The Kansas City Chiefs were the latest team to avoid kicking the football to Josh Cribbs, but Cribbs doesn't expect the same thing from the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. Why? Cribbs played for Ravens special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg when he worked here with the Browns. Edward Lee of The Baltimore Sun writes: "Rosburg is the kind of guy...
The Baltimore Ravens want to get a hold of Joshua Cribbs .The Kansas City Chiefs were the latest team to avoid kicking the football to Josh Cribbs, but Cribbs doesn't expect the same thing from the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.
Why?
Cribbs played for Ravens special teams coordinator Jerry Rosburg when he worked here with the Browns.
Edward Lee of The Baltimore Sun writes:
"Rosburg is the kind of guy not to back down," said Cribbs, who spent two seasons with Rosburg when he coached special teams for the Browns. "He doesn't back down. Even when we played here, I remember we used to play good returners, and we used to get up for games when we had good returners. That's the kind of coach that Coach Rosburg is."
Is Cribbs playing trying to use psychology here? Is he trying to psych the Ravens into kicking to him? Lee, however, points out that since 2008 when Rosburg became the Ravens special teams coordinator, Cribbs has returned 19 of 23 kickoffs. And at least one Ravens player said the team doesn't plan to kick away from Cribbs at the risk of providing Cleveland with advantageous field position.
"No, we're not going to shy away from anybody," said rookie David Reed, who leads the team in special-teams tackles with four this season. "We're going to go at him and contain him."
That assignment has not been terribly easy for the Ravens, who have had a tortured history with Cribbs. Two of the Browns' top three single-game kickoff return records were registered by Cribbs at the Ravens' expense.
Cribbs has been difficult for the Ravens to contain because of his speed and power. Free safety Haruki Nakamura has often experienced Cribbs' bulk and burst up close.
"It's like he's a middle linebacker running with the football," Nakamura said. "So everybody has to get to the football, everybody has to get a piece of him and hit him as much as possible, and that's with any returner. If you hit a guy hard once, twice, three times, they start running a little bit different. He consistently runs hard, but that's our goal, to kind of take him out of his own game. That guy is so explosive, it's hard to do, but we've been doing a good job the last few times containing him."