What happened to Hillis wasn't a tragedy, He refused to prove himself for a contract extension, wanted to stay safe..

Losing Vickers was terrible, but fullbacks can be had if you're willing to commit to that style of football.

@koalabazooka said:

yep, and somehow i don't think we ever got the full story on what happened. Just my suspicion

@clevelandwantsplayoffs said:

Tony Dungy (then that night on Sunday Night in America) comments - "penalty for roughing the tackler"

@poeticg said:

Fuck what the haters say. Richardson stood up for Cleveland and us Fans. When he spoke about winning and being the best in the national media. He didn't back down to the naysayers. For that he'll always be a Brown. He embraced Cleveland. He started his journey here and it was intended to be for the long haul.... He's got unfinished business is all I'm saying. If he wins several championships before we've ever won our first, I'm sure that he'll come and help us win one before he retires a Brown.

There's a difference between being a hater and a damn realist PG. I don't hate Richardson- no one here does- at least not in the same way we "hate" seeing Brandon Weeden tossing underhand softball pitches to the other team. We didn't "hate" Josh Cribbs or Colt McCoy either. Us "realists" knew Cribbs had lost several steps, and Colt though he tries hard, didn't have what it takes to be a starter in the NFL.

OK, you want to explain with TR on a team that features a great qb to take pressure off the running game, Richardson is still averaging only 3.1 ypc? And Bradshaw has almost as many yards on 20 fewer attempts? TR is supposedly healthy now too. We pulled a supposedly washed up Willis McGahee off his couch, and his ypc are only 0.3 less than your superhero- statistically insignificant in my book. Wake up PG- Banner and Lombardi dumped Trent because they surmised (correctly) Richardson doesn't have what it takes to ever live up to his lofty draft status. I freaking TOLD you Trent doesn't have the breakaway gear guys like Peterson and Barry Sanders have\had. His career long to date is 32 yards.

You have to let your fantasy on this guy go. He's a nice short yardage back, but that's about it. If Richardson wins multiple championships in Indy- it's going to be because of Andrew Luck, not because he's tearing up the league.

Zombo said:

he's just going to say we already had one in Colt McCoy.

how's that stable look...

McCoy, Vickers, Hillis, Richardson and Cribbs.

2 of them suck...1 is very average...and the other 2 are decent in a specialist sort of way.

@poeticg said:

A week ago three of them were out of the league and the fourth was averaging 3 yards per carry.

Quite the stable there, Chief.

Zombo

--We need a Q-U-A-R-T-E-R-B-A-C-K

@poeticg said:

This team is legit a good QB and a steady running game away from finally turning the proverbial corner. Time to look forward bro, not in the past.

@poeticg said:

I wouldn't say that, Richardson is going to have a long career and I feel like he might come back someday. He's got unfinished business here. A lot of people still aren't okay with the trade. I don't give a fuck about the stat line. When you bleed orange like Vickers, Cribbs, Richardson, or even old schoolers like Dixon, Kosar or Kevin Mack... once a Brown, always a Brown.

Football is a game of inches. It's a game of luck and skill. It's a man's game. It's a kids game. It's a physical game. It's a chess match. Sometimes it becomes much more than football. It's about resurrecting a city's belief. It's about rejuvenating belief. It's about leading a charge. It's about standing up and being accountable.

Fuck what the haters say. Richardson stood up for Cleveland and us Fans. When he spoke about winning and being the best in the national media. He didn't back down to the naysayers. For that he'll always be a Brown. He embraced Cleveland. He started his journey here and it was intended to be for the long haul.... He's got unfinished business is all I'm saying. If he wins several championships before we've ever won our first, I'm sure that he'll come and help us win one before he retires a Brown.

No.

Just let it go. It's over.

EDIT: okay, I had to read the rest. Jesus Christ, you are delusional. The guy played one full season for us. He was born in Florida, went to school in Alabama. He bleeds about as much orange as Philip Rivers does.

Football is a game of inches. It's a game of luck and skill. It's a man's game. It's a kids game. It's a physical game. It's a chess match. Sometimes it becomes much more than football. It's about resurrecting a city's passion. It's about rejuvenating belief. It's about leading a charge. It's about standing up and being accountable.

Fuck what the haters say. Richardson stood up for Cleveland and us Fans. When he spoke about winning and being the best in the national media. He didn't back down to the naysayers. For that he'll always be a Brown. He embraced Cleveland. He started his journey here and it was intended to be for the long haul.... He's got unfinished business is all I'm saying. If he wins several championships before we've ever won our first, I'm sure that he'll come and help us win one before he retires a Brown.

@poeticg said:

Man, a stable of Peyton Hillis, Lawrence Vickers, Trent Richardson and Josh Cribbs would have been awesome... and still probably would.

Except not one of those players will ever wear Brown again.

@clevfan4life said:

Yeah, I'm glad someone else noticed that- It's just one of his many shortcomings, but one of the more important ones.

@clevelandwantsplayoffs said:

Now imagine if we still had Vickers with Lewis spelling Hillis and maybe starting a couple games so Peyton stayed healthy deep into Nov/Dec. We could have been sick. And our qb would have been able to play action teams out of their shoes.

@tour2ma said:

3-4 yds, a cloud of fucking dust....and helmets laying around in the wake. "THAT" is the running game we were fucking building. You know I thought at first that it was all on Hillis, and some of it still is, but I honestly think he smelled the writing on Holmgrens whiteboard. When Holmgren said "fullbacks don't matter" it was clear what he thought about the power running game. Hillis didn't fit into the plans, he was a Mangini guy. Getting rid of Vickers was one of the worst decisions in Cleveland sports history because it broke up the power game that was going to hurt AFC north defense's for years to come. Weeden might actually have had a nice carreer with those two guys behind him. I say that because he is incapable of throwing over the top of dropping LB'ers. It's one of his most glaring deficiencies besides his shitting the bed moments. And Trent was never a serious customer, not enough to make teams completely game for him. The Hillis/Vickers backfield was making teams re evaluate how they play defense. Hillis was one of those guys that was never going to bust out just anywhere, he needed a place where the scheme was right. He needed a place where he "fit". That was CLeveland for a year. Than we canned Mangini cause he went 5-11 but gave us some of the best football we've seen in decades. Even the wins this year pale in comparison so far to 2010 when we may have lost 11 games but we were knockin fools out and (some) of those games were close. We also put a beating on NO and NE. If that team had this years defense? wow

If the dude gets his head back on straight he and Jacobs make a helluva 1-2 punch.

Ya think maybe NYG is going to try to pound the rock from here on?