Article published November 12, 2007
Omit Cribbs from players' blame game
PITTSBURGH - It was an angry, bitter, loud locker room. Equipment was being thrown. Curses rang out. And, suddenly, big Willie McGinest, a 14-year veteran of these NFL wars, walked to the middle of the room.
Blame me, McGinest yelled. And there was absolute, pin-dropping silence.
"I'm big and strong and I can take it," he said. "So if you want to blame somebody, blame me."
Braylon Edwards walked toward the middle to join him.
The Browns’ Joshua Cribbs eludes Steelers kicker Jeff Reed on his way to a 90-yard return. Cribbs totaled 204 yards in kickoff returns.
(
BLOCK NEWS ALLIANCE/MATT FREED
)
|
"Blame me," Edwards said.
Joshua Cribbs told this story as darkness descended on the Steel City late yesterday afternoon."First it was Willie, then Braylon," Cribbs said. "Then it was somebody else, then somebody else. You know how we get in a huddle? That was it. And I walked in, too, and said, 'Blame me.'•"
Blame Joshua Cribbs? The guy who had a 90-yard kickoff return to set up a first-half touchdown and an astonishing 100-yarder in the fourth quarter for a score that erased the Cleveland Browns' first deficit of the day?
Blame Joshua Cribbs?
"No one guy costs his team a game," Cribbs said. "So, yeah, blame me, too. Say it's my fault."
The Browns were going for a fourth straight win yesterday. It would have been the biggest in the post-expansion history of the franchise because it would have been against the Steelers and it would have given them a share of first place in the AFC North.
The Browns found a way to lose it 31-28.
They've been finding ways to lose for years. But this seemed different. Sure, the AFC North still goes through the 'Burgh. Sure, the Browns are still pretenders. But they're closer. By golly, they're a lot closer. They lost, but something happened in that locker room.
Call it accountability. Call it players taking ownership of a team. Blame me, they said.
Well, if it's all the same to Cribbs, we won't. Blame him, that is. After all, he was tremendous.
Not only did he have the two long kickoff returns and 204 yards total, he also had a nice punt return with just over a minute to play that would have set the Browns up at the Pittsburgh 37 needing a field goal to tie. But Darnell Dinkins was called for a hold and the drive instead started at the Cleveland 33-yard line.
"Don't take that yardage away and we would have made the field goal," said coach Romeo Crennel, referring to what ended up being a 52-yard attempt by Phil Dawson into the open end of windy Heinz Field that fell, dead center, maybe a yard or two short.
In one breath, Dinkins said he didn't hold. In the next, he said, "Blame me, because my team played its heart out and I [messed] up."
Blame me.
But not Joshua Cribbs, who produced one of the season's most electrifying plays. After Ben Roethlisberger, seemingly unstoppable with 210 yards of total offense in the second half, scrambled 30 yards for a touchdown to give the Steelers their first lead at 24-21, Pittsburgh kicked off to Cribbs.
It was something of a bloop kick, perhaps not by intent, and it wobbled and bounced and took a funny, high hop over Cribbs' head and rolled back toward the end zone.
"I sort of muffed it, but I didn't mess with the momentum of the ball," he said. "So if it had gone into the end zone, I could have taken a knee. But it just didn't make it; at least I don't think it did. It was too close to tell, so I picked it up and took off.
"Guys were coming at me like slow bullets. I dodged here, dodged there, went left, went right. It was like being in the middle of a video game."
He was hit and spun near the sideline and somehow, some way, managed to stay inbounds. At the end, a convoy of white jerseys escorted him into the end zone. It put Cleveland back ahead 28-24.
Still, the Browns didn't win. But it seemed like there was a little winning mixed in with the losing. Something very important may have happened in that locker room. Time will tell.
Permanent Link
|
|
 |
|
READ: 
Search
advertisement
