Small and Slippery, the Browns’ Ice Cube Chills His Opponents

Gerald (Ice Cube) McNeil, the latest addition to the football’s “Refrigerator” nickname craze, is making a name for himself as a return specialist.

The 5-foot-7, 143-pound McNeil, the lightest player in the National Football League, has already broken two returns for touchdowns and it might be his not returning kickoffs that pleases Cleveland Browns Coach Marty Schottenheimer just as much.

“To me, when you decide that you’re not going to kick the ball downfield because you have a guy like Gerald McNeil back there, you’re conceding that everybody offensively is going to start at the 35-yard line every time,” Schottenheimer said. “And frankly, if we can start at our 35-yard line every time, that’s representative of a pretty good kick return.”

McNeil, who weighs less than half what Chicago Bears defensive tackle William (Refrigerator) Perry does, raced 100 yards with a kickoff for a second-quarter touchdown in Cleveland’s 27-24 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers last Sunday. The next two kickoffs by Pittsburgh were shorter in an apparent attempt to keep the ball away from McNeil.

McNeil’s 84-yard punt return against Detroit in Week 4 was the longest in Browns’ history. His return Sunday was the longest in the NFL since San Francisco’s James Owen ran one back 101 yards against Detroit on Nov. 2, 1980.

No one has returned both a punt and a kick for a touchdown in a single season since Tony Green did it for the Washington Redskins in 1978.

“I think I’ve just got excellent blocking in front of me, and now I’m reading what I’m seeing,” said McNeil, who was nicknamed Ice Cube during training camp both because of his size and slipperiness.

“Football’s a very funny game,” he said. “The first two or three weeks here, I had terrible weeks. I felt a little rusty. I’ve come back now and really got my feet wet. My confidence is up right now.”

McNeil spent two seasons in the United States Football League before joining the Browns in August. He was the USFL’s leading punt returner in 1985, but returning kickoffs is a relatively new discipline for him.

“McNeil is a guy who’s just coming into his own as a kickoff returner because he hasn’t done much of it,” Schottenheimer said. “He’s starting to see blocks unfold, and it’s exciting.”

His explosiveness has boosted the confidence of Cleveland’s entire special teams unit, according to the coach.

“There’s an enthusiasm in that group that’s a product of the realization, from a return standpoint, that we can bring any one of them back the distance,” Schottenheimer said.

The touchdowns, however, are perceived as bonuses by Schottenheimer, who places a higher priority on special teams preparations than many other coaches.

“The kicking game is really nothing more than field position,” he said. “If you cover a kick and reduce the length of that return, you create field position for yourself. They kick it to you and you bring it back further, you gain field position.”

The prospect of shorter kickoffs by opponents fearful of McNeil brought a mischievous gleam to the eye of Dave Puzzuoli, a reserve nose tackle who plays on the kick receiving unit.

“Puzzuoli desperately wants to run with one of those,” Schottenheimer said. “On the one that (running back) Herman Fontenot got back to the 36-yard line on Sunday, Puz came up to me and said, ‘Coach, I should have taken that one,’ and I said, ‘No, Dave.’ ”