Joe Haden will be honored at the Monday night game against the Bengals after formally retiring as a Cleveland Brown. (TheLandOnDemand)
Joe Haden belongs on the Mount Rushmore of expansion-era Browns
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
Takeaways from Browns practice and interviews …
Joe Haden looks too young to retire.
But at 33, he didn’t return to the Browns to run with the likes of Cincinnati Bengals wide receivers Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd Monday night in FirstEnergy Stadium. Even though they could use him.
“I said that is why I was going to be ending my career, because I do not feel like covering those dudes, honestly,” Haden said with a laugh.
No, Haden returned on a ceremonial contract to retire as a Brown in the city that he adopted as his home for the first seven seasons of his 12-year career. He will be honored at the Browns-Bengals game on Monday night.
“I was drafted here, and the city embraced me when I was a kid,” Haden said at his retirement press conference on Saturday. “I came here, I was just fresh, 21 years old, didn’t have any kids and I wasn’t married at the time, and just the city embraced me, and they showed me so much love. I just grew up here. It just was a spot that showed me so much, and I kind of wanted to reciprocate that love. It just finally feels like where I grew up, and this is the place where I want to end my career.”
On the Mount Rushmore of the Browns’ expansion era stand four players -- Joe Thomas, Phil Dawson, Josh Cribbs and Joe Haden. Thomas never played for another team, Dawson returned to retire as a Brown, and Cribbs remains settled in Northeast Ohio.
Like the others, Haden experienced little team success. But they are the era’s most popular Browns because of their excellence on the field and engagement in the community. Haden was Joe Cleveland, cheering his beloved Cavaliers from his floor seat, repping the Indians in the summertime, and giving his time to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank and Special Olympics.
Asked what made it special to play in Cleveland, Haden said, “I think it was the fact that during the times, you have a lot of fans that if you lose they are not going to like you, but the understanding of that effort that you give. They love the Joe Thomases, they love the D’Qwell Jacksons and the guys who at the end of the day, even if you aren’t winning, you are giving your all, you are trying your best, you are being a professional and you are being a professional about your job. I think just understanding that they had love and they respected what we were doing kind of made me feel like, ‘I can dig it. I can feel you.’”
After earning two Pro Bowl berths and turning in 19 interceptions in 90 games for the Browns, Haden was released on the morning of the fourth preseason game in 2017 in a stunning move by the Browns’ newbie analytics department that outraged the coaching staff.
By the end of the day, Haden signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Confused Browns fans gave Haden grief for jumping to the team’s arch-rival rather than excoriating the bozos who cut him.
“I think the hardest part was like my first game coming here and getting booed by Cleveland so hard,” Haden said. “I definitely didn’t expect to get the loudest of a cheer. That was kind of one of the things that it is a business so I have to kind of do what I have to do, but at the same time, I understand exactly where they were coming from.”
Haden went on to start 67 of 68 games for the Steelers, earning another Pro Bowl berth and notching 10 more interceptions.
“When you are six years in, and people are starting to get like, ‘Man, is this dude injury prone?’ Being able to go five more years and being able to play and just have that longevity, it felt good for me to be able to feel like I could still go out there because I knew I still had good ball in me,” Haden said.
Asked for his best memory as a Brown, Haden cited a game against the Bengals in which he intercepted Andy Dalton two times and returned one for a touchdown – his only score for the Browns.
That individual highlight came in a 41-20 Browns loss, one of 83 in Haden’s Cleveland career vs. only 29 wins. Haden experienced much more team success with the Steelers. They were 51-28-2 in his five seasons.
But it says a lot about Haden and his connection to the city that he considers his time in Cleveland more rewarding than his time in Pittsburgh.
Que sera, sera (Whatever will be, will be)
The Bengals game could be Kareem Hunt’s last as a Brown. Speculation is the running back could be traded if the Browns lose and drop out of the playoff picture.
Hunt, who asked to be traded in training camp, isn’t sweating over the uncertainty of his future.
“It’ll be mixed emotions for sure,” Hunt said to reporters about the possibility of being trade. “But they’ll know I gave it my all here in Cleveland and that’s what I’ll always and continue to do.”
Hunt’s rush attempts and pass targets have dropped drastically the past two games leading up to Tuesday’s 4 p.m. trade deadline. He wouldn’t say whether he wanted to stay or go at this point of his sixth NFL season, fourth with the Browns.
“I mean, it is what it is,” Hunt said. “It’s a business. I just go out there and show up and play, man.”
Brownie bits
The Browns declared out for the game tight end David Njoku (high ankle sprain), cornerback Denzel Ward (concussion protocol) and right guard Wyatt Teller (calf). Classified as questionable were linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (knee), cornerback Greg Newsome (oblique) and cornerback Greedy Williams (illness) …
Defensive end Myles Garrett said the shoulder and bicep injuries suffered in his rollover car accident on Sept. 29 are still bothering him. “I probably should have taken a good amount of more time off when I came back, but I just do not believe in that. Being myself, I am going to be out there if I can,” he said.
