cautiously. But the Browns have looked lively and breakneck in the last two games, beating two suspect teams, Pittsburgh and Kansas City (and that's putting it kindly in the case of the Chiefs).
With that as a backdrop, I asked Cribbs Sunday after the game: If you polled all the players on the team, what would be the vote on whether to keep or get rid of Mangini?
"I think it'd be unanimous,'' Cribbs said. "I think the guys would definitely want to keep him. You can't judge coach Mangini on one year. The camaraderie in the locker room is great. You hear things in the media about coach Mangini being too tough on us. But I think we're building something here, and I think the players are behind him.''
Cribbs is a smart kid. I'm not saying a calculating kid, but he does know what makes a team go. He must have talked for five minutes Sunday about his kickoff-unit protectors, Lawrence Vickers and Blake Costanzo and Jerome Harrison. (Harrison also had the 286-yard rushing game Sunday at Arrowhead, the third-biggest rushing day in NFL history. How ridiculous, by the way, that that's a parenthetical.)
Cribbs said he hasn't made his contract a big deal this year -- he's making $620,000, 30th-highest on the team -- because of something club legend and adviser Jim Brown said to him: "I was told by the greatest, Jim Brown, to just play, and everything would take care of itself,'' Cribbs said. "He said when he played, all he worried about was playing, and he figured if he played to the best of his ability, they'd have to pay him. If that's what the great Jim Brown did, I think it's smart for me to do it too. I am confident I will be taken care of.''
Interesting story Cribbs told me about halftime in Kansas City. Mangini told the team, "Josh Cribbs cannot keep bailing out this team by himself. He needs some help.'' And Harrison, a total roster afterthought, told Cribbs he was going to do something about it.
Harrison, a fourth-year back from Washington State, rushed for 60 yards in 2006, 142 in 2007, 246 in 2008 and, in the first 13 games this year, 301 yards. Cleveland trailed 24-20 at the half, and in the second half, Harrison rushed 22 times for 208 yards, with touchdown of 71, eight and 28 yards. I guess Harrison was right -- he did do something about it.
Read more:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/w ... z0aLYqyILz 
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