They would never come out and say it, but I wouldn't be shocked if they actually saw quinn as the better qb, but only incrementally so, and were benching him for contract/salary cap purposes. i'm not sure how communicative mangini is with his players, but i feel like just ignoring that as your motivation in talks with the player could create tension and ill will. if that's the case i'd be upfront enough to say look, we think there's a chance you might work out here, but since we havent seen enough for us to be sure of that, we can't play you 70% of the time this year. that incentive was built into the deal so that you'd be fairly rewarded if you turned out to be THE guy, which you haven't, yet. you might, and if you do, we'll revisit the contract terms, do an extension, whatever your play warrants. no hard feelings, but this is our right from a business perspective, and the reason that the escalator terms are put into the deal in the first place, from the team's point of view.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,521138,00.html

Gates Hails Soldier Snapped in Pink Boxer Shorts

@shepwrite said:

Did I miss something? The statement doesn't say he's asked to be traded and he was at the team meeting this morning.

Yeah it's hard to tell if this is a repackage of earlier information from this morning that ESPN has interpreted in their own way so it could go on the front page or what.

Weak. Interesting to see if the team gives him what he wants. It wouldnt be expensive to squat on that contract, in which case he wouldn't really be taking care of his family - a holdout would just result in fines.

Interesting take - I agree the hester deal is a bad one for chi. I think we are all on the same page regarding the fact that his contract is barely relevant here:

http://www.nologoneeded.com/no_logo_needed...r-trade-me.html

Pay Me or Trade Me?

By Brandon Rastok

NoLogoNeeded.com staff writer

Pay me or trade me.

So that is the stance Josh Cribbs has taken?

Before we begin, a few things about Josh Cribbs:

•Cribbs was one of only a handful of players that never gave up during the debacle that was the 2008 season.

•Every time he has the ball in his hands, there is the potential for a big play.

•He is probably the only player in the league that is as skilled at covering kicks as he is returning them.

•In 2007, he led the league with his 30.7 yards per kickoff return average and was third in average punt return yards.

•Cribbs also is one of the most exciting players to watch in a Browns uniform.

•He is a versatile player and can run the Flash package the Browns have installed.

Now, with four years to go on his contract at $620,000, $635,000, $650,000, and $790,000, is he under paid? Yes.

But, there are a few things to take into consideration.

First, kick returners typically have a very short shelf life. Andre Davis, who was second to Cribbs in average kickoff return yards at 30.3 in 2007, fell to 27th in 2008 with a 23.1-yard average. In 2007, Davis had three touchdowns, but in 2008 he had zero. Since 2003, only 10 players have been in the top 10 in average return yards more than once — Miles Austin, Dante Hall, Devin Hester, Bethel Johnson, Jerome Mathis, Terrence McGee, Willie Ponder, Adam “Pacman” Jones, Maurice Jones-Drew and Leon Washington have all been in the top ten twice during that 6 year span. Only one player, McGee, has done it three times. No player has statistically been in the top 10 in more than half of those six seasons.

Players tend to flame out after one to two years of solid return production. The human joystick, Dante Hall, is the perfect example. In 2003, Hall was all the rage with four returns for touchdowns. He was fourth in kickoff return average and was first in punt return average. The next season, he dropped to fifth in kickoff average, had only two touchdowns, and dropped to eighth in punt return average. He has not been back in the top 10 in kickoff return average since.

After Cribbs’ stellar 2007, his production fell off last season as he dropped to 16th in kick off returns with a 25.3 yard average and only scored one touchdown. He dropped to 17th in punt returns with an 8.1-yard average.

With his decline in production last season, is Cribbs already past his kick returner prime? Should the Browns throw large sums of money at a player whose return specialist production has already maxed out? I tend to think not.

