Wild Week In Browns Town

What a week in Cleveland.

In the span of about 48 hours, the Indians lost two games to the Yankees, the Cavaliers remembered the city is cursed and promptly lost the Eastern Conference Finals, and Browns Head Coach Eric Mangini decided to put his rookies on a bus for 10 hours to Hartford, CT.

Depending on who you believe, this voluntary trip attended by every single rookie on the Browns roster was either one of the most successful team building exercises in recent memory, or a cruel hazing stunt pulled by someone who should know better.

To those who might have missed it, Mangini put every Browns rookie on the roster on a bus for 10 hours to his hometown in Connecticut to participate in a NFL sponsored charity event for children. After the all day event, the rookies then spent another 10 hours on the bus back to Cleveland.

This trip took place between minicamps, so the rookies really had no time off between important training activities that will determine their future with the team.

By the way, Mangini flew out to Hartford, though he did take the bus back with the players.

According to the Newark Star-Ledger, the NFL Player’s Association is looking into Mangini’s weekend PR stunt to determine if he broke some rules of the collective bargaining agreement.

The Browns have stated all participants did so of their own free will and have heard no official complaints, which contradicts other reports that the player’s affected have contacted their agents to look into the matter further.

I have my own way of looking at this. Mangini is the boss. Your boss tells you to do something, you do it. End of story. Athletes are spoiled little babies who make more in one week than most people make in a year.

Football is a year-round sport now, and the player’s salaries reflect that. They still have more off-time than most government workers, so asking them to sacrifice one weekend for a charity event hardly qualifies them as “abused.”

I can recall many occasions when the various bosses I worked for asked me to come in on a day off, work longer hours, and in one case, work 10 hours overtime with no extra pay because I was on salary and the overtime was “expected” out of me.

I didn’t have an agent to complain to, and my father would’ve just told me to shut up and do it had I thought to complain to him about it. So a pampered athlete who doesn’t worry about paying his bills next month really needs to just suck it up and do it.

“But not all of these rookies will make the team,” you cry.

Yes, that is true. But most of these guys will land on their feet somewhere in some league. For the few who don’t, there is a very good support network around these guys who make sure they all have a fair chance somewhere doing something.

So I don’t cry for rookies, and I don’t care if they hate their boss. I do care that these guys are prepared, though, and the fact Mangini sandwiched this road trip between minicamps annoys me more than anything else.

I want the best guys on this team come September, and I’d hate to see a good guy have a bad day and get cut because his body didn’t respond well to being cooped up in a bus for 20 hours.

Those are the kinds of guys who end up with the Steelers or Ravens and kick the taste out of our mouth just to make sure we don’t forget cutting them was a mistake.

In other news, Braylon Edwards once again showed his dedication to being the best wide receiver in the game by taking batting practice with the Cleveland Indians. Your eyes didn’t deceive you, I typed the “Cleveland Indians.”

I’m just grateful he didn’t take BP with the Yankees, something I’m waiting for LeBron James to do. Since James once said he had to “represent” for the Yankees during the 2007 ALDS, I’m waiting for him to do it again. After all, he can’t “represent” Cleveland in the NBA Finals.

But as for Edwards, I hope his time in the batting cages translates to catches on the field, because think of the possibilities if that’s the training exercise the NFL has been missing out on for the last 70 years.

Training camp is closer than you think, so get those bats out and get on the bus, we've got football to play—at least I hope it’s football we’re playing.