Former Cleveland Browns defensive lineman Shaun Rogers joined KILT in Houston to speak out on his release and how things went this year. A few of his excerpts are listed after the jump.
If he was surprised that he was released:
"No. No it didn’t. It’s one of those things that come with the territory when you’re a veteran guy like myself. These kinds of things are going to happen."
What he wants teams to take into account when they think about signing him:
"I would just hope that my track record would speak for itself. Unfortunately last year I played through some injuries against some advice from my agent Kennard (McGuire). He probably would’ve liked to see me sit down a little bit ‘till I was fully there. We’re competitors in this game and guys go out there and try and give there all excluding all circumstances. I think I did alright with what I was asked to do this year. My goal right now is to get healthy and look into any opportunities."
On what happened in Cleveland this past year:
"We just continued to rebuild and we lost a couple of guys. We lost crucial guys like Robaire Smith and we lost Shaun Smith to free agency. Those were versatile guys for us. The problem with me getting hurt last year, one of my young protégé’s Ahtyba Rubin showed great promise and they wanted to get him on the field. They moved him to nose and we had a little rotation where I would go in at end and he would play nose and that’s just what it was. I was kinda banged up this year so I had a little more spot play than usual, but years previous to that I’ve been blessed and I’ve been one of the few guys in this league that I would consider a three-down guy. The league is getting specialized as far as guys playing two downs and bringing in other guys in third down situations. You see that a lot in the league. In my career I’ve been blessed and had the ability to do both. I’m just looking to get healthy and go out there and play at a level where I played at for many years which I consider to be one of the upper levels or a Pro-Bowl level."
More of the interview can be found here. Listen to Shaun Rogers on KILT in Houston here.
I don't sense any ill-will from the veteran, who is probably already enjoying the fact that teams are knocking on his door. I'm a little confused by the part where Rogers says, "the problem with me getting hurt last year..." and then goes on to talk about Ahtyba Rubin, who had a great year (maybe whoever transcribed it made a mistake). Rogers is right that he probably should have sat at some point, and the same goes for Joshua Cribbs. It makes you wonder if Eric Mangini should have taken more initiative last season to not play players who needed more time to recover -- Jake Delhomme was also put in position to play before he was fully healed.