I’ll start off with Joshua Cribbs, who has been begging for a new contract for the past year.
Let's get this out in the open right away, the man deserves more money. A lot more money.
He is the most exciting player on the Browns since they came back to Cleveland in 1999, hands down. He loves playing for the city and he’s undoubtedly one of the best kick/punt returners in league history, perhaps
the best.
He’s most often compared to the inferior Devin Hester, kick/punt returner now turned wide receiver, for the Chicago Bears.
He too was in a similar situation as Cribbs. In 2008, he was only (only?) making $445,000 a year and asked for a new contract.
His salary now sits at more than $5 million per year.
Cribbs was recently offered a new contract at $1.4 million, which insulted him so much he posted on his twitter late Wednesday night, “I feel like I’ve been betrayed by my best friend.”
Thursday morning, he posted: "I don't want to sound greedy, but fair is fair..."
Cribbs has threatened to demand a trade or sit out. The Browns aren’t trading him and he still has three years left on his contract, so if he sits out — which is unlikely — it’d be a long time before he ever plays again.
Now to my opinion.
I don’t have a problem with Cribbs asking for more money. This is the way the NFL is structured with non-guaranteed contracts. This happens all the time and is the reason you see so many holdouts every season.
To people who say things like “Well he’s already getting paid more money then I’ll ever make, stop complaining” doesn’t understand market value in sports.
Yes, athletes are overpaid by obscene amounts of money for doing something everyone could only dream of, but Cribbs market value is far, far more than the contract he has now.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
If you worked for a company and were getting paid, say, $50,000 per year, and your company was making millions upon millions and you look around and see others who are less skilled than you at the same position getting paid triple, or quadruple, the amount as you, you’d be complaining, you’d think about leaving and above all, you’d be hurt.
The problem I do have, and I love Cribbs — who as I said, genuinely loves playing for this town — is voicing his frustration publicly so soon regarding his new offer.
Mike Holmgren, the teams new president, hasn’t even been in town for one whole week and has already been bombarded by Cribbs’ agent.
You’d think they’d let Holmgren settle in before making demands. Not to mention, Holmgren has bigger things on his plate, like trying to decide who is going to coach this team next year.
So in that aspect, I’m a bit disappointed with Cribbs, who needs to be patient. The money will come.
In an effort to maybe patch things up with fans, Cribbs had this to offer on his Twitter page Thursday afternoon: "I'm so gracious for browns fans all over... This is why I love playing here their the best fans ever..."
Speaking of disappointment, Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas has officially gone off the reservation.
Talk about being a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket.
This guy brought nothing to the picnic, except maybe a few guns.
For those who haven’t heard — and there are multiple stories of what really happened, and no one really knows at this point — is there was some sort of situation in the Washington Wizards locker room where Arenas allegedly laid four unloaded guns down near a teammate’s locker with a note that said “pick one.” This was in response to the teammate's joke/threat to shoot Arenas in his surgically repaired knee following a poker game on the team plane a few nights prior.
Let's get this out there on the table right now, Gilbert Arenas is a self-proclaimed goofball. Always has, always will be. Doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously and unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be taking the gun incident situation too seriously.
Carrying guns into the locker room is one thing, but to openly flaunt them in front of others and to make jokes about shooting off said gun is another.
This town knows a thing or two about gun incidents, after all, we got our own Desperado in the locker room in Delonte West. (Does anyone else find it ironic that the Wizards — formally known as the Bullets — were in town to face the Cavaliers at the height of this controversy?)
The difference between the two is, West has kept quiet about his situation understanding the seriousness of it while Arenas thought it was a joke, proceeded to write blogs and tweets saying people take things too seriously and that he was just goofing around.
Not to mention, West is actually diagnosed with mood disorders. There is no clinical diagnosis for just being stupid. (If there was, it'd be called Gilbert disorder.)
He then, in one of the dumbest things I’ve seen of all time, gathered his teammates together before a game on Monday - after the controversy, mind you - and pointed his index finger at his teammates pretending to shoot them to poke fun of his situation. The Wizards, who have truly become a poor excuse for a franchise, all laughed. NBA Commissioner David Stern, and the rest of the country, didn’t.
Arenas will now have a long time to think about not only his actions, but his strange, erratic behavior following the locker room incident trying to undermine what he had done.
He truly doesn’t get it yet and with his personality, probably never will.
It’ll be a long time before you see Arenas play another professional game.
Hopefully, it won’t be the same case for Cribbs.
Nick Carrabine
NCarrabine@News-Herald.com
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