Second, Cribbs and his agent want to use the Devin Hester contract as leverage and sign a similar deal. Hester is no longer the Bears’ top return man. That role belongs to Daniel Manning who led the league in kickoff returns last season. Hester’s deal is based on him being one of the team’s top wide receivers while also returning some kicks. The depth chart at ESPN.com lists Hester as the No. 2 receiver.

In 2007, Cribbs’ best year as a returner, he had three kicks returned for touchdowns. That same year, Hester returned six kicks for touchdowns. Last season, Hester had 51 receptions for 665 yards and three touchdowns. He added another six rushes for 61 yards. In 2007, Hester managed 20 receptions for 299 yards and two touchdowns. By comparison, Cribbs had 2 receptions for 18 yards with one touchdown in 2008. He added 167 yards rushing on 29 attempts. Looking back at 2007, Cribbs added another 3 receptions for 31 yards and nine rushes for 61 yards to his resume. This is hardly having an impact on the offense. With all the new additions the Browns have at receiver, will Cribbs even manage to get his 2-3 receptions this coming season? It is clear that Cribbs is not the same type of player as Devin Hester, and that contract should not be used in negotiations.

Third, even if Devin Hester signed a $40 million contract and other teams believe the Bears signed a bad contract, does that mean that the Browns automatically have to lock themselves into a bad contract? The Browns should not be forced into following poor decisions by other teams. Likewise, if Cribbs and his agent agreed to a deal that was a poor deal for him, is that the Browns’ fault? Would Cribbs return some of the money if he had not played up to his contract? The answer is clearly no. In the real world, especially in today's economy, workers are not guaranteed a job. If they have a successful project that makes the company a bunch of money, how many of the workers actually run to their boss and say, "Pay me.”?

Fourth, Cribbs has four years left on his current contract. If the Browns redo this contract, what kind of message does that send to the rest of the team?

The front office might as well shout through a mega phone during training camp:

“HAVE ONE PRODUCTIVE SEASON AND WE’LL OPEN OUR CHECKBOOK!”

If things were difficult last season with Winslow, Edwards, Cribbs, and Dawson wanting new deals, wait until the Browns open their wallet for Cribbs whose production dropped as the team suffered through a 4-12 season. Actions like this breed the “player before team” and “pay me” attitudes.

Fifth, Cribbs is holding out from minicamp and asking for a trade if the Browns don’t get serious about a new deal. Cribbs is not a starter on offense or defense. He is a situational player. There has been mention of him playing safety with a slight chance to start. Wouldn’t he have a better argument for more money if he were actually participating and putting himself in the best position for more playing time? Meanwhile, there are players like D’Qwell Jackson who is a free agent at the end of the season. He is a full-time starter. He led the NFL in tackles last season. He makes the fourth-year minimum of $640,000. Jackson still reports to minicamp to get better and help the team. Which player should have a renegotiated contract first?

The bottom line is Cribbs should be helping the team this offseason and he is not. The Browns would be wise to give him an added bonus and slightly restructure his deal. However, it should not be anywhere near what he is asking for.

The Browns should offer to double his current pay and give him roughly $1.2 to $2 million per season. The last thing this team needs is to throw its salary cap structure out of whack and make a kick returner one of its highest paid players.

I leave you with one thought. Would the Buffalo Bills have given perennial Pro Bowl special teams player Steve Tasker $10 million a year like Hester is receiving? He was the best at what he did, but also was only a situational player.

http://www.cleveland.com/budshaw/index.ssf...n_cribbs_b.html

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Josh Cribbs says pay me or trade me

So the Steelers and Ravens don't cause the Browns the biggest problems after all. Cell phones and buses do.

The team bus is where Phil Savage sat that November night when he sent the desultory text to a chirping fan -- "@#$&, Go root for Buffalo" -- that in part cost him his job.

It's where Josh Cribbs claims he took a cell phone call from owner Randy Lerner following the season finale in Pittsburgh telling him not to worry, the Browns would take care of him contractually.

