Peyton Hillis: Browns lied to me, turned the fans against me
by Will Gibson
Tuesday marks the release of Madden NFL 16, which always inspires thoughts and writing about the video game’s cover athletes, past, present, and future. Madden has been around in various forms since 1988, and since 2001 the game’s cover has featured a prominent NFL player.1 The New York Giants’ Odell Beckham, Jr. gets the honors this year, continuing a proud legacy of star players like Eddie George, Marshall Faulk, Michael Vick…and Peyton Hillis.
Hillis had a huge 2010 season for the Browns, totaling 1,654 yards and 13 touchdowns. He rode that momentum all the way on to the Madden NFL 12 cover thanks to a fan vote. The rabid Browns fan base hit the ballots early and often, and Hillis bested the likes of Ray Rice (then without legal trouble), Matt Ryan, Jamaal Charles, Aaron Rodgers, and Michael Vick in successive rounds of voting. He remains the only Brown to ever grace the cover.
2010 was a dream year for Hillis. After backing up Darren McFadden and Felix Jones at Arkansas and being used primarily as a fullback in the NFL, he became the bell cow and a folk hero for the Browns.
Hillis’ time in Cleveland did not end happily. A wicked case of he-said, she-said broke out amid tense contract negotiations between he and the Browns front office. The now-former NFL running back told Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon all about it.
The Browns went 5-11 in 2010, and head coach Eric Mangini was fired at the season’s end, replaced by Pat Shurmur and his West Coast offense. At the same time, the Browns reached out to Hillis to discuss a new contract — he was scheduled to make $550,000 in 2011, the final year of his rookie deal. Between the Browns front office turnover and the 2011 NFL lockout, however, the negotiations went nowhere, and Hillis told Gagnon that he didn’t think the team was truly interested in re-signing him to a fatter deal.
“Every game I played, they did the same song and dance, ‘We’ll get you a deal, we’ll get you a deal, we’ll get you a deal,'” he said, noting that contract talks throughout the late summer were always prefaced by the team with the need to have him on the field while negotiations took place. “After a while, I just got tired of them lying to me and I’d just say, ‘Listen, if you’re not going to offer me a contract, then just say you’re not going to offer me a contract.'”
Hillis missed the third game of the season with strep throat, a move his agent suggested. He later missed action with an injured and then re-aggravated hamstring injury, limiting both his playing time and effectiveness. Rumors swirled that he was sitting games out in an attempt to build leverage. Hillis chose not to take the negotiating battle to the newspapers, in part out of fear that the team and media would railroad him.
At the time, Hillis thought the best approach was to remain quiet. Often, that’s the apt route to take. In this case, though, he never took the time to explain himself because he thought he’d be fighting a losing battle with the Browns and media partners, whom he feels turned the fans against him.
Now, he tells us that he lost up to 20 pounds the week of that Miami game due to “a real bad stomach virus” which lasted about 10 days. And he believes the stress caused by the contract discussions, the virus and the criticism stemming from both caused him to enter a downward spiral.
“A lot of it was stress and a lot of it was wondering why they weren’t coming around, and I was too sick to play the [Miami] game,” Hillis said. “And at that point, people started getting the idea that Peyton’s holding out for contract reasons. Once that got around, I didn’t want to disappoint the fans, so I went straight back to practice after that week feeling the way I did, and the way I felt, I ended up pulling a hamstring.
“So people really started thinking at that point. I guess the Browns and the media, they’re all connected, they were saying I’m holding out for a contract. So again, I get more stressed out and more frustrated because I can’t do anything about it. 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 praised Browns fans,2 and says that the team turned them against him.
“I think the Browns never really looked at me as a true running back,” Hillis said. “Because obviously they didn’t sign me back the year after that, but they did a good job turning the fans against me.”
“I think they were just out to get me out of Cleveland. When you really look at it hard enough, that’s really what it was.”
In addition to the front office, Hillis’ missing time did not endear him to those in the Browns locker room. Pro Bowl left tackle Joe Thomas later spoke out about Hillis in less than loving terms.
“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.”
There’s plenty more to the story, including Hillis offering some mild mea culpas and saying that he would apologize to Thomas, and it’s worth a read if you’re interested in NFL mudslinging.
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