Last Friday during an interview with ESPN Radio, former Lions offensive tackle and current ESPN analyst Lomas Brown admitted that he purposely allowed quarterback and fellow teammate Scott Mitchell to get injured.
Brown was referring to a game in 1994 against the Green Bay Packers when he let then Packers defensive end Sean Jones to go around him and get a clear hit on Mitchell. The result of the play was Mitchell getting knocked out of the game with a broken finger which was the intention of Brown from the start.
“We were playing Green Bay in Milwaukee,” Brown said. “We were getting beat, 24-3, at that time and he just stunk up the place. He’s throwing interceptions, just everything. So I looked at Kevin Glover, our All-Pro center and I said, “Glove, that is it.” I said, “I’m getting him out the game.” . . . So I got the gator arms on the guy at the last minute, he got around me, he hit Scott Mitchell, he did something to his finger . . . and he came out the game. [Lions backup quarterback] Dave Krieg came in the game.”
After the revelation Brown showed zero remorse and continues to show a pretty sizable dislike for Mitchell to this day…
“As you can tell, I’m just not a big fan of Scott Mitchell. He’s just not on my Christmas list. He won’t be getting any Christmas presents from me this year,” Brown said.
ESPN host Ryen Russillo pretty much echoed the general reaction of shock that Lions fans and NFL fans alike had that Brown would admit openly on a national radio broadcast.
But is it totally shocking that a professional athlete would allow this to happen and is there any justification in it?
First it’s not shocking that a pro would allow this to happen and am sure Brown wasn’t the first nor last athlete to take matters into his own hands. Again what’s truly shocking about this whole matter is how open Brown was to talking about it on the radio.
Second as bad as Scott Mitchell was during his time with the Lions and as much as he probably should’ve been out of the game due to poor play you really can’t justify what Brown did. Like anyone else you have a job to do and you should go out and do it correctly. At this point now is it really that big of a deal what happened? No not really, Brown and Mitchell have long been retired and the Lions still can’t win in Green Bay or Milwaukee for that matter.
h/t: ESPN, ProFootballTalk.com
