Written by Jonathan Knight

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Quincy Morgan’s had enough.

He’s not angry, he’s not bitter, and he truly wishes the best for the Browns and their fans.

“I take pride in being a Cleveland Brown,” he says, moments after pointing out how ready he was to get out of Cleveland in 2004. He makes both statements sincerely and with real conviction.

Morgan is remembered by most Browns fans as a squandered second-round draft pick who dropped every pass ever thrown at him. Fairly or unfairly (and burdened by having a name unique enough to be memorable), Quincy Morgan is still brought up whenever a current Browns receiver drops a pass.

Did he drop more than his fair share of passes? Probably. Did he live up to expectations as a second-round draft pick? Probably not. 

He’s become, in his own words, a “Paul Bunyan character” in the eyes of Browns fans. The number of drops we remember him making has gradually grown and become more pathetic in the seven years since he was traded for Antonio Bryant. To listen to some people, you’d wonder if Morgan ever actually caught a pass between the two bricks at the end of his arms.

For the record, he did. One hundred thirty-three of them, to be precise, in three-plus seasons with the Browns for more than 2,000 yards and 15 touchdowns.

So is the criticism Quincy Morgan has received fair? He doesn’t think so, but this is the world of professional sports, so the question itself is irrelevant. 

Unfairness, ignorance, and anger often combine to form a disgusting casserole in which fans are unable to see athletes as human beings who, however talented, are capable of mistakes and failure. And also somehow incapable of being hurt by vicious criticism, even if it’s warranted.

 

The Return of Quincy Morgan

Morgan’s career fizzled out after leaving Cleveland, with one-year stints in Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Denver. Today Morgan lives in Houston, where he operates a small trucking company. He stays connected to football by training young receivers in the hope of helping them avoid the type of criticism he received.

He still follows the Browns and stays in touch with what’s going on in Cleveland sports. Accordingly, he regularly turns his web crank to The Cleveland Fan.

But after reading countless snarky, throw-away comments by TCF writers about his unfortunate legacy (including some from yours truly), in particular Kevin Kalish’s unforgettable “Heiden’s Heroes: The Return of Quincy Morgan” piece two years ago, Morgan decided it was time to respond.

Appropriately, he used my own words to sum up his experiences with the media - then and now.

Last September, after Mohammed Massaquoi’s fantastic catch delivered a Browns’ win over Miami, I wrote a column ranking the top 10 clutch catches since the Browns’ return. Morgan’s Hail Mary reception in Jacksonville in 2002 - the most memorable catch of his career - was No. 3 on the list. A pretty clear show of respect, right?

But I tossed the word “undependable” in front of Morgan’s name and then invited readers to watch a video replay, suggesting that we now have to admit that it “almost certainly wasn’t a catch.”

To this day, Morgan insists it was, that even if the nose of the football touched the ground, the rules state that it’s still a catch if he had control of the football. He says he did, cradled against his thigh.

I’m still not sure it was actually a catch, but I pointed out to him that either way, his ability to wrestle the ball away from the defender on the play was quite impressive.

“Exactly,” he said. “You never hear anybody say that.”

He’s right. Nobody - including me in that column - points out that he made an amazing play just to get to the ball. All anybody remembers is that even if he technically caught the ball to deliver a miraculous victory, he was in the process of dropping it.

You also rarely hear anybody point out that in the bizarre roller-coaster 2002 season, Morgan caught 56 passes for 964 yards to lead a team that made the playoffs. And here’s another one you never hear: Morgan actually led the NFL in average yards per catch that season with a whopping 17.2. That was better than Marvin Harrison, Randy Moss, Hines Ward, and Terrell Owens.

Everybody remembers Dwayne Rudd and “Helmetgate” in the ’02 opener, but lost in the aftermath was the finest day of Quincy Morgan’s career: nine catches, 151 yards, two touchdowns. If Rudd hadn’t gone bananas and the Browns would have rightly won that game, Morgan would have been the hero. Starting his second season with such a magnificent performance - and receiving the appropriate praise - may have forever altered how the media and fans viewed Morgan.

Instead, his greatest moment was utterly nullified.

He still went on to have a fine season, but did that make up for the passes he dropped before and after?

Morgan doesn’t deny he dropped his share of passes. But was his share that much greater than a typical receiver’s - Cleveland or otherwise?

Interestingly, he also felt his pass-catching abilities improved once he left Cleveland because other teams put more of an emphasis on receivers actually catching balls in the offseason. With the Browns, he said, the primary focus was running and lifting weights, then you’d worry about synching up the hands once training camp started.

Thus, when Morgan was re-teamed with former Browns offensive coordinator Bruce Arians in Pittsburgh, Arians told Morgan how much better his hands were than when he was in Cleveland.

So maybe there’s some truth to the old chestnut about players suddenly improving once they leave C-Town.

And maybe - just maybe - getting out of a rat’s nest of negativity has a little something to do with it.

 

Everybody Deserves Better

“I love those guys, but Cleveland fans don’t give a shit about the players,” Morgan said. “They care more about the franchise.”

Hold off on your initial knee-jerk reaction for just a second and think about that.

He’s absolutely right.

