Vrabel play wasn’t dirty
Posted by John Tomase at 1:12 pm
So we’ve watched the tape about 20 times of Mike Vrabel’s “classless” hit on Browns rookie Joe Thomas, which drew the ire of guard Eric Steinbach. And while Steinbach is certainly entitled to his opinion, from this vantage point at least, his criticisms appear to be well off base.
Here’s what happened. With 11 seconds left and the Patriots leading comfortably at 34-17, the Browns completed a pass to the Pats 10 and rushed to the line of scrimmage to spike the clock dead. Quarterback Derek Anderson was making the spike motion as he ran the team to the line, and everyone on the field except Vrabel basically took the play off.
At the snap, however, Vrabel attempted to engage Thomas on the edge, driving his arms high into the left tackle like he was hitting a tackling dummy. Thomas, however, didn’t fire out for the collision Vrabel was clearly expecting, and the linebacker lost his balance and started to stumble forward. Simultaneously, Thomas backed up, again not really engaging him, and basically matadored Vrabel right to the ground.
Vrabel fell into Thomas’s knees, then landed on the calf of Anderson, who had already spiked the ball and had his back to the play. Anderson fell, Steinbach wheeled around in anger, and the Browns basically pig-piled on Vrabel.
It’s interesting to note that while Vrabel was falling, Steinbach had his back to the play. It was only after Vrabel hit the ground at Thomas’s knees that Steinbach turned around. So he didn’t even see it happen live. It’s a safe bet that seeing the tape merely reinforced Steinbach’s opinion, but we’ve repeatedly watched that sucker dispassionately this morning, and if Vrabel is guilty of anything, it’s playing hard in a situation that didn’t merit the effort.
And it’s hard to get on a guy for that.