The Browns released a statement -- typically for them not attributed to anyone so it could've been the man behind the curtain again -- saying no such promise was made.

Cribbs agent says he has the cell phone records to prove the phone call happened.

What's the richer part of this story?

Ed Betz/Associated Press

Browns owner Randy Lerner has a well-earned reputation for reticience and secrecy, but a hush-hush cell phone promise to Josh Cribbs seems impressive even by Lerner's standards.That a Browns player is claiming to have the goods on a team that uses a former head of the Secret Service to track employees' cell phone records? Or that the alleged call to Cribbs would answer the complaint of so many fans that Lerner isn't involved enough as team owner?

Uh, folks, you really want him involved?

Cribbs is underpaid. His work is as blue collar as it gets in football. Still, he won't get the sympathy in this economic climate, not that any athlete looking for more money ever gets much support from paying customers. But he's outperformed his deal.

That's especially true given the Browns' stated plans are to expand his role beyond kickoff returns, kickoff coverage and part-time Slash duty.

They're pretty much expecting him to do everything except play backup goalie for Lerner's Aston Villa soccer team.

Promises from a former GM carry as much meaning as altar promises from an ex-spouse. But a promise from Lerner, if true, is something different. Unless during the (alleged) phone call Lerner said, #$@%, Go root for Phil Savage to give you the money, the owner has put the front office in a delicate spot and now may be throwing one of the Browns' best players under the bus.

http://www.profootballtalk.com/2009/05/21/...e-cribbs-talks/

As Browns Bide Their Time, Cribbs Talks

Posted by Mike Florio on May 21, 2009, 8:37 a.m. EDT

The decision of Browns receiver/kick returner Josh Cribbs to stay away from a three-day voluntary minicamp that opened Tuesday has not sparked contract talks between the team and the player’s agent.

“We remain cautiously optimistic that they’ll make a good faith effort to address this,” agent J.R. Rickert, told Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “We haven’t seen it yet, but we are ready to discuss this in a reasonable manner.”

But Rickert isn’t the only one talking. Cribbs released a statement Wednesday night, and a copy of it was sent to us by the Cribbs camp.

Titled “Josh Cribbs’ Statement In His Own Words” (which, frankly, would be a first for any pro athlete whose handlers issue such a statement), the full text of the statement is right here.

“Contracts are one-sided in favor of the team, yet we as players are told to honor our contracts without the team honoring them,” Cribbs says in a portion of the statement. “We are not doctors and lawyers, we don’t get paid for 25 years of work. If we are lucky, we get 10 years at best to make all the money we can to last the rest of our life.”

He’s right, but at the same time his situation is a product of the system to which the players’ union agreed.

Cribbs is in the same position as Anquan Boldin, Sheldon Brown, Thomas Jones, and every other player who wants to tear up a contract that the player signed because the player believes he has “outperformed” the deal or, in some cases, because the contract has been leapfrogged by deals given to other players.

And so any frustration that the player is feeling needs to be directed not also at the team that is benefitting from what has turned out to be a contract tilted in favor of the organization, but also: (1) the union for agreeing to a system that allows teams but not the players to cancel contracts early; (2) the agent who advises the player to sign the contract; and (3) the player himself, whose signature was added to the bottom of the last page of the deal.

@nebbrownsfan said:

How do you know what the thrust of his argument was? Unless you're him also. The main point is, ownership is NOT the same as his claim implied and he doesn't even know how many coaches have been with this version of the Browns. You seriously have no room telling someone else to advance the conversation for once. Most of your posts in this thread have been pot-shots because someone disagreed with your buddy. So Mr. Pot, go talk to Mr. Kettle for a bit and come back when you can post on topic.

I notice you only pulled out ONE part of my post and of course did not address the part dealing with Cribbs.

YAWN.