We’ve been trained - the hard way - to root for the colors and absolutely nothing else. Deep down, we believe the owners, coaches, and yes, the players themselves cannot be trusted. We’ve been badly hurt and our distrust and cynicism make up our defense mechanism.

But while that may protect us, it also prevents us from forming a real connection with the guys on the field, the way we used to in the old days. 

Morgan really noticed the dichotomy when he landed in Pittsburgh a year after he left Cleveland. 

(The following quotation contains disturbing mental images, primarily describing Pittsburgh fans as being better than Cleveland fans. Reader discretion is advised.)

“When I went to Pittsburgh, I was welcomed with open arms,” he said. “In Pittsburgh, they love the players. They have the players’ backs night and day. Through thick and thin, those fans show up. It’s like football heaven.”

That hurts to hear. But this is the only way we can improve ourselves - and our teams.

The natural response would be to complain about the Browns’ leadership and the crummy hand they’ve been dealing us for the last 12-plus years. If we had talented players that won every year, we’d have their backs, too.

Of course, he’s not talking about all Browns fans. There are plenty who quietly support every player, many who have never booed at anyone in their lives. 

And for all their flaws, Morgan admits that Cleveland fans aren’t as venomous as others.

“Dallas fans are much worse than Cleveland fans,” he said, citing the half-season he played there after the Browns traded him. “After every game they lose, they want somebody fired or cut.”

 

What Might Have Been

If you’re looking for a watershed moment in the sad history of the new Browns, Morgan believes it came after their lone playoff game in Pittsburgh in 2002. 

Kelly Holcomb, who’d started three games in place of injured Tim Couch that season, threw for 429 yards and nearly led the Browns to a stunning upset. To Morgan, that should have ended the subtle quarterback carousel beginning to develop and earn Holcomb the starting job for 2003.

Instead, the Browns decided they’d have the pair battle it out in training camp and then decide. Holcomb won the job, but he never had the full faith and credit of the organization. By midseason, he and Couch were alternating seemingly every three quarters, so that both of them were constantly looking over their shoulders and neither ever truly felt like the starting quarterback.

If the Browns would have simply handed the job to Holcomb, Morgan believes, things would have turned out very differently.

“He should have been the starting quarterback, hands down,” Morgan said. “This guy saw everything. If the team would have stood behind him and just established some consistency, the Browns would have won a lot more games.”

Was Kelly Holcomb our version of Tom Brady? Of course not. But he’d proven himself competent with the tendency to become occasionally brilliant. And considering the Browns would have different starting quarterbacks coming out of camp each of the next three years (none of whom was Tim Couch), it’s safe to conclude things would have been far better with Holcomb as the full-time, no-doubt-about-it starter.

And Morgan sees, as we do, that nothing has changed with the Browns over the past 10 years. Colt McCoy is our quarterback...or is he? Peyton Hillis is our franchise player...maybe. Pat Shurmur is going to be here for a long time...once we get somebody else in here to actually call the plays.

“There has been too much change,” Morgan said. “It’s crazy. You have to get a nucleus of guys and build on that. Look at Pittsburgh - it’s been pretty much the same group of guys for the past 10 years.”

Similarly, Morgan regrets that he didn’t force himself into a leadership role in the eyes of the coaches following the 2002 season.

“In 2003 I should have been a Chad Johnson-type of receiver,” he said. “After the year I had, I should have made them throw the ball to me. But I never did that.”

Morgan also points to the death of Al Lerner in 2002 as a turning point for the franchise, soon followed by Butch Davis muscling Carmen Policy and Dwight Clark out of the front office.

“If they’d have left those guys in there,” Morgan said, “they would have built a Super Bowl team.”

It’s difficult to concur with him on that one. But on the other hand, it’s not like things got better once Policy and Clark left town to do whatever it is they’re doing now.

 

The Big Question

Thus, it boils down to Cleveland’s chicken-or-the-egg question: do we have a bad attitude because our teams suck or do our teams suck because we have a bad attitude?

Or more to the point, can the fans help turn things around by dialing back the negativity?

“You can’t ask fans to do that,” Morgan said. “They’re great fans. Through all the frustrations of losing, they’re still packing the house. They’ll be 3-12 going into the last game of the season and still get 70,000 out there. That’s unbelievable. They deserve a winner. And maybe when they start winning, they’ll really love the players.”

It’s unrealistic and unfair to expect fans to be Pollyannish, to treat professional athletes like nine-year-olds playing their first soccer game and blindly embrace them, expecting nothing in return.

Can the Browns be better? No question.

So can we.

Yes, we have a right to be critical. Yes, our frustration is justified. And yes, we have a right to express our displeasure. (Unless you’re Tony Grossi and you have a Twitter account.)

But do we have to be assholes about it?

It’s one thing to get on Braylon Edwards for whining that the reason he’s not embraced is because of where he went to college. 

It’s another to vilify a guy simply because his career didn’t pan out.  

This is what separates us from New York, L.A., and Boston in every other facet of our lives. I’d like to think it also applies to sports.

Maybe the time has come to ask ourselves if we’re the ones who have been dropping the ball.

Follow @jknightwriter