Josh Cribbs continues to be an elite kick returner, despite NFL rules designed to make elite kick returners an endangered species.
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AJ Mast, Associated PressJosh Cribbs has made the most of his limited chances to return kickoffs this year, with two returns in excess of 50 yards in the first two games. The talented ex-Kent State QB has become the Browns' sparkplut.Josh Cribbs was not supposed to be a star.
Not by pedigree, as an undrafted free agent out of Kent State.
When he overcame that, he wasn't supposed to be one anymore.
Not by economics, after the Browns redid his contract before last season.
And certainly not by rule, as the NFL this season instituted safety regulations to take the kickoff out of the game, or at least reduce it to inconsequence.
Cribbs has overcome it all, becoming the most exciting player on the Browns' roster. Maybe rebuking the stuff about his ragamuffin draft status and how he would handle the big money should have been expected. Cribbs always has seen himself as an outsider, driven as much as quarterback Colt McCoy to prove doubters wrong.
The kickoff thing, though, is a serious surprise.
Cribbs is the all-time NFL leader with eight kickoff returns for touchdowns and also has two punt returns for TDs. He does it with speed, power and the decisiveness to see the hole and hit it with just the kind of muscular recklessness the league is trying to curb.
By moving kickoffs to the 35-yard line from the 30, the spot still used in college football, particularly given the ballistics of kickers at the NFL level, the kickoff return should have become a raffish relic of the game's past, like the single wing or leather helmets.
But while touchbacks are up dramatically, elite kick returners remain explosive. Ted Ginn Jr., the Glenville and Ohio State flash, took a kick and a punt back for touchdowns in the opening weekend. Cribbs has done his part, too.
In the opening loss to Cincinnati, he took a kickoff 8 yards deep in his end zone and roared out 51 yards with it. In the victory Sunday at Indianapolis, he caught one 7 yards back and boomed back 52 yards with it.
The old adage, subject to considerations of ball trajectory, was that returners should take a knee if the kick carried 5 yards into the end zone and settle for a touchback. That no longer holds true.
Cribbs stands just inside the end line at the back of the end zone, almost 10 yards deep. Almost anything short of that is fair game. "I'm good with that," joked Browns coach Pat Shurmur after the 27-19 victory.
When the Colts' Pat McAfee rocketed a line drive to Cribbs, denying the coverage unit the hang time needed to get into position, the chances for a productive return went up dramatically.
"It's feast or famine," said Shurmur, noting that such returns also can result in tackles at the 10- or 15-yard line instead of the 20 after a touchback.
It is no surprise that return men are charging out of the end zone like the cavalry hearing a bugle call.
Frustration with a league that is trying, in the name of safety, to legislate them out of a job is part of it. They must make the most of the few chances they get. But as the number of returns dwindle, the chances for big returns, paradoxically, seem to be growing.
Perhaps it is simply a matter of physics.
Returners build up a bigger head of steam by bringing the ball out from so deep.
But, at the same time, an overlooked provision of the new kickoff rule slows down the coverage guys. No players on the coverage team can line up farther than 5 yards behind the ball. In the past, coverage units started running from farther back, and the quick start let them close on the returner with savage suddenness.
So scrupulous is the enforcement of this rule that Browns special teamer Kaluka Maiava, when he turned to say something to a teammate in the opener and inadvertently moved his foot behind the 30-yard line, drew a penalty.
It is also likely that the returners can see the coverage scheme and any developing holes better from farther back.
Cribbs wants more touches as a pass receiver, and that is certainly logical give his explosiveness. But his dominant value is as a kick returner. It is no surprise that he has made something out of the little chance the new rule gave him.
He has some history with that.
