And I keep on forcing myself back with the pulled hamstring and I keep on re-pulling it. I just kept on hurting myself and people kept thinking I was holding out for a contract. Hillis did eventually return to put together some solid performances, including a yard effort in Week 16 against the Ravens. But in the locker room, the front office and the minds of many fans, the damage was done. The Browns, who are under new ownership and no longer employ any of the executives who would have negotiated with Hillis and his representatives, declined comment.
Tom Heckert, who was the general manager in Cleveland at the time and now works for the Denver Broncos, denied a request for a response through the team's media relations staff. It was really tough because the fans looked down on me, but they weren't on the inside. If they were on the inside, they would have probably thought differently. When you really look at it hard enough, that's really what it was.
But the bad optics went beyond the legitimacy of Hillis' sickness and injuries. In a scathing article from Michael Silver of Yahoo Sports, he took heat from several veteran teammates, some on the record. He also was criticized for messing around on the field before a game he apparently wasn't healthy enough to play in, for missing a charity function without explanation, for getting married while injured in October and for playing agent roulette when Hillis fired McGuire early the next offseason, he was moving onto his fourth agent in just over a year.
A year later, former Browns teammate Joe Thomas didn't hold back :. It was a terrible distraction. He crippled our offense.
We were struggling to find anybody who could carry the ball after all the injuries we had. To have Peyton going through a contract dispute and basically refusing to play, it was a big distraction. But more than anything, he was our starting running back that was a good player who was going to help us be a successful offense. When he's not there and you don't have anybody to turn to, it makes it hard to win. And that's the distraction, it's not being successful. He apologized publicly for missing that Halloween charity event, and h e also admits he shouldn't have kept firing agents.
The sad thing about my marriage was I was hurt during the process and I got married while I was hurt. But if I'd been healthy and got married, nobody would have thought anything about it. So yeah, I regret that. He was a key figure there and he wanted his players to play, but I don't think he even fully understood what was going on at that point. One other factor to consider here is mental well-being, which of course complicates the narrative that aligns the Browns on one side and Hillis on the other.
One of Silver's unnamed sources noted the formerly "positive and inspirational" back had become "a different guy" in Per Silver, who claimed players felt Hillis was "mentally fragile," Hillis also told the media that year he was having trouble getting his "mind right. You'd walk the street and people would talk smack at you and say you aren't doing this, and you're a traitor, you're this, you're that.
And that hurt, because I'm not that kind of guy. I've always been a hard-nosed, blue-collar guy, just like the city of Cleveland. And it hurt me that I fell from grace so hard and so fast with a city that I can relate myself to. He was a throwback, really a fullback who became the primary ball carrier rather than a halfback. Nothing fancy, right up the middle most of the time. Is it at all realistic for Hillis to come back after six years out of the league? Probably not, though on rare occasion players have come back.
Marshawn Lynch of the Seahawks evidently heard that running backs lose their effectiveness at age 30, so he retired at age 29, and then came back at age 31 and had a good year for the Oakland Raiders.
He lasted two more years with the Raiders and is not quite retired at age 34 if an NFL team is looking for a fossilized running back.
John Riggins also took a year off from Washington back in at age 31 and then came back to play five more effective seasons. When he hung up his spikes for good, he was actually two years older than Hillis is now. Hall of Fame cornerback Neon Deion Sanders was out of the game for three seasons and came back at age 37 and played at a high level for the Baltimore Ravens in He rushed his way into the news, playing his way onto the cover of Madden NFL 12, but then his star faded away.
So what happened to Peyton Hillis? Peyton Hillis attended the University of Arkansas, where he was primarily used as a fullback. While he spent a good deal of time blocking for Darren McFadden and Felix Jones, he was able to put up respectable numbers in his own right. During four NCAA season, Hillis posted rushing yards and 12 touchdowns on carries; he also caught passes for an additional 1, yards and 11 touchdowns. Hillis ran for yards and two touchdowns in the win.
McCourty stripped the ball and the Patriots recovered the fumble. The Browns improved to thanks to a late scoring drive that included big plays from Josh Gordon. In a defensive struggle, the Browns emerge victorious after a long drive at the end of overtime ends with a game-winning FG. Led by Nick Chubb and Jarvis Landry, Cleveland's offense explodes in the second half to run away with a big win on the road.
Colt McCoy leads the Browns 80 yards down the field for the game-winning touchdown with 43 seconds to play, sending Cleveland to a victory and a start to the season.
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