Goodbye DA, You Were Great For One Season (Or a Lot Longer Than Quinn Was)
*Photo is of DA’s wife’s friend, Sara Jean Underwood. Maybe this will make you like him more.
I knew the day was coming when DA would be released. I knew his time was probably up in Cleveland, even when I wrote my ode to the man from Oregon in October of last year.
And I’m okay with it.
This post won’t be about DA’s play during the regular season. Aside from a very good game against the Bengals, he wasn’t very good. I could write about how everything fell apart for DA once Braylon Edwards was traded and Jerome Harrison couldn’t recover from the pounding he took against Cincy. I could write about how Quinn wasn’t any better - except against the Lions. But this post isn’t meant to be stone cold analysis. It’s just meant to be a goodbye note, from one guy who writes too much to a guy who’s unemployed and looking for work.
I was happy to read DA’s response to Jeff Schudel’s email last night:
“The fans are ruthless and don’t deserve a winner. I will never forget getting cheered when I was injured. I knew at times I wasn’t great. I hope and pray I’m playing when my team comes to town [and] we roll them.”
The italics in the above quote are mine. He’s right. No one deserves to be cheered when they’re injured. Careers and lives could be hanging in the balance at that moment. No one in the stands knows. It’s unequivocally wrong to cheer when another person’s health has deteriorated … unless they’re evil.
DA may be a lot of things, but he isn’t evil.
If someone cheered when you were injured wouldn’t you be pissed? Wouldn’t you lash out if given the opportunity? Shouldn’t we, as fans, actually want our athletes to be angry when they’re insulted? That’s what the competitive spirit is all about. If DA has the will to destroy the Cleveland Browns and their fans, I applaud him.
Yes, Tim’s “Against Sportsmanship” post also applies here.
It’s this attitude, in fact, that makes me believe DA may have a successful future somewhere else. Maybe his desire to crush Browns fans will be the fuel that inspires him to continue getting better.
Alpha Dog may not even have been stretching the truth when he said: “[DA] did everything we asked of him and it was a pleasure to coach such a competitive person.”
Highlight on the word “competitive.”
I was additionally pleased with DA’s apology, which had nothing to do, really, with what he said but how he said it. He didn’t say he was misquoted. He didn’t say I didn’t mean what I said. He didn’t wimp out like so many other athletes. He merely noted that there were a lot of great people in Cleveland and even some fans who actually supported him (clearly a reference to JMID and Tim’s run-in with DA at Hopkins International in October).
In other words, I’m happy DA is gone. Not for my sake, but for his.
And I am just as happy to hear that the Browns have been offering Body By Quinn to other teams in trade talks.