@nebbrownsfan said:

Awww....poor Tom...everybody is ganging up on me....lol Go back and read the things you post as opposed to how you're trying to explain them now. Big difference. Sorta like how Lerner never called Cribbs....oops, my bad, never talked about contract on the phone. Or how this owner has gone through 5 coaches...ooops, except it wasn't this owner and we're only on the 4th coach now. Dude, you post a number of things and backtrack to explain what wasn't said in your original posting. Why is that?

I'm sorry, as long as we are rehashing all of our zingers from yesterday... How is it that it matters whether he said the call never happened or that he didnt talk about the contract on the phone? For Lerner to come out and say either one directly is him saying: "Josh Cribbs is not telling the truth." How does that help the situation at all?

Was the number of coaches really the thrust of his argument? Or was it that the ownership is as culpable if not more so than one player when deciding why the team has yet to win a super bowl? All of your arguments have to do with nuance rather than substance. Try advancing the conversation for once.

@we-need-tom-tupa said:

I welcome anyone to show me where i used the word ass in reference to anyone in the Browns organization. The same goes for asshole or hardass. Show it to me and I will apologize to you and cede whatever point it is you think you are making. If not, let me stomp out the fire on your straw man and move past this bullshit (I use that word because it seems to have become an obligatory part of these posts at this point). As part of a string of hypotheticals, I said that I wouldn't treat Cribbs poorly to protect Mangini's attempt at establishing a rep as a tough coach. Elsewhere on this thread, and on PFT.com, others have allooded to the fact that he has a history of players getting into extremely similar situations. I was not pulling it out of thin air, I was attempting to address all the possibilities in my list of hypatheticals. I was not "dissing" Mangini (although seeing the word used so many times was pretty funny, thanks). I'm sorry if I offended you by not labeling the post with a disclaimer. At this point I'm willing to add one to all my posts so I can talk football and not argue semantacs on football threads. Just tell me what I need to put there to help you out, and I'll do it.

Anyway, it seems like you agree with the opinion I gave 2 days ago and again yesterday. He is entitled to have incentives added to his deal. If Lerner promised him more, then he should get more. Other than that, he just deserves to be dealt with honestly. I'll leave the thread to you now. I misspelled some words so you can spend some time patting each other on the back for catching it (there are at least 3, in case you're wondering).

Creed your teeth called your breath stinks. Boom roasted.

At least BE came to camp today.

@nebbrownsfan said:

I don't fault him for that...but if you want to, more power to you.

That's the point - I'm not bashing Lerner, but why be so quick to defend management who hands out raises and contract extensions to coaches etc who do a so-so job, then turn around and be so opposed to a player who has done so well for the team saying he is considering skipping OPTIONAL practices while he attempts to obtain what seems to be a reasonable goal - a mere start to meaningful negotiations in order to amend a paltry contract?

@nebbrownsfan said:

Glad you know how to read tone into black and white text. You can be Karnak's assistant.

Thanks, why don't you start another thread for your nonsense and leave this one for a conversation regarding Josh Cribbs?

@nebbrownsfan said:

Wow, reading comprehension has really taken a nosedive here.

I'd make a nit picking, snarky, nosedive-related personal attack in return rather than adding substance to the conversation as well, but a nosedive would imply your tone had somewhere to fall from to begin with.

@nebbrownsfan said:

This is only the 2nd coaching hire by Randy.

That's right - he only gave Butch a new contract. But that was because he earned it by leading the team to a 5-11 record. Am I remembering things wrongly?

@nebbrownsfan said:

Difference being, I am not making statements purporting to know who wants what and who said what. And I don't use reports from "sources" as my gospel to stand by.

Let's make a rule that nobody is allowed to use sources here okay? We'll have a discussion once Josh and Randy get themselves logins and tell us what's going on in this thread.

@dan-in-florida said:

After signing the NEW contract LAST YEAR, didn't he UNDER perform his contract? According to Aloysius, Cribbs was #16 in returns last year. I know injuries were sited but really. Crazy thought, after signing a NEW contract, OUTPERFORM it then ask.

