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The Browns' Joshua Cribbs tops the NFL with a whopping 1,475 kickoff return yards. Cribbs also leads the league averaging 32.8 per return. He has returned two kickoffs for touchdowns this season.
Joshua Cribbs is the reason that Chris Barclay does not return kicks for the Cleveland Browns. If not for Cribbs, Barclay might be a household name in Cleveland.
Instead, he was a member of the Browns' practice squad until Tennessee signed him to their active roster on Wednesday.
Barclay was a schoolboy standout at Louisville Male. He picked Wake Forest and had an amazing career as a Demon Deacon: three 1,000-yard seasons, 15, 100-yard games and 40 rushing touchdowns. But at 5'10 and 182 pounds, no team was willing to draft him. Barclay signed with Cleveland as a free agent before the 2006 season and spent most of the '06 season on the practice squad. He was activated for the last two weeks of the season, but did not play.
The Browns allocated Barclay to NFL Europa for the spring of 2007. Barclay totaled 1,682 combined yards for Berlin, a total which led NFLE. In particular, Barclay impressed by averaging 23.8 per kickoff return. He had a 99 yard kick return for a touchdown against Cologne in May.
Upon his return to the Browns for 2007 training camp, he got another shot at kick returning. When he brought back a kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown against Kansas City on August 11, Barclay drew a lot of notice. Still, no one claimed him when Cleveland let him go and he ended up back on the Browns' practice squad -- until now.
The Titans got a tremendous amount out of their kick returns when Michael Griffin was handling the chore early in the season. But when Griffin became one of Tennessee's starting safeties against Oakland, his tenure ended as Tennessee's kickoff return man. Since Griffin's departure from that role, the Titans have been very inconsistent, averaging less than 20 yards per return.
Needing a spark and with a roster spot open due to the suspension of Chris Henry, Tennessee has turned to another running back named Chris. The Titans hope that Chris Barclay can help with field position and provide big plays in the kick return game.
With the stretch drive fully upon them, Tennessee knows that every play counts more right now. That includes kickoff returns, an area where the Titans need a spark.
On November 18, 2001, Derrick Mason returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. It was the last time that Titans have scored on a kickoff return.
And it happened at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati.
Tennessee hopes that Chris Barclay can repeat that history at the same locale this Sunday.
