The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Being jovial after a defeat does not sit well
In this week’s Cleveland Beat, Jeff Schudel expresses his displeasure with NFL players on a losing team being jovial after a loss, along with sleep keying the Cavs’ recent success and Josh Gordon.
Sorry about the timing less than a week before Thanksgiving, but since the Indians are quiet, the Cavaliers are no longer in crisis mode and the Browns are, well, the Browns, I figure this a good time to get this off my scrawny chest:
It bugs me when I see NFL players from the losing team laughing, slapping the backs of their conquerors and swapping jerseys with their BFFs from the other team immediately after getting their butts whipped.
I expressed this opinion in a tweet last week after the Browns gave up 21 straight points in a 38-24 loss to Detroit. Browns receiver Kenny Britt was yukking it up with a Lions player like former high school chums bumping into each other at Walmart recalling when they were in high school and put a snake in their history teacher’s purse 30 years ago.
Someone on Twitter responded, “I thought you were a hockey fan. What about the handshakes after a hockey game?” It isn’t the same thing. Traditionally, hockey players line up to shake hands only after a playoff series, and that’s all they do. They shake hands — maybe a pat on the chest if they’re old friends — and go to the next guy in line. Usually they don’t have the energy to joke around after a hard-fought series.
Hockey players, in fact, are the coldest of all athletes, and not just because they play on ice. If a player from Team A is on the ice injured, players from Team B skate away as though he isn’t there.
Baseball players have the right idea, too. They chat in the infield —Indians first baseman Carlos Santana and shortstop Francisco Lindor seem to be friends with everybody in both leagues — but when a series ends, you don’t see the losing team hugging and laughing with the winners.
NBA players are somewhere in the middle. Sometimes, they just walk off the court after a game. Other times they will meet briefly, but even those sessions are usually acknowledgements of respect.
And just so there is no confusion, it isn’t shows of sportsmanship that bother me. Linemen shaking hands after smashing into each other for three hours is different than laughing as though losing is the same as winning.
Players from both football teams gathering in postgame prayer is not an issue, either, in my opinion. But I believe all the laughing and jersey swapping blurs the sense of competition.
To be fair to the Browns, these postgame on-field mini-parties happen throughout the NFL. It’s just that the Browns, 1-24 in their past 25 games, have had more practice losing than any other team in the league.
Cavaliers find answers
Just as it was too early to panic when the Cavaliers lost four straight to fall to 3-5, it’s too early to say all their problems are behind them after winning four straight to climb to 9-7 — although it certainly appears they are figuring things out with more than 75 percent of the season remaining.
The Cavaliers are 4-4 at home and 5-3 on the road. Coach Tyronn Lue believes the success on the road comes in part from a change in policy.
Instead of leaving a road city the night of the game and flying to the next destination, the Cavs stay in a hotel in that city the night of the game and fly out the next day. Head trainer Steve Spiro told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin the Cavs get better rest with this plan.
“The biggest thing for recovery is sleep,” Spiro said. “There isn’t anything better, and for these guys that are taxing their bodies through travel and through their workload on the court, and practice, and extra work or whatever, we can have all the technology in the world. But obviously a great night’s sleep plays a role into performance. There’s no doubt about it. So you have to have your finger on the pulse of it.”
The plan can work only when the schedule has a gap of at least one day in between road games. The Cavs have 13 back-to-back games this season — the fewest in the NBA — and only two of those are a pair of road games. They play in Toronto on Jan. 11 and in Indianapolis the next night. They play in Miami on March 27 and in Charlotte a night later.
Gordon getting closer
Josh Gordon can start practicing with the Browns on Nov. 20 for the first time since training camp of 2016. If all goes well, he could be activated on Nov. 27 and play against the Chargers in Los Angeles on Dec. 3.
Gordon has not played in a regular season NFL contest since the 15th game of 2014 due to various suspensions.
“He’s doing well,” Coach Hue Jackson said Nov. 16. “He’s here in the building every day, on time for everything, involved and big smile on his face. He’s a pleasure to be around.”
Gordon has been allowed in team meetings and in the conditioning program since being reinstated Nov. 1 by Commissioner Roger Goodell. He was allowed to catch passes from the Juggs machine. but not allowed to work with teammates.
Normally the Browns do not practice on Monday, but Gordon will not be violating rules if he catches practice from DeShone Kizer or anyone else.
Will Gordon play as though has hasn’t been absent for nearly three years? It’s a question than can’t be answered until he plays in a game.
Gordon played in Games 11 through 15 in 2014 and appeared rusty and uninterested. He dragged the offense down rather than helped it.
The Browns’ receiving corps has been pathetic most of the 2017 season, but if Gordon does return to the form he showed in 2013 when he led the NFL with 1,646 receiving yards, and if 2016 first-round draft pick Corey Coleman stays healthy and catches the ball, then all of a sudden Kizer could start looking like a real NFL quarterback.
A quarterback is supposed to lift the players around him. It has worked in reverse for Kizer. He has been dragged down by the incompetence around him.
I didn’t know that
… Until I read my Snapple bottle cap:
No piece of paper can be folded more than seven times (go ahead, try) . ... Around 200 muscles are required to take one step. … Earth rotates at a speed of 1,040 mph. … The height of the Eiffel Tower varies as much as six inches depending on the temperature. … The fourth Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich so he could eat and gamble at the same time. … A housefly hums in the key of F.