Crennel: No quit in Browns

11.12.2008

Any talk of any Browns player quitting on a game or his teammates hits home with Romeo Crennel.

That's why Crennel was so disappointed with talk late last week and earlier this week that the Browns had quit during last week's loss to the Broncos. And that's why he made addressing - and hopefully squelching - the issue one of his top priorities Wednesday morning.

"I think players respect me as a coach, they play for me as a coach so that is why when that word ‘quit' comes up you take it personally," Crennel said. "The team is my team. The product that is out there on the field is a reflection of me. When they do good, I do good. When they do bad, I do bad. When they say that the team quit, it's saying that I quit.

"And I know that I am not a quitter and my players don't quit."

Crennel felt the need to address the situations after quotes from Jamal Lewis and Joshua Cribbs hit the headlines and airwaves over the last four days. After last week's game, Lewis said "it looked like some guys quit out there" and that some in the Browns' locker room need to "check their egos at the door." Monday, Cribbs said "we know if everybody didn't quit, we would have won that ballgame."

Crennel said he spoke with both players before speaking to the team as a whole.

"I talked to Jamal and I asked if he saw anybody quit," Crennel said. "He said he didn't see anybody quit. I don't know if he (regrets it) or not. I think he wished he would have worked around it in a different way whether then using that particular word.

"Josh told me he didn't see anybody quit either. He kind of was piggy-backing what Jamal was saying. The comment made to me was he said, ‘if there are quitters on the team then this is what needs to be done.' It seems like that word ‘if' got left out somewhere along the way. Right or wrong, that's what I was told."

Crennel said he understands that losing creates frustration, and such talk can be a distraction. But he's adamant that the Browns didn't quit and won't quit going forward.

"Some guys didn't make good decisions in critical spots but nobody on the team quit," he said. "Guys competed, they kept trying to play and like I said we had the game at the end with a chance to win and when you quit you don't have that chance.

"When guys quit they just give up and you are in a position of submission. You don't have any choice you are just dead in the water. The team is not dead in the water when you have a chance to win at the end."

He added: "I had to spend time on it this morning with the team when I should have been talking about Buffalo, but that's part of the job and I have to get it done, get the team going in the right direction and get them all pulling together."

The Browns have seven games remaining, starting Monday night in Buffalo, and their focus is on putting the past in the past and putting together a solid effort.

"These guys are going to play and they are going to play together," Crennel said. "Whether we play good or not remains to be seen but we haven't been playing good enough. We have been in the games and you don't quit if you have got the ball at the end of the game with a chance to win. If you get beat 63-3, then you can say your guys quit.

"Thursday night, guys did not quit. Thursday night, guys did not play as smart as they needed to play in critical situations, I will agree there. That can be said about other games in the course of the year, which we have been in most of them. We are going to go ahead and play the rest of this season out and we are going to play the next game which is Buffalo because that is the most important one. We're trying to win that game."