Chiefs Plans Fall Flat Against Cribbs

From Arrowhead Stadium

It wasn’t the first thing Todd Haley did with his team last Monday. But it was pretty close.

After he rolled through the tape of loss to the Bills, Haley put another tape on the screen in front of his whole team. It was a highlight tape of the Joshua Cribbs, the do-everything dynamo of the Cleveland Browns. The week before, Cribbs had almost single-handedly beat the Pittsburgh Steelers with his special teams and offensive work.

“We talked about this guy at the start of the week,” said Haley. “We talked about how this guy could hurt us.”

Despite the best laid plans of the Chiefs, Cribbs hurt them big time, with kickoff return touchdowns of 100 and 103 yards.

“When you allow two returns for touchdowns that’s generally not going to end up being a good thing,” said Haley. “That’s 14 points. You have to cover, make tackles when we have a chance to tackle. We didn’t do a good enough job on him.”

That’s for sure. Cribbs finished the day with six kickoff returns for 269 yards, a 44.8-yard average per return and those two touchdowns. That gives him eight in his career, more than any player in NFL history. He had previously been tied with Mel Gray, Dante Hall, Gale Sayers, Travis Williams and Ollie Matson for the record with six each.

“That’s amazing,” Cribbs said after the game about his record. “The NFL has been around for a long time. It really hasn’t hit me yet. I really want to enjoy the moment with m y guys around me and think ‘Look what you guys helped me do.’ I didn’t do it myself.”

Browns coach Eric Mangini was naturally raving about his guy afterwards.

“He is amazing,” said Mangini. “The thing I don’t know if people really appreciate about him is as talented as he is, as gifted as he is, as much as he contributes, there is no ego there. Theirs is nothing there but a complete team player and you can’t have enough guys like that.

“We can ask him to do anything and he would because he is all about team, all about the Browns and I really am just happy that I am able to coach him.”

They ask Cribbs to do a lot, and that showed on Sunday against the Chiefs:

• Returned four punts for 36 yards, a nine-yard average with a long return of 16 yards.
• Caught one pass for three yards.
• Threw one pass that went incomplete.
• Ran from scrimmage three times for eight yards, each time taking a direct snap.
• Acted as a decoy on a fourth-down run by QB Brady Quinn that helped set up the second of three TD runs by Jerome Harrison.

But it was his kick returns that made the difference in the game. The first one came in the first quarter when he grabbed Ryan Succop’s kickoff at the goal line and headed west. LB Jovan Belcher had a chance to tackle him, but couldn’t hold him. CB Mike Richardson had the opportunity, but couldn’t make it happen. Another unidentified arm was thrown in his way and he ran through it for the touchdown.

Cribbs added another one late in the second quarter, when Succop’s kickoff landed three yards deep in the west end zone. He brought it out and was never touched, weaving his way through the Chiefs coverage team for another score.

The man they had prepared for twice lit up the Chiefs and made them pay.

“That guy he’s unbelievable,” said S DaJuan Morgan, who is also on the kick coverage team. “For him to do what he did today, he made me a believer. I watched him on film all week. I just didn’t think he was going to do that to us. He’s a great athlete and he made some plays today to help this team win.”

Through this season, WR Terrance Copper has led the Chiefs in special teams tackles. This day hurt like none before because of Cribbs.

“I take something like this personally,” said Copper. “It’s going to be a long time before I put what he did out of my mind. We have to be better than that. No question he’s one of the best, maybe the best of all-time with kickoff returns. But we had a good plan to work against him and we couldn’t get it done.”