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The Cleveland Browns shocked the football world this week when they dealt Trent Richardson to the Indianapolis Colts. It came just 18 games into his young career with the Browns and not even a year and a half after the team selected him with the number three overall pick in the draft. The man responsible for that pick? Mike Holmgren. The Browns’ former general manger felt so strongly about Richardson at the time, that he even worked out a deal to move up a spot to select him. Holmgren has since been let go by the Browns and on Thursday, he made his first public comments on the shocking trade.
“How do you make your team better by trading your best player? He’s the best offensive player. He’s a valuable, valuable guy… I struggled with it. Philosophically, if I am the coach and someone came in anywhere and did that, I’d say, ‘Okay, fire me, or I’m going to quit. Or we’re going to both go into the owner and talk about this and then we’ll see who’s still standing.’”
So clearly, Holmgren is a little salty about this. Frankly, I don’t blame him. This trade acted as a final slap in the face to the former GM. The franchise basically said, ‘we don’t want the guy you hand picked to be a cornerstone of the team for years to come.’ That would probably get my blood boiling too.
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But on the other hand, I understand what the Browns are doing. With a new GM and head coach in place, they’re basically blowing things up in 2013 and beginning to plan for the future. The team that’s currently in place, obviously doesn’t resemble what new management is envisioning.
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