One day after creating a stir with his comments about Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, Cleveland Browns coach Mike Pettine altered his approach.
He began his media session on Thursday with a light-hearted approach.
"If anyone's interested, I have my updated quarterback rankings," Pettine announced. "Every quarterback that's ever played is tied for one, the best ever."
Pettine then moved on to Pete Carroll, coach of the Seattle squad that the Browns play on Sunday.
"The best ever - tied!" Pettine said. "Tied for the best ever because I don't want to slight anybody else when I slot somebody somewhere."
Pettine created a mini-controversy on Wednesday when he stated that Wilson was among the second tier of quarterbacks.
"Would you put him there with the guys that can transcend their supporting cast?" Pettine said Wednesday. "The (Tom) Bradys, whether it's Aaron Rodgers, (Drew) Brees, (Ben) Roethlisberger, the ones that you would consider the two, three, four elite guys? No. But he's certainly played himself into that next tier."
Wilson, who has thrown 16 touchdowns and zero interceptions over the past four games, dismissed Pettine's comments.
"I don't worry about that," Wilson said during Wednesday's conference call with Cleveland media members. "I think it comes down to winning games. ... That's the only thing I care about."
During an appearance on Sirius XM NFL Radio on Thursday, Pettine said his remarks about Wilson were misconstrued and that "there aren't too many quarterbacks that I respect more than Russell Wilson."
Pettine said he just answering a question.
"It's not my job to rank quarterbacks, and I know the bottom line for those guys, and he's said it himself, is to win football games," Pettine said. "And he's one of the best at that. I don't get too wrapped up in that. This isn't the first time that I've said a lot of one topic and one small fragment of it was made into a headline.
"If I get worried about that, then that's taking away from me getting my job done. He's won a lot of football games. He's does that really well. I try to answer the questions I get asked honestly and really don't have time to sit around and rank the quarterbacks."
