Former Lions offensive tackle Lomas Brown, who boasted last week that he intentionally missed a block so teammate Scott Mitchell would get hurt, now says he regrets it. But Brown, who is now an ESPN commentator, didn’t quite come clean.
“That was 1994, and I was extremely frustrated with the situation that was going on. And, you know, I didn’t try to get the guy hurt, but that’s what ended up happening,” Brown said on ESPN First Take today.
Brown’s claim that “I didn’t try to get the guy hurt” doesn’t make any sense. He explicitly stated in a radio appearance last week that he purposely missed a block because he wanted Mitchell to suffer an injury, that he told a teammate that’s what he was doing, and that he was glad when Mitchell did, in fact, leave the game with an injury. Brown then boasted about the fact that backup quarterback Dave Krieg came in and played much better than Mitchell had, as if Brown deserved credit for forcing the Lions to make the switch.
Brown’s claim also doesn’t make sense because in the next breath he expressed regret for what he did.
“Do I regret it happened? Yeah, I regret it happened. Did I regret it happened then? No, I didn’t regret it then,” Brown said, later adding that he estimates he played 18,000 plays in his football career and, “It’s one play out of the 18,000 that I regret.”
So Brown does regret what he did, and is acknowledging that he did it, even after he said he wasn’t trying to get Mitchell hurt.
Mitchell said on Wednesday that he was stunned by Brown’s comments, noting that Brown had been a guest in his home and had always acted to his face like they were friends. Brown acknowledged being friendly with Mitchell.
“Yeah, Scott did have us over to the house and everything, and I felt that I was a good teammate to Scott,” Brown said. “I expected Scott to react that way. That’s the way he should have reacted. I don’t blame him for reacting that way. But Scott knows a lot of things that went on, too, in Detroit. So I don’t know what I can say now. I’ve already said it, it’s out there. And like I said I expected him to react in that way. I probably, if the shoe had been on the other foot, I probably would have reacted that way too. No, not probably. I would have reacted that way -- probably a little worse than that. So I don’t blame Scott, and hopefully we’ll talk about it.”
Well, it’s good to know that Brown doesn’t blame Mitchell for Brown intentionally letting Mitchell get hurt.
Brown also said that he wishes he had expressed himself differently on his radio appearance last week and not come across like he was bragging about letting Mitchell get hurt.
“I should have been more tactful about how I said that,” Brown said. “It came off boastful. And I shouldn’t have said it that way. I said it, I can’t take it back, but I shouldn’t have said it the way I said it.”
After those comments, First Take host Cari Champion closed the segment by telling Brown, “Well done, big fella.” Brown’s ESPN co-workers might be willing to let him off easy, but the rest of us don’t have to. What Brown did to Mitchell was despicable, and Brown has permanently damaged his reputation.
