Browns WR Update: Stallworth Likely Gone [Update-Donte Briefly Responds]
January 24, 2010While We’re Waiting… QB Priorities, Cavs’ Offensive Improvements, and LeBron’s MVP Hunt
January 25, 2010The first week of the offseason for Josh Cribbs was a whirlwind of publicity centered on his dissatisfaction with his current contract. He and his agents made serious noise about how his career with the Browns was likely coming to an end. It became a major national story and fomented angst here in NE Ohio. Cribbs cleaned out his locker and intimated that he had set foot in Berea for the last time.
The confrontation with the Browns front office has taken on a much quieter tone in recent weeks and progress on a new deal has been made. Josh has publicly stopped talking about his displeasure with the Browns front office treatment and his agents now have a more positive outlook on his future here.
The newfound positivity between both parties was aided most likely by the stability that now exists in the Browns front office that was simply non-existent in the immediate days of the off-season. With Mike Keenan and Dawn Aponte, who made the initial offer that so enraged Cribbs’ camp, now gone, the contract negotiations have made considerable progress to the point where a deal may be near completion. The change in tone from Cribbs’ representation is clear:
“We’ve talked to Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert and we have an understanding that we’re going to work together on this. We have a much clearer indication that something can be worked out and that it’s not just lip service.”
The stabilization of the front office has clearly resulted in the Cribbs renegotiations becoming a priority. Heckert and Holmgren both stressed to Josh’s representation that the Aponte offer was not a final offer and that the front office was open to further negotiations. I am sure the progress is partly a result of the publicity campaign that really put pressure from the fanbase on the front office. But I think a larger part has to do with that same front office finalizing it’s org chart and all the new faces settling in and getting to work. It appears that the public ultimatums and threats of divorce are now behind us and Browns fans can relax.
(Photo by Kevin Terrell/Getty Images)
10 Comments
Brendan,
Maybe you ought to change the headline a bit. I thought you were reporting that Cribbs was about to be traded. It took me until two-thirds of the way through the article to realize that “deal” meant new contract rather than trade.
Whoa – definitely do not mean to scare you like that. I will clarify. I guess deal was too vague a word.
Its good that Cribbs’ camp is changing their tone.
Glad they have calmed down and stopped the poor me, wah wah shtick. Love him, want him on the team, but not at any cost.
Side note… SOOOO happy BE and the Jets are not headed to the SB!!!
/just sayin
You’d rather have the (Baltimore) Indy Colts in the Super Bowl? Remember, if they woulda never left Baltimore for Indy in the middle of the night, we would have never lost our Browns. To me they’re just as evil as the Ravens.
@JK, wow that’s a stretch.
I despise the Bears, because they were the first team to move. If they hadn’t set the precedent we never would have lost the Browns.
Also, don’t forget the Lions and Rams left Ohio. If they hadn’t we never would have had the Browns 1.0.
JK if the Colts didn’t move from Baltimore, then Modell would’ve moved to another city. I have no issues with the Colts making the SB. I am just glad a NY team didn’t make it.
I know I’m stating what has been said since the middle of the summer, but it bears repeating. Cribbs has handled his contract dispute the best way anyone can handle it. He didnt holdout. He didnt play half-hearted. He didnt isolate himself from the community. He made it perfectly clear that he hated his contract and was unhappy with the management, yet he played harder than the rest of the team combined until about week 13 when the SCRUBS, not the big money starters, decided they were sick of losing! He had more asked of him than perhaps anyone in the league (KR, PR, WR, Flash QB, Punt/Kick Coverage… WFNY even suggested safety) and has performed at such a high level week in and week out. I have heard more about Cribbs’ community involvement than the entire Browns roster. We senslesly throw around cash at DA, yet Cribbs gets treated like a bum begging at a Cavs game?
If NFL owners truly want their players to handle contract disputes the right way…the Cribbs way, then reward players for doing so, rather than dishing out millions to guys who skip a week of training camp (not to mention guys that are always hurt, then eventually kill some innocent construction worker…chuh, ugm, a-Dante, excuse me). Set an example for every organization around the league so that when half the league is holding out trying to strike gold in the uncapped year, owners and players can at least see that it has been done before.
This whole Cribbs situation infuriates me, and I’m happy the new front office finally acknowledges they will do something. I hope my rant was cohesive. #16 on our jerseys, #1 in our hearts. Pay Da F-in Man!!!
Hurry and sign him before he learns ESPN has more then one station!
If Art Modell were still owner he would have let cribbs go because art is evil and doesn’t know anything about football.