Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Suggs is hurt

Surprise, surprise.
I'm not blaming Lee Suggs for again winding up on the meat wagon. Actually, I kind of feel sorry for the guy. But I felt sorry for Courtney Brown, too, and that doesn't mean he wasn't an unmitigated bust.
Initial reports have Suggs out for up to a month after having surgery Tuesday to insert two screws in a broken thumb susatined Sunday against the Bears. It really doesn't mean much to the Browns, who have for now settled on Reuben Droughns as the starting running back and William Green as his backup. But it continues a cycle of teasing and fading for Suggs.
Suggs is Cleveland's "Mr. December," which would mean a lot more if the Browns were a perennial playoff team. Instead, all it means is at some point during the second half of a given season, Suggs is going to emerge from injury-limbo, post some respectable games, then rip off a couple of 130-yard performances in December, and get the fans salivating over his potential during the off-season.
Always with a caveat: "if he can just stay healthy..."
Which he never does.
I wish I could say Suggs' injury is a big one for the Browns. It would mean he has solidified himself as a feature back candidate. But as the delicate third-string rusher on a team that doesn't run the ball that well anyway, Suggs might be earning another surname in Cleveland.
"Mr. Irrelevant."
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While we're on the subject of the Browns and injuries, I'll take this opportunity to nominate Braylon Edwards' infected elbow as "most disgusting injury of the year."
It's not just the infection. Former Indians pitcher Steve Reed had a similar infection in 1999 after he scraped his elbow on a clubhouse stanchion. It's the fact that Edwards scraped his elbow during practice, and then reportedly proceeded to pick at the scrape until it became infected.
It got to the point that Edwards was wearing a protective sleeve on the elbow Friday to prevent him from picking. It's the same principle behind the huge plastic collars they put on dogs after surgery to prevent them from chewing off their wound dressing.
Braylon's mother should swat him for this whole episode. Isn't picking at scabs the type of thing you learn not to do in first-grade health class?

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