Second-year linebacker Mack Wilson thought his season was over when he suffered a left knee injury at a training camp practice on Aug. 18. Now he's on the verge of playing again. (Cleveland Browns)
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland.
Takeaways from Browns practice and interviews …
Way too early nomination for Browns comeback player of the year: Mack Wilson.
He was back on the field on Monday exactly five weeks after fearing his second season was over with a severe knee injury.
Let’s go back to training camp.
Aug. 16: Wilson takes umbrage with a national commentary listing the Browns’ linebacker unit as 32nd in the league. “You are basically saying that they are a piece of crap … that is just total disrespect,” Wilson said.
Aug. 17: On the first full padded practice of camp, Wilson is overly zealous and accidentally horse-collars Nick Chubb to the ground, causing a concussion to the franchise back.
Aug. 18: Wilson begins the day demoted to second team because of his indiscretion. During practice, Wilson defends a pass to Donovan Peoples-Jones from behind and his left knee hyperextends grotesquely as his left foot hits the ground.
“I was just thinking to myself, ‘Why me?’” Wilson said Monday. “I thought I was going to be done for the season with all the pain I was feeling.”
Wilson said he was praying while being carted off the field and into the field house.
“They were saying possibly six to eight weeks so I was just telling myself every day, ‘I am a warrior. I am built for this. I know I will be back sooner than six to eight weeks.’ That was my goal to take it one day at a time and do everything they told me to do, and now, I am here today,” he said.
Wilson said the thought crossed his mind that the injury was bad karma for injuring Chubb the day before.
“I just left it all up to God and feel like God makes no mistakes,” Wilson said. “He is setting me up for the future with what I am going through right now. I just stayed positive about it and just kept my head held high. I was just praying constantly that nothing was really bad and I could make my way back this season.”
Swelling on the knee went down by the sixth day after the injury, he said, a recovery that doctors felt was unusual. By the 10th day, Wilson said he was able to balance on the left leg and do a single-leg squat.
A second opinion confirmed surgery was unnecessary.
Now, Wilson returns at an opportune time. The Browns haven’t been able to cover tight ends without him.
“I am going to definitely try to bring some juice and do whatever I can to work my way back to playing and things like that. We will see how it goes,” he said.
Fortunes turning
At a time when several teams are losing key players to injuries – some for the entire season – the Browns are getting back their casualties from training camp.
Besides Wilson, also returning to practice on Monday were cornerback Kevin Johnson (out with a lacerated liver since Aug. 19), Greedy Williams (out with a shoulder injury since Aug. 25) and right tackle Jack Conklin (who had an ankle injury in the Ravens game Sept. 13).
Also, defensive end Olivier Vernon (abdomen), linebacker Jacob Phillips (knee) and defensive end Adrian Clayborn (hip) each worked on the side with trainers.
Coach Kevin Stefanski said he would have no update on the availability of these players for the Washington game until later in the week.
Not a good feeling
Johnson’s freak injury was caused when rookie tight end Harrison Bryant fell on his stomach while Johnson was defending a pass to him. He spent two days in the hospital to make sure there was no internal bleeding.
So, what exactly does a lacerated liver feel like?
“When the injury happened I just thought that I got the wind knocked out of me really, really bad, but then it felt like a little bit different than that,” Johnson said. “I have had the wind knocked out of me plenty of times in my career so it just felt a little different from that.
“It was discomfort. It was just very uncomfortable. I could not really breathe, and it was long. It was kind of a long time where I was kind of just trying to get my breath back to normal. My stomach felt full. I felt like I had drunk a lot of water or something like that. I was just like ‘Yeah, something is going on inside of my body.’ I thought I cracked my rib or something, which I had never done before. I just felt something was a little off.”
Johnson, who was penciled in as the team’s nickel back to cover slot receivers, comes back after Tyler Boyd of the Bengals hit Tavierre Thomas, Johnson’s replacement, for seven catches for 72 yards and one touchdown on eight targets. The one non-catch was a drop in the end zone.
Johnson’s liver healed on its own. He is not worried about re-injuring the organ.
“No, and that is the one thing that just going through the process that all the doctors informed me is that once the wound is healed up, it is healed up,” he said. “It is not like a hamstring that lingers or any type of injury that lingers on. My liver is healed up 100 percent, and I feel normal. I feel like I did right before I injured it.”
Who’s that? It’s Porter Gustin
With Vernon and Clayborn still not fully practicing, backup end Porter Gustin takes on an even more prominent role.
Gustin had four tackles, a tackle-for-loss and a clean hit in the middle of Joe Burrow’s chest after Myles Garrett strip-sacked Burrow of the ball inside the Bengals’ five on the biggest defensive play of the Browns’ 35-30 win on Thursday night.
Gustin, 23, was signed to the Browns practice squad last November and he got playing time when Garrett was suspended for the final six games.
He had a real good training camp and opened eyes beating rookie left tackle Jedrick Wills when Garrett and Vernon weren’t doing the same.
Since camp, however, Wills has put together decent games against the Ravens and Bengals.
“He has done great,” Gustin said. “I have not had time to sit down and evaluate and watch the offense, but I have during game day, and I have heard the stats a little bit on how well he has doing.
“I think he has come a long way from the beginning of camp until the end. He is out there going against a lot of good pass rushers, and sometimes it does not go his way, but that is how it always is, especially for a rookie coming out here. It is tough. I think he has gotten better from it, learned from it and been able to step it up and come out and do really well on gameday, so it is great.”