The Cleveland Brownslikely will finish the season without Colt McCoy. But they might not be ready to move on from the incident that sidelined their starting quarterback with a concussion.
In fact, it still was on several Browns players minds Wednesday, four days before their season finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
McCoy was knocked out in the teams' Week 14 contest after taking a helmet-to-helmet hit from Steelers linebacker James Harrison, whom the NFL suspended one game without pay for the infraction.
Mohamed Massaquoi, who took a helmet-to-helmet hit from Harrison last season, politely declined to answer any questions about the linebacker, but fellow wide receiver Josh Cribbs didn't duck the issue. He was asked if the Browns "owe" Harrison.
"I would say so," said Cribbs, who was Harrison's teammate at Kent State. "But we're not going into this game thinking about getting even with him. We're going into this game trying to win it. It's nothing personal with him. We'd like to knock their guys out as well, but within the whistle, according to the rules.
"We just want to go into this game thinking about winning, we're not thinking about one particular guy."
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin defended Harrison during a conference call with Cleveland's media and described the linebacker's helmet-to-helmet hits as "unfortunate collisions."
Tomlin strongly disagreed that Harrison is headhunting or dirty.
"They are unfortunate plays, and the circumstances around those plays and all of that has been well documented," he said. "I base my judgment on his quality of play and the total body of work and from being around him day to day for the last five years.
"I can say comfortably that I don't believe James Harrison is a dirty player."
Browns coach Pat Shurmur was asked if he would like to see his team go after Harrison.
"Do you mean start a fight? A bench-clearing brawl?" he said. "No. What I want my guys to do is play fast and physical from the snap until the whistle. We know that when you do stuff that's beyond the whistle, you end up hurting the team."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
