BEREA, Ohio -- Cleveland Browns veteran wide receiver Brian Hartline was so upset after Sunday's 37-3 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals that he walked out of the locker room and told media he did not want to talk because he did not want to lose his job.
On Monday, Hartline did his best to clarify what he meant by the comments after catching eight passes for 83 yards in a losing effort for the Browns, who dropped to 2-10 on the year and sealed their 11th double-digit loss total in the last 13 years.
"I didn't have anything necessarily positive to say in my mind at that point, so I didn't have anything positive to say and I didn't really want to talk and that's all it was," Hartline said. "I got a little dinged up and coming out of the training room, I was already kind of frustrated about that. That's all. Don't read into it too much, but again, there really wasn't a whole lot to be said."
When asked how frustrated, shocked he was with the offensive performances as of late, which have yielded a combined total of 22 points in three weeks, Hartline said "those are good words" to describe the mood of the team.
"You know there are probably going to be ups and downs and whatnot, but we haven't really gotten out of the downs," Hartline said. "That's not a good thing. I think that, you know, we didn't picture ourselves ... we put a lot of work in and saw a good vision. Everyone bought in and we've been tumbling down the hill and we haven't turned it around. It's all those words. Yep, you can use all those.
"We're not scoring enough points. I think overall, and I haven't dove into the numbers, but at times, actually the majority of times, we move the ball up and down the field, but we shot ourselves in the foot probably four or five times once we crossed the 50, 40, 30-yard line.
"Obviously, we're playing at a point right now of kind of a no reason to hold back, it's fourth-and-short and we didn't covert and we're kind of laying it all on the line, so when you do that and you turn the ball over on that side of the field, that's not good, but overall, we're just not turning, you know, two-thirds of the drive into any points and that's not good football."
According to Hartline, what is hamstringing the Browns on offense is "probably more than one thing," and they are looking to change their woes over the final four games of the season against the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers, all but one of whom are 7-5 and in the hunt for the postseason.
"To get to where we are now, it has to be a couple things," Hartline said. "You're probably at a point now where it gets difficult to a task of staying motivated to an extent. Not that you're not going to work hard, but you know the numbers. You know how things are. You know come Jan. 3, it's your last game. I'm sure there's a handful of free agents that want to stay healthy. I'm sure there are a lot that want to continue to produce. There are a lot that want to be here next year.
"Everyone's reason or everyone's motive is a little different. You don't want to just always take care of yourself, but you can't help but have that creep into each person's mind. We have to stay together, keep working hard. We have to go find some wins to finish the season right because believe it or not, come spring, everyone here's going to be asking, 'You guys won the last two games. Can that build momentum for next year?' If we can focus on something like that and find some silver lining and get a couple wins to finish the year to launch us into next year, that would be advantageous."
