The top story at the Plain Dealer this morning is that “Josh Cribbs and his agents are insulted” by the Browns latest offer to pay Cribbs some $1.2 million on top of the $3 million or so that he’s set to make under his current contract that runs for three more seasons.
Cribbs’ agent called the offer “unacceptable,” and “a slap in the face.”
According to John Taylor of the OBR, if the Browns don’t change their current position, “Cribbs ‘will not step foot back in that facility. Ever.'” He’ll “push for a trade on the first day of the league year in March,” and “if he is not given permission to shop himself, he will continue to stay away from the team and not participate in any OTAs or minicamps.”
Many Browns fans are understandably upset by the team’s inability to reconcile with its most productive player and unquestionable fan favorite, but there are several points worth considering in defense of the Browns’ position here.
The first being that Cribbs has signed a contract through 2013. If he decides to hold out, he won’t be paid a dime. Consider the unlikelihood that he’d hold out for even one full season, let alone three. $4.2 million is a lot of money for anyone to leave on the table, let alone a guy who’s never made $1 million in a year, and likely won’t have a chance to make so much again. In 2013, Cribbs will be a 30-year-old kick returner who was great three years ago, and might have been a decent running back as well. Who will pay the man then?
Of course, that the Browns don’t have to pay Cribbs any more money to get him to play for them doesn’t mean they shouldn’t, but how much more is Cribbs really worth?
Recent history suggests that explosive kick returners (see Dante Hall and Devin Hester) don’t maintain their productivity for much longer than three seasons, and Devin Hester’s $5.45 million-per-year contract with the Bears has become something of a laughingstock. Hester hasn’t returned a kick for a touchdown in two full seasons since signing his new deal.
It’s also important to ask how much of Cribbs’ stardom this season is due to the overall performance of the Browns’ excellent special teams units that didn’t allow a return touchdown all season, and led the league in allowing opponents only 18.9 yards per kick return. Note that while Cribbs is the starting kick returner for the AFC Pro Bowlers this season, Leon Washington of Eric Mangini’s Jets occupied that slot last season. The situation is at least somewhat similar to the Denver Broncos ability to reload at running back throughout much of the last two decades, and suggests that Cribbs is more easily replaceable than he might seem to be.
Finally, Cribbs’ contract is back-loaded, as he’s only set to earn $720,000 next season. The Browns’ offer to pay him $1.4 million per year nearly doubles that, and increases his overall salary by more than 40 percent. Questions about reworking a contract that doesn’t expire for a full three years, the longevity of kick returners, and the replacement costs of one part of an excellent kick return unit might lead one to conclude that the Browns’ offer is nowhere near insulting, if not entirely reasonable.
It’s understood that Cribbs is a fan favorite, and contributed tremendously to the success the team enjoyed in 2009, but the Browns shouldn’t mortgage their future for sentimental reasons.
$4.2 million is a lot of money, even over three years. And Cribbs no doubt deserves it. Adding incentives for special teams touchdowns, return yards, and output on offense that would kick his potential earnings to $8 million or so if he could maintain his current productivity seems more than fair, and should be something that both Cribbs and the Browns should want to do. Claiming insult at a 40% baseline raise couldn’t possibly help here.
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, which corroborates our old friend Dawg Pound Mike’s claim of this week that these folks are amateurs. If it turns out that Josh Cribbs doesn’t wear the Orange and Brown in 2010 and beyond, we’ll suppose that his agents J.R. Rickert and Peter Schaffer are as much to blame as anyone else.
