Friday, May 27, 2005

My Toy Soldiers

I guess Romeo Crennel wasn't a big fan of The Pacifier, because the Browns just fined second-year tight end Vin Diesel up to five million dollars for his recent motorcycle riding.

Wait, make that Kellen Winslow II, from whom the Browns will withhold a $2 million portion of his signing bonus in addition to the two to three million he's reportedly expected to pay back.

What this really means is that the Browns are confident Winslow will never play at a high level again. If he does come back, there's no way he's sticking around in Cleveland. Would you? Yes, the motorcycle accident was his fault, but this is hardly a man who has demonstrated a high level of maturity in his short time in the public eye. Who would want to stay with a company that asked for that much money back anyway?

Even if he recovered fully and had a long, productive career, that money is a huge portion of his expected earnings (expected by me, that is), if only because of his position.

I'm certain Sergeant Winslow regrets his actions. Hopefully he also regrets hiring whoever wrote that apology for him.

"To those members of the Cleveland Browns family who I have disappointed by my decision to ride a motorcycle, I humbly apologize." Who wrote that, Yoda? To those members I apologize, hmmmm?

"While many of you are disappointed that I will not be on the field with my teammates for this upcoming season, no one is more disappointed in this fact than me." I can't quite put my finger on why, but that is one of my favorite sentences of all-time. I would say it sounds like K2 had a flashback to his college days and was trying to pad his word count with some welcome verbosity, but I think that's a slap in the face to the University of Miami. There's no way the Hurricanes make their stars write their own papers.

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