As Buster Skrine goes, so go the Browns?
Nov 01, 2012 -- 6:00am
By Tony Grossi
Weathering the storm: If I were to single out one player who epitomizes the Browns’ season through eight games it would be Buster Skrine.
Young and inexperienced. Pressed to play a lot. Picked on. Ridiculed. Recovered. Improved. Admired.
Borrowing coach Pat Shurmur’s pet phrase, Skrine “battles.”
Joe Haden paid a steep monetary price for his four-game suspension. But on the field, Skrine paid heavily, too. He was a lightning rod in the Browns’ defensive secondary. Andy Dalton, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Joe Flacco and Eli Manning each threw at him with success.
After the Cincinnati and Giants games, Skrine was cornered by media seeking his reaction to getting schooled. Skrine didn’t hide or sneak out to the team bus. “I need to play better,” he said.
When Haden returned, Dimitri Patterson departed with an ankle injury. Skrine took on Patterson’s role covering the slot receiver in the nickel (extra cornerback) defense. His game turned around. On Sunday, he helped limit San Diego tight end Antonio Gates to two catches and broke up Philip Rivers’ final pass at about the Browns’ 30 to preserve a 7-6 victory.
In appreciation of his perseverance and toughness, Skrine was named a game captain for Ravens week by the team’s three permanent captains.
“That’s a great kid,” said Haden. “He’s gonna be so good. He’s faster and quicker than everybody on the field.”
A battler: At 5-9 and 185 pounds, Skrine is the smallest player on the Browns’ defense. Yet he is second on the team in total tackles, first in pass breakups and second in special teams tackles.
Critics say he gets so many tackles because his man is always catching passes. But Skrine makes a good point.
“If you look at the film, I’m always there,” he said. “There’s never a play where I’m just getting beat deep. I’m always there challenging and I’ve been getting my hands on a lot of balls. I’m growing weekly.”
One of Skrine’s biggest champions has been coordinator Dick Jauron, who is in his 40th year of NFL service as a free safety and assistant or head coach.
“Buster probably is as tough as anybody I’ve been around,” Jauron said. “He’s a very tough football player. He’s got a pretty good feel for the game. He’s learning the feel for different spots. He plays inside in the sub package and that’s not an easy thing to do.”
When Skrine struggled against the Giants, Jauron never wavered in keeping him on the field. True, he didn’t have many options. But Jauron’s strong confidence in Skrine is now being rewarded.
“I just have a lot of admiration for the way he plays, the toughness he plays with,” Jauron said. “Clearly he’s learning a lot. He’s getting schooled at times and he’s making plays at times.
“His speed and his quickness are things you can’t teach. He’s gifted in that regard and he’s a guy that really does want it badly. He prepares as well as you can prepare. He works so hard in practice every day and he listens. He’ll keep developing.”
The future is bright: Skrine was a fifth-round draft pick of GM Tom Heckert in 2011. In four years at Tennessee-Chattanooga, Skrine played for four different coordinators and three different position coaches.
“We went from a 3-4 to a 4-3, changing coverages every year,” Skrine said. “I take it as a positive because I learned something new every year. I felt it enhanced (my career) because I learned a lot of different techniques.”
Jauron has talked about the unique difficulty of covering the slot receiver, who lines up in the center of the field with no sideline boundary to help the nickel back. Skrine said the horizontal nature of the slot receiver’s routes plays to his lateral quickness.
Like the good cornerbacks, Skrine possesses a healthy dose of instant amnesia, never letting a completed pass or a P.I. penalty deter his aggressiveness.
“At the cornerback position, you have to know that the receivers are going to make great catches and you’re going to go against great quarterbacks,” Skrine said. “You just have to keep challenging, challenging, and you will win some of those reps.”
Lately, Skrine is winning more than he is losing. Like his team.
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