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Giants call out Redskins for not putting Norman on Brown

Geoff Burke / USA TODAY Sports

NFL players and fans were disappointed by the lack of Josh Norman-Antonio Brown matchups when their teams faced off Monday, and New York Giants players Janoris Jenkins and Victor Cruz were among them.

The Washington Redskins' coaches left the top-paid cornerback, Norman, on the opposite side of the field from the Pittsburgh Steelers' elite target for most of the night, a move Jenkins questioned.

"It's unusual," Jenkins told Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News after practice Wednesday. "At the end of the day, you've got to think about the game plan they had going in. It either was we're gonna have Norman travel with AB, or we're gonna have Norman play one side and we double AB on the other side. So it could have gone both ways."

Brown faced cornerback Bashaud Breeland for the majority of snaps with some double coverage, but it wasn't enough, as he caught eight passes for 126 yards and two touchdowns.

Jenkins said that, given Norman is the NFL's highest-paid cornerback, it should have been an obvious adjustment.

"But I think when you're paying somebody 70 mil, there shouldn't be no game plan," Jenkins said. "The game plan should be you're on this guy, and that's what it is."

Cruz threw some shade of his own at Norman for not covering Brown, despite regularly boasting he's the best at his position, though he didn't give much thought to the Redskins game planning.

"Especially if he calls himself - I don't call him this, he calls himself the best corner in the league - then you have to go cover the best receivers on the other team," Cruz told ESPN's Jordan Raanan on Wednesday. "Going in, I thought he was going to follow AB all over the place, but he didn't. So it is what it is. He made his choice."

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