Not content to just savor their 23-9 win over the Oakland Raiders, the Cleveland Browns spent their post-game Sunday complaining to hometown reporters that the Raiders played dirty.
Numerous Browns told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Raiders were "beating on (running back) Jerome Harrison after he was down" and "twisting (center) Alex Mack's hands and fingers."
The game officials sure were buying it. The Raiders were penalized 13 times for 126 yards, and two Raiders were ejected in separate incidents.
That's what happens when your coach has been accused of assault three times.
Stanford Routt was ejected in the second quarter for head-butting a Browns receiver. In Routt's defense, it was at least done in a fashion that was meant to be concealed from the referees.
Raiders tight end Tony Stewart was ejected in the fourth quarter for making "unnecessary contact" with a referee. A replay of the incident was not shown on TV, much to the disappointment of the 1 percent of the American football-watching public tuned in to Raiders-Browns.
Richard Seymour was flagged for an unnecessary roughness as well.
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"I hit my own teammate," Seymour told the Plain Dealer, "He went out to make to make a tackle and I hit him. The referee was behind him and didn't see what happened. The film will show it all. He's human and mistakes happen."
You'd think the officials might be a little less sympathetic to Cleveland, though. After all, these are the fans that not long ago pelted the referees with beer bottles.
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who thinks the Stephen Colbert piece they did on that 2001 beer bottle incident was also pretty cute.
