Red Right 88

In Cleveland, hope dies last

Archive for the category “Braylon Edwards”

07 Aug 2011

Just Braylon being Braylon

Browns fans have obviously know for some time that Braylon Edwards is a hoople head.

New York Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum and head coach Rex Ryan know it too, but after Edwards was a starter the past year and a half on a Jets team that went to consecutive AFC Championship games, New York decided to try to make it work with him.

After all, it’s hard to find a team in professional sports more player-friendly than Ryan’s Jets.

But Braylon being Braylon, he decided he could get a better deal elsewhere, because why should he take less money than Santonio Holmes to stay with the Jets?

So the Jets turned to Plaxico Burress , a 34-year-old wide receiver with the ankles of an 80-year-old who spent the past two seasons in prison. And they waved goodbye to Edwards.

Turns out, though, that the rest of the National Football League has been paying attention.

Edwards hit the open market thinking a big payday was waiting for him. Turns out he was wrong.

Edwards finally found out just how the league values him when San Francisco signed him this past week for a one-year, $1 million contract – with no guaranteed money. The deal can max out to $3.5 million if Edwards catches 90 passes and makes the Pro Bowl this season.

Of course, only three players in franchise history have ever caught 90 or more passes for the 49ers – Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens and Roger Craig – and they had Joe Montana and Steve Young passing them the ball, not Alex Smith.

So it’s pretty much a lock that Edwards won’t be seeing any of that extra cash.

Edwards didn’t help his cause any after allegedly being involved in a fight that broke out at a bar in Birmingham, Mich., early Monday.

The fight, at South Bar in downtown Birmingham, Mich., saw two of Edwards’ cousins charged with felonious assault after allegedly attacking two bouncers with a pocket knife and a fork.

The (Detroit) Free Press also reported that “privately, employees at South Bar said Edwards was spurring on his cousins rather than trying to get them to stop fighting.”

Sounds like just the kind of guy you’d want in your locker room, doesn’t it?

Even with the current state of the Browns wide receivers, not a day goes by where we aren’t glad that Edwards is some other team’s problem.

Posted in Braylon Edwards, Cleveland Browns, hoople heads, NFL | Leave a comment
21 Sep 2010

A Step in the Right Direction

Browns coach Eric Mangini may be on to something here as the team prepares for its first division game of the season, this Sunday in Baltimore.

In his Monday press conference, Mangini said the Browns should have used Josh Cribbs in the Wildcat more against KC:

“I feel like I would have used it more yesterday looking back. That’s something I would have done more of in retrospect. I think that whether they’re catching up or not catching up giving Josh (Cribbs) a few more chances to carry the ball sometimes they have caught up and he changes things.”

On getting Cribbs more opportunities:

“Yes, just to get Josh more touches. I think with him, they may load the box, they may do a lot of different things. He’s got a chance on any play.”

And why haven’t they used the Wildcat very much so far:

“You’re going through the course of the game and there’s a lot of things that, when you have a chance to sit in your offense and analyze, you think of. There are some decisions that you’d like to have back, but you don’t get to it at that point. I think every coach in the league goes through that process on Monday morning, win or lose. ‘I wish we had done this, I wish we had done more of that.’ When you have the benefit of time and reflection and you’ve seen how the game has unfolded, you always go through that process. Good and bad.”

This is good stuff. The first step to becoming more effective at work is awareness. If you don’t know a problem exists, you can’t fix it. Without feedback, most people believe they are doing just fine. It seems as if the feedback is starting to get through.

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In a city with more than 10,000 taxi cabs running 24 hours a day, you would think it wouldn’t be that hard to avoid being arrested for drunk driving. The Alumni Office at the University of Michigan must be so proud.

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A very solid article at the Orange & Brown Report on the early results of the Mike Holmgren era.

Posted in Braylon Edwards, Cleveland Browns, Eric Mangini, Josh Cribbs, Wildcat | Leave a comment

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