Remember bulletin board material? Apparently neither the Cleveland Browns nor the Kansas City Chiefs particularly care about providing it for one another, because both sides have been opening their mouths about the upcoming game this weekend, including those who won’t even be suiting up for the contest.
Chiefs wide receiver Sammy Watkins doesn’t appear to think that highly of a Cleveland Browns team that is now 12-5 on the season after defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the opening round of the postseason. Kansas City did not play this past week, of course, because they were awarded a bye as the number one seed.
When a fan responded to him by saying that it looks like the Chiefs will have some competition in the Browns, Watkins responded, “I wouldn’t go that far lol”. While this might not necessarily be looking past your opponent, it’s certainly looking down on them.
Yet while Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield appeared to be deeply offended by Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster’s remarks about his team, he had no issues with Watkins’. “If you don’t have confidence you’re not going to have success. And those guys have been doing it together for a few years now”, he said.
“They have a ton of confidence in each other and so people get mad when you put it out there, you put it up for bulletin board material, but I don’t have a problem with it. It comes with the nature of this game that you’ve got to be confident and you’ve got to know and believe in yourself”.
Watkins isn’t the only receiver talking. Even though he is on the injured reserve list, Odell Beckham let it be known that the Browns will have success this weekend. “Don’t be surprised this weekend when they win”, he wrote. “Just throwin it out there”.
Truth be told, these sorts of comments aren’t very infrequent at all, but they don’t often see the same sort of publicity that Smith-Schuster’s remarks got, for whatever reason. The bottom line is that any athlete on either side who wishes to use something as ‘motivation’ to get themselves pumped up for the game was given the opportunity to do so.
Personally speaking, I think the Browns’ Cinderella season ends here, but I know I’m not exactly going out on a limb with that. The Chiefs are just too good, and Patrick Mahomes even has a history of playing well coming off of a rest week, so I don’t think that is a concern here either—although he has actually rested two weeks.
