Ox 51
Musclechemistry Guru
Terez Paylor,Yahoo Sports•March 12, 2019
You know how Bill Simmons once wrote that every team can have one combustible guy, but not too many, because otherwise, they’ll all end up hanging out together and causing drama?
Well, it’s clear Cleveland Browns general manager John Dorsey has never heard that unofficial rule. Or perhaps he has, and he simply doesn’t think it remotely applies to football.
As is, the Browns have thrown caution to the wind this offseason when it comes to adding players with shaky histories. Dorsey signed Kareem Hunt, the NFL’s leading rusher in 2017 who was cut by the Kansas City Chiefs last season after a video surfaced of him shoving and kicking a woman in a Cleveland hotel. A few days ago, he signed Sheldon Richardson, who has apparently grown up somesince he wore out his welcome with the Jets two years ago due to attitude issues.
And on Tuesday night, the Browns acquired mercurial receiver Odell Beckham Jr. from the New York Giants. From a pure football perspective, it’s a great trade. A first-round and third-round draft pick, and safety Jabrill Peppers for one of the three best receivers in football — who is only 26 years old, by the way — is fantastic value. The CPU on “Madden” would have turned that down had Dorsey offered it to the Giants in franchise mode.
But in real life, when you trade for OBJ you’re not just getting the one-hand-catching, big-play-making, route-running machine. You’re also trading for the bombastic competitor, a wild card prone to sideline blowups, outspoken interviews and occasional TMZ headlines (as he had last summer when a video emerged of him in a room with a woman who appeared to be holding a credit card next to a powdery white substance).
All that presumably contributed to the Giants’ decision to trade one of the NFL’s most notable players, one just entering his prime. And while I don’t mention Hunt and Beckham in the same sentence to cast judgment about their issues — they’re different people, battling different problems — I do bring them up to caution: If both players’ pasts flare up again this season, Dorsey is setting his team up to deal with the same dreaded “distractions” that stunted Pittsburgh’s season in 2018.
You know how Bill Simmons once wrote that every team can have one combustible guy, but not too many, because otherwise, they’ll all end up hanging out together and causing drama?
Well, it’s clear Cleveland Browns general manager John Dorsey has never heard that unofficial rule. Or perhaps he has, and he simply doesn’t think it remotely applies to football.
As is, the Browns have thrown caution to the wind this offseason when it comes to adding players with shaky histories. Dorsey signed Kareem Hunt, the NFL’s leading rusher in 2017 who was cut by the Kansas City Chiefs last season after a video surfaced of him shoving and kicking a woman in a Cleveland hotel. A few days ago, he signed Sheldon Richardson, who has apparently grown up somesince he wore out his welcome with the Jets two years ago due to attitude issues.
And on Tuesday night, the Browns acquired mercurial receiver Odell Beckham Jr. from the New York Giants. From a pure football perspective, it’s a great trade. A first-round and third-round draft pick, and safety Jabrill Peppers for one of the three best receivers in football — who is only 26 years old, by the way — is fantastic value. The CPU on “Madden” would have turned that down had Dorsey offered it to the Giants in franchise mode.
But in real life, when you trade for OBJ you’re not just getting the one-hand-catching, big-play-making, route-running machine. You’re also trading for the bombastic competitor, a wild card prone to sideline blowups, outspoken interviews and occasional TMZ headlines (as he had last summer when a video emerged of him in a room with a woman who appeared to be holding a credit card next to a powdery white substance).
All that presumably contributed to the Giants’ decision to trade one of the NFL’s most notable players, one just entering his prime. And while I don’t mention Hunt and Beckham in the same sentence to cast judgment about their issues — they’re different people, battling different problems — I do bring them up to caution: If both players’ pasts flare up again this season, Dorsey is setting his team up to deal with the same dreaded “distractions” that stunted Pittsburgh’s season in 2018.
