As the Pro Football Hall of Fame committee prepares to decide between three finalists at wide reciever, Patriots wideout Kenny Britt gets facetious about walking the halls of Berea.
BLOOMINGTON, Minnesota
Receiver Kenny Britt landing with the Patriots stunned Browns fans who were still waiting for him to show up when he got cut.
Britt is unlikely to be a factor for New England in the Super Bowl, though, so most writers looking for stories do a curl pattern when they get to him.
Those who engage the 29-year-old New Jersey native tend to ask Cleveland questions.
When the Canton Repository sat down at his table Wednesday, he said, "Man, I would expect to be grilled like that in a courtroom."
The obvious retort would have been: "Dude, you were coming off a 1,000-yard year and became ultra-invisible." (According to spotrac.com, his 18 catches for 233 yards earned him $10.5 million in bonuses in addition to his 2017 salary of $4 million.)
To that, he could have retorted, "The Patriots picked me up when the Browns let me go. They seem to know what they're doing."
The conversation turned in that direction, if not in so many words.
Britt summed up his Cleveland experience with these actual words: "I'm going to leave you with this quote that I heard … good players, good teams, can't overcome bad coaches. It's simple as that."
Later, he became playfully facetious.
"Dilly dilly," he said. "That's my answer to every Browns question right now."
Britt's grim chapter in Cleveland followed a serious career in which he played eight seasons with the Titans and Rams. He enters the Super Bowl with 329 catches for 5,137 yards and 32 touchdowns.
The Super Bowl is way outside his realm of experience. The Titans were 8-8, 6-10, 9-7 and 6-10 with him on the team. When he played for the Rams, they went 6-10, 7-9 and 4-12. The Browns were 0-12 with him when new general manager John Dorsey cut him the day he walked in the door.
One view of why Britt's Cleveland story turned sour: He arrived with the ego of a former first-round pick who had been in the league a long time, made a lot of money and didn't have to kiss butt. He said some things he shouldn't have early on, didn't make a difference as the losses mounted up, and wound up in a funky netherland.
Browns fans can't be blamed for getting on him. Whatever he had been elsewhere, he wasn't very good here.
His take on why his Cleveland story got off on such a miserable footing?
"It was the first game. I would say the one drop that I had of the three targets, how they took it and how it was referenced after the game ... I would stay that started the fire."
The drop became a key in a 21-18 loss to Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile, Britt is an interested observer in Saturday's Pro Football Hall of Fame election, in which wide receivers Randy Moss, Terrell Owens and Isaac Bruce are among the 15 modern-era finalists.
"I played with Randy in Tennessee in 2010," Britt said. "He was in his 13th year, and I was just getting started.
"Randy was a great mentor. He taught me a lot on the field, off the field, in the weight room.
"At whatever age he was then (36), the guy could still turn it on when he wanted to."
The stats bear no resemblance, but some scouting reports when Britt was coming out of Rutgers likened him to Owens.
"I hope he gets in," Britt said. "He was a warrior who was passionate about the game. I know people didn't like some of the off-field stuff."
It's quite a horse race among the three wideout candidates for Canton. Check out the career receiving yards compiled by Owens (15,934), Moss (15,292) and Bruce (15,208).
Players from both Super Bowl teams are paying attention to the Hall of Fame election.
Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, a former Ohio State star in his ninth NFL season, is a ninth-year pro who covered both Moss and Owens.
"They're both Hall of Famers," Jenkins said. "Randy had that strong personality. He grew up telling everybody, 'You just got Mossed,' and he turned into a legend.
"T.O. changed the way the game was played. He was a really big receiver who could run routes and catch the ball consistently."
Eagles wideout Alshon Jeffery, who caught two touchdown passes in the NFC title game, was a rookie when Moss played his last year.
"I liked T.O.," Jeffery said, "but Moss was my man. He was different. He was a freak."
As for Britt, January was different than early December, when he was still with the Browns.
"No detail is too small here," he said. "They insist on getting every detail right."
To cap off an odd story, a reporter asked his thoughts about the Browns hiring Todd Haley as offensive coordinator.
"First I heard about it," he said.
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