I wrote earlier this week that Josh Cribbs’ seemingly untenable position in his current contract negotiations with the Browns might be a result of bad advice from his agents, J.R. Rickert and Peter Schaffer. I noted that Cribbs’ agents have embarrassed him in the past with ridiculous claims about the commonplace reality of NFL teams putting forth effort on the field until the final whistle is blown, and cited a Tweet by our old friend Dawg Pound Mike (that Mike deleted after I published the post) that said that these folks are newcomers “trying to make a name for themselves” in the Cribbs negotations.
Yesterday, Cribbs agents pulled another questionable tactic out of their playbook: Sending idiotic condescending emails to bloggers who publish reasonable criticism of their work. I received the following yesterday from Cribbs’ agent J.R. Rickert:
from: [J.R. Rickert]
to: clevelandfrowns@gmail.com
date: Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 8:26 PM
subject: TwitterPeter,
Who the hell are you? You know me???
If you did, you would know that my marketing days are in the rear view mirror.
You should focus on your thriving law practice and scribing of current briefs before you comment about me.
Regards,
JR Rickert
President and CEO of
National Sports Management &
JR Enterprises
I replied to Rickert to explain that I disagree with his suggestion that his public comments about the Browns and his representation of Josh Cribbs are only subject to scrutiny by those who know him personally, and Rickert responded to note that such was fair enough.
Still, regardless of how much money Cribbs actually deserves, the above email from Rickert lends additional support to the notion that if Cribbs doesn’t end up in Brown and Orange in 2010 and beyond, it might be as much or more a result of unreasonable demands and bad advice from his agents as anything else.
