By SCOTT PETRAK

Staff Writer

BEREA — Braylon Edwards’ criticism of the Cleveland fans isn’t an attempt to talk his way out of town, the receiver insisted Thursday. But he would like to be cut some slack.

“I can’t apologize for what happened before I got here,” he said. “I wasn’t a part of ‘The Drive.’ I didn’t fumble at the 1. That wasn’t me.”

Of course, he was referring to the crushing AFC championship game losses to the Broncos following the 1986 and ‘87 seasons. The Browns returned to the doorstep of the Super Bowl two years later, but have won just one playoff game in the two decades since — and none after being reborn in 1999.

“I think fans are still disgruntled about that and they have every right to be. But that’s not me,” he said. “I’m Braylon Edwards and I just want to be Braylon Edwards.”

Edwards talked to reporters for nearly 10 minutes. He said he only wanted to discuss the Cincinnati game Sunday, then answered question after question about his relationship with the fans, the Michigan effect and his desire to remain in Cleveland. Wearing a ski cap and sporting a full beard, he leaned back against his locker and spoke with a calmness that’s often been missing in his self-centered rants.

After a five-catch, 102-yard effort Monday night in a loss to the Eagles — his three 100-yard games this season came in the three Monday night appearances — he said he was “unappreciated” by the fans and the city. He called himself a “marked man coming from Michigan.”

In addition to further infuriating fans, the comments looked like they were setting the table for an offseason trade demand.

“I don’t want to be traded,” said Edwards, who has one year remaining on the contract he signed after being drafted third overall out of Michigan in 2005. “I want to be here in Cleveland. I want to make plays. I want to be part of this team’s resurgence.

“I don’t know. Maybe I care too much.”

Edwards leads the league with 18 drops, the biggest of which have come at home. Lately when he drops one, the fans have booed. That bothers Edwards, who said he and his family have been the object of vulgarity and hostility in local restaurants.

“They’ve been booing me all year, so it is what it is,” he said.

Can his relationship with the fans be repaired?

“At the end of the day, fans are fans,” he said. “When you’re doing well, they love you, and when you’re doing bad, they hate you.”

Edwards made the Pro Bowl after the 2007 season, in which he caught 80 passes for 1,289 yards and 16 touchdowns, breaking Gary Collins’ franchise record. Things have been much bumpier this year.

His heel was cut in training camp while he ran after practice without shoes, and he missed the last three weeks of the preseason. He has 50 catches for 837 yards and three touchdowns.

“I caught a — what’s the word I’m looking for? — I caught a slump,” he said. “I’m human, people do that.

“All I can really do now is finish out strong, go into the offseason and work hard and get ready for next year.”

Edwards has never shied away from his Michigan roots and was late for a meeting in 2006 after taking a helicopter to the OSU-Michigan game. He maintains his lineage is the reason the fans don’t like him.

“You guys are Ohio State strong and the state of Ohio hates Michigan,” he said. “I’m not making anything up. I’m not reading into anything. I’m telling the truth.

“You guys know that the day I got drafted, the first thing you guys said was about my Bentley and the next comment you made was how do you think you’re going to fit in with the Browns being that it’s O-State country and you’re from Michigan. You guys love your Ohio State football and you hate Michigan. Every time I come up to people it’s O-H-I-O. I’m like, ‘I play for the Browns.’”

Thom Darden, Steve Everitt and Leroy Hoard were all former Wolverines who were beloved in Cleveland. A reporter also suggested that the fans loved Edwards last year when he was catching touchdowns.

“I don’t find that to be true,” he said. “I never used me being from Michigan as a cop-out.

“All season I’ve owned up to my play. I said I’m not playing well, I’m dropping passes, I need to be catching these passes.”

Receiver Joe Jurevicius is a native Clevelander who understands the fans better than anyone in the locker room.

“Whether all of it or some of it is relevant, why cry over spilled milk?” he said. “Braylon feels how he feels. The way I see it is these fans would party on Saturday if Ohio State won the national championship. But the city would burn down if we won a Super Bowl.”

Coach Romeo Crennel has had numerous discussions with Edwards in an attempt to stop some of the negative off-field attention Edwards brings upon himself.

“He’s still a young man, he’s still learning,” Crennel said. “He does have it in him that he’ll learn how to handle some situations, particularly in those frustrating times when things are not going good. That’s a measure of a lot of us, when we have adversity, how we handle it, how we act and react.”

Edwards said he’ll continue charity work here, including his $1 million project with Cleveland schools, but will increase the effort in his hometown of Detroit.

He was asked if Cleveland fans live in the past too much.

“I’m not trying to be a psychologist for the city of Cleveland, I’m really not trying to play Dr. Phil,” he said. “But there’s been a lot of bad things that have happened here, and everybody knows it, and we can’t ever get over that hump in any sport.

“And this happens to be the city’s favorite sport and we can’t even get to the playoffs. I understand their frustration, I really do, and that’s why I do everything I can to work hard and be the guy on Sunday.”

But don’t compare him to the great receivers in Browns history.

“I don’t want to have to live in a Paul Warfield’s shadow,” he said. “I really just want to be me.

“I’m a guy that’s young, it’s a new day and age. I love the game just as much as a Paul Warfield. I give everything I have, just as much as a Paul Warfield, and I’m trying to make plays when I can.”

Petrak may be reached at spetrak@chroniclet.com or 440-329-7136.