Coach question: Did going light lead to letdown?

By TONY GROSSI

The Browns players said the lack of hitting wasn’t to blame for poor play.

CLEVELAND — Reality check. Wake-up call. Bucket of cold water in the face.

The Monday night debacle in the Meadowlands swamp was all of the above to the Browns, they acknowledge. But no player agrees with coach Romeo Crennel’s assessment that the discouraging performance in the first half of the 37-34 loss to the New York Giants had something to do with relatively light practice sessions during training camp.

You’ll never hear a player complain about hitting too little in practice, and that held true on Wednesday.

Linebacker Andra Davis conceded the physical tone of Crennel’s fourth camp as Browns coach has been turned down a notch.

“You’ve got different type players,” Davis said. “You’ve got more veteran players, guys who know how to practice fast without the pads. If you want to play deep into the season, you have to take care of your players.

“Camp is a long grind. Different people have different philosophies. A lot of people have already broken camp. A lot of people don’t do half the stuff we do. Us as players, we appreciate RAC taking care of us. I don’t think ... it wasn’t physical, the reason we lost. It was more mental.”

Center Hank Fraley said the team doesn’t hit much in practice during the season, either.

“I think everybody on this team knows how to hit. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here,” he said. “We can be just as physical. They just played better. As a test, we flunked it.”

After the game on Monday night, Crennel questioned himself for saving his players by lightening the physical load in practice. On Wednesday, he said he wouldn’t have done anything differently “with my circumstance the way it was.”

Several players missed most of the practice week with various injuries. Prior to kickoff, Crennel made the decision to hold out defensive lineman Shaun Rogers as a precaution against worsening a sore knee.

“You’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” Crennel said. “I chose not to have pads on so that we can get some work done and get the offense installed and run. It probably hurt us in that game. But we still have two more games in preseason and have the opportunity to get ready for the regular season.”

Asked if the Browns would practice without pads through the duration of the preseason, Crennel said, “I’m not sure ... I think that’s a possibility. It depends on what I think we can get done.”

Some mistakes had nothing to do with hitting, such as 128 yards in penalties — 98 in the first quarter.

“We just let our emotions get the best of us in certain situations,” said Davis, who was penalized for retaliating against Giants running back Brandon Jacobs early in the game. “That’s not the type of ball RAC preaches. We learned from it. It’ll be a good thing for us that we went through that. Brought us back down to earth.”

The play of the offensive line was particularly shocking because many consider it the Browns’ strongest unit. Of course, the Giants’ defensive front arguably is the strongest the Browns will face in the real season.

That was the real test that Fraley said “we absolutely failed.” The line was intact, except for Ryan Tucker, who has missed all of training camp rehabbing from hip surgery.

The Giants stunted (looped an end inside) on the sack that knocked quarterback Derek Anderson out of the game — and possibly the remaining preseason games — with a concussion.