Just another game, Morgan says
The former Browns player says that he has no animosity.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- His Pittsburgh Steelers teammates think wide receiver Quincy Morgan has been waiting to play Sunday night's game against the Cleveland Browns for months. Morgan said that isn't so.
"Everybody says it's a big week, but I couldn't care less about playing the Browns," said Morgan, a second-round draft pick by Cleveland in 2001. "It's just another game to me. It's another game I have to prepare for and be ready. There's no animosity."
Morgan insists he holds no grudges against the team that cast him off a year ago following a feud with former coach Butch Davis, but he sounds like someone who hasn't entirely put his Browns days to rest.
Main motivation
"I definitely want to win this game. I want to win this game and I want to beat them bad," Morgan said. "That's with any team: I want to beat them bad. But this is the Browns, the team I used to play for."
The Steelers (6-2) enter the game on a three-game winning streak despite numerous injuries and have won nine of 10 from the Browns (3-5).
Morgan, the only NFL receiver with a touchdown catch of at least 70 yards every season from 2002-04, was traded to the Cowboys 13 months ago for Antonio Bryant after being unhappy with a reduced role in Cleveland. He welcomed the deal to his hometown Cowboys, only to get even less playing time there. Morgan joined the Steelers after the Cowboys cut him.
Morgan hasn't gotten the playing time he would like in Pittsburgh, making only five catches, but he has helped the Steelers' special teams by averaging 32.5 yards on eight kickoff returns.
He says he likes the Steelers' approach to business. In Dallas, he said a Pro Bowl player like the Steelers' Hines Ward would never spend considerable time working with younger players, as Ward does.
And he said Davis often practiced the Browns too hard too often, resulting in tired teams on game day.
Arrive, survive, depart
"This is fun football. You just show up, practice and go home," Morgan said. "There's not a lot of bickering and cussing about a lot of little things, it's just 'Let's get it done, let's practice, let's go home.' "
He said he looks forward to practice and that team meetings are laid back.
"Once you hit that field it's a hard-nosed practice. Once we're off the field, you watch film and it's a fun environment," Morgan said. "It's after practice and guys aren't laying around mad and tired. They don't beat our bodies up. I mean, it's a great place to be."
Morgan said it wasn't that way in Cleveland, where the Browns went from being playoff losers to Pittsburgh in 2002 to a combined 12-28 record since.
"Guys would be laying around, feet hanging off the chairs, just dead tired, mad about something the coach said to him," Morgan said, describing a post-practice scene during the Browns' Davis days. "That's the way it was, but still the guys in that locker room in Cleveland were all family, we were close. We tried. We went out every Sunday and played our hearts out."
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