Even if you prorate the $2m bonus he got at the inception of the new deal, he would go over $1,000,000 in only one of the next four years (the last year of his deal). You don't even think he's worth a million a year? The guy is making $600-700K a season. He is a good football player with a bad contract.

@ytownbrownsbacker said:

Honor his contract and work the proper way to get it redone, through his agent, not the media.

BTW, his agent today said he isn't looking for Hester money, but something in the ballpark. So much for a few incentives.

After I closed my golf shop and retired I signed a contract with the USGA as a tournament official for $250 per event and expenses. Six months later I found out that guys were put on full time and paid a salary that had less qualifications, I honored my contract. My duties also got expanded because I styarted doing equipment tests due to changes in the USGA rules.

I was like an UDA because I didn't come up through the USGA ranks. I talked to my boss and my boss's boss and they agreed to providing me with a 4 week advance schedule and a quarterly bonus for each qtr I worked 6 or more events.

Point is Cribbs signed a contract he thought fair and he wanted, with quaranteed money up front, not yearly roster bonuses. I believe it was a 4 year extension to his existing contract, not a new contract. He also was awarded a pro bowl bonus after 2007 even though it was not in his contract as was Anderson (how much, I don't recall). He gets a $25,000 bonus for attending OTAs and he does have some incentives built into this contract.

Bottom line is if he does it the right way, Lerner and the Browns have proven to be more then responsive to player's contract demands. This organization can never be accused of being tight with their money. But, like Winslow, you don't keep giving guys a new contract every other year, especially when they take the money up front and agree to lower yearly non guaranteed salaries. I agree the player's have a short window to make money, but the team also has a budget and a salary cap to consider. When a team pays a player up front money, they can't get it back if the player underperforms. So, when a player agrees to that he should ask for more money if he outperforms the rest of the contract.

Remember contracts in the NFL don't mean crap, it's only the guaranteed money that matters. You can't ask for quaranteed money up front and then say you aren't making comparable money in salary to someone else.

As much as I like Josh Cribbs, he needs to show them on the field that he deserves a new contract and I'm sure the Browns will do right by him. You just can't ask every other year and do the make me happy or I'll stay home BS.

So what if your boss had been fired and then at the end of your quarter the USGA said "Thanks for working 6 events, but I dont know what bonus you are talking about."

The up front guaranteed money argument again? So if he was just getting that $333,333 prorated into his base salary each year you would be okay with his stance? What is the right way, because it sounds from his end that he's been trying the "right way" for a couple of years, and that he was reassured that they were going to step up for him.

I listened to this same debate for the last year regarding Jason Peters. Based on my experience, neither side here on this board is going to budge. But I suppose the debate is still worth having - that's almost all we can do.

Best case at this point would be that both sides are willing to negotiate and all of this is posturing for better leverage. I'm not used to seeing posturing going this far or getting this personal in only one day, and if I were Cribbs and I were telling the truth, it would take a lot of dough at this point to make me forget the tone of the team's public declarations - coming all the way from the top. This isn't Savage firing off a dumb email - the statement uses the owner's name and basically calls Cribbs a liar. Before getting too angry, though, Cribbs needs to realize that the length of his existing contract severely limits his leverage here. One of the only respectable things I've seen the Bengals do over the years was coming out and saying that Chad Johnson was under contract and wasn't going to be able to force his way into more money or out of town. These things usually end better for both sides when done amicably and behind closed doors.

@shepwrite said:

I hate this kind of stuff. Lerner directly told OBR he never had any kind of conversation with Cribbs about his contract, last year, this year... ever. Cribbs' agent says his client insists it happened. Sounds ugly.

It does look pretty bleak at the moment. If this goes much further, to follow taylor's account, it will be hard to get all of the toothpaste back into the tube and expect no hard feelings, if that's even still possible at this point.