First order of business today - Kellen Winslow was suspended for one game by the Browns yesterday. He will miss the Jacksonville game on Sunday and isn't allowed to re-join the team until Monday. While the suspension is completely justified, I'm actually quite surprised that the Browns did it. This seems a little out of character for them and illustrates just how upset Phil Savage must have been after the reported 'heated exchange' he had with K2 outside of the Browns locker room after Sunday's loss to the Redskins. Here are pieces of what Savage had to say yesterday:
"The Cleveland Browns are committed to winning and taking care of our players. We are also committed to protecting the privacy of our players, particularly with regard to medical issues. To that end, following discussions with Kellen Winslow and his representation, the Browns agreed to make every effort to maintain the confidentiality of his recent medical condition."
"Kellen has expressed his desire to be a productive member of the Cleveland Browns. His comments and behavior on Sunday evening, however, were unwarranted, inappropriate, and unnecessarily disparaging to our organization. His statements brought unjustified negative attention to our organization, and violated the team-first concept of our football squad. Therefore, disciplinary action will be taken in the form of a one-game suspension without pay for conduct detrimental to the club."
And part of Winslow's response:
"I remain loyal to the Browns organization, my teammates, the fans and the city of Cleveland. I remain a hard worker on and off the field in support of my teammates and our goal to have a winning season. I hope to be a Brown for a very long time. I know that the organization and I can move forward and focus on having a successful season, which I believe everybody agrees upon."
I don't envy Phil Savage's job at all. He has been trying to rid this franchise of its downtrodden image ever since he arrived in Cleveland. Now he has this mess to deal with on two levels. The first is figuring out what to do with Winslow. And the second is convincing the players that they are safe from staph infections.
I can go either way with Winslow. On the one hand, I'm a huge fan of the guy's passion and heart. Many people still tend to villanize him for his 'soldja' comments he made years ago. Or his boneheaded decision to recklessly ride his motorcycle which obviously led to some very serious injuries and directly hurt his career. But I look at what he went through to get back onto the field and then how he performed last season when he clearly was not 100% physically. He is a warrior on the field and he wants to win as much as anyone in the NFL. But on the other hand, he needs to realize that the team is bigger than just him. He cannot put Savage or the organization in this position and think there will be no consequences. I'm glad Savage stepped in and acted swiftly, but I wonder where this leads regarding Winslow's future with the Browns. I guess time will tell.
And as far as the staph infection thing goes, I don't know how you handle that one. It really sounds like the Browns have done everything they can to find the source of the problem. And I work for the Cleveland Clinic, so I'm not even gonna touch that one. But I do see other guys in other organizations go through this too (Tom Brady anyone?) so who knows where this is really coming from. I'm definitely not scientifically qualified to speculate, but I would be concerned if I was a player on the Browns or any other NFL team for that matter.
Cavs Update: Only six days away now. The Cavs collected their second win of the preseason last night in Philadelphia with a 91-83 win over the Sixers. LeBron led the way with 20 points in 25 minutes, as all of the starters' playing time increased in preparation for the regular season. Boobie Gibson also chipped in 17 off the bench with a nice 6-of-9 shooting night, including 3-of-5 from long range.
Mo also added 13 for the wine and gold
