Even before Thursday night’s game against the Ravens, Browns receiver Greg Little was in danger of losing playing time because he was dropping too many passes. Then he went out on Thursday in Baltimore and dropped the ball five times.
Dropped passes aren’t an official statistic, and not everyone agrees on what constitutes a “drop,” but Little, who caught four passes on Thursday night, had five more catchable passes touch his hands. One of those was a beautifully thrown ball by Brandon Weeden into the end zone in the fourth quarter that Little acknowledged after the game he should have had.
“My job is just to beat the guy and get through the middle of the field,” Little said of the play. "[Weeden] moved around in the pocket, kept it alive and threw it up so that I could make a play on it. I just have to come down with it. It’s a tough catch and I don’t even know how to categorize it. It’s a tough one but if you want to be a great player then you want to make plays that people will remember, and put your team in a position to come back and win the game.”
There has been talk of the Browns benching Little, but Cleveland may not have any better options, at least in the short term: Mohamed Massaquoi missed Thursday night’s game and Josh Cribbs suffered a concussion during the game, so the Browns are thin at receiver.
So for now, Little is right: He’s just got to come down with it.