DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum The Browns Stength and Conditioning Department

This is a very timely article from ANTHONY MOEGLINNOV 29, 2023 9:35 AM EST ...who took the time to put a dollar value on the Browns injury problem.


Quantifying All of The 2023 Browns' Injuries

We say it on camera, we write it in our stories so let's put a number on the injuries that the Browns have experienced this year.
ANTHONY MOEGLINNOV 29, 2023 9:35 AM EST 
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This Cleveland Browns team is one of the most injured teams of all time. The Browns have lost star players, starters and backups. Guys at every level have fallen to injury and have left this great roster scratching their heads. 

We have said it so many times in our stories and in our videos so let's put a number to this injury report so that we can really wrap our hands around exactly what Kevin Stefanski and this team are experiencing.

To date, each of these players has missed time. The money lost is an account of their salary and the percentage of games missed. An asterisk indicates that the guy is done for the season. 
 
Nick Chubb - $13,976,470 *
Deshaun Watson - $12,331,000 *
Jack Conklin - $7,785,522 *
Jakeem Grant - $1,796,666 *
Denzel Ward - $1,110,465
Jacob Phillips - $1,104,500 *
Jederick Wills Jr. - $799,146
Greg Newsome - $632,168
Mike Woods III - $517,072 *
Rodney McLeod - $449,852 *
Juan Thornhill- $205,818
Dawand Jones - $170,654
Anthony Walker - $99,318
Dorian Thompson-Robinson - TBD 
Amari Cooper - TBD
Myles Garrett - TBD

TOTAL - $40,978,651

For the guys who have only missed portions of this season, I took their Cap Hit number and multiplied it by the percentage of games missed to this point. The total is not a fixed number and will increase as the weeks go on. All salary cap numbers were provided by Spotrac.
 

The names on this list are amazing and the fact that the Browns have a seven-and-four record is an incredible feat. It's hard to not imagine what the outlook of this team would be if even half of these guys stayed healthy throughout the year. 

The Browns have an uphill battle to climb to just make the playoffs and at this point, the question isn't how can they get there, it's how much more can they take?



BY ANTHONY MOEGLIN

Anthony Moeglin is a northeast Ohio native, who most notably quarterbacked John Carroll University to the NCAA DIII National Semifinals in 2016 after beating the No. 1 team in the country twice in a 4-week stretch. He contributes written and video/podcast content for Browns Digest, as well as serving as the lead football analyst for BuckeyesNow on the FanNation network.

I'd be curious to see the ratio of guys we have on IR compared to other teams ... perhaps it's just bad luck that we have KEY guys on IR this season.

Injuries seem to dominate each week ... but you wonder if there's some sort of trend with us in particular

It seems that the "root of the problem" with the Browns Strength and Conditioning program might date back to April 2016, when major changes were made to the Browns S & C program. Below is an article that addresses the changes that were made. Just my opinion, but it does seem that the issue of the mounting injuries to our players might have began at that point in time.

That is just a guess on my part and hopefully someone has the information that can add some facts to backup the origins of the Browns mounting injury issues. Below is an article that addresses the origin of the point in time when the Browns made changes to their S/C program.


Browns' revamped strength and condition program features tailorized training for every position
 
Tony Grossi, ESPN Cleveland
Apr 4, 2016, 09:11 AM ET
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Next level: You want outside the box? You want “next level” thinking? Well, check this out. The Browns have seven strength coaches. That’s right. Seven.

When the Browns entered the NFL in 1950, Paul Brown had a coaching staff of four assistants. Total.

Yes, things evolve over 66 years. But seven strength coaches?

Basically, each position group has its own strength and conditioning coach.

This is the brainchild of Adam Beard, who holds the title of Browns director of high performance.

Beard is a native of Australia who answered the call of a recruiting agency and left as head of physical performance of the Welsh Rugby Union last summer to join the Browns. He spent the entire 2015 season essentially observing the Browns’ operations and American football in general in preparation for revamping the way the Browns think about training their bodies to maximize performance and minimize injuries.

The result is a fairly drastic, non-traditional football approach to strength and conditioning that may be a culture shock to players convening on Monday for the official start of the program.

And the most obvious change to the way the Browns -- and most every NFL team -- have been doing things starts with assigning a specific strength coach to tailor training regimens to the nuances of each position group.

 

“You look at the coaching structure and you have your head coach and coordinators and position coaches,” Beard told me in a thick Australian accent. “I think it’s important that, in terms of performance, you have to have a look at the needs analyses for different positions.

“I read an interview with Jim Brown and he said when he was a running back it didn’t make sense for him to do the same strength and conditioning as an offensive lineman.”

Beard, who has trained track and field athletes, likens it to a javelin thrower needing different training methods than a sprinter or long-distance runner.

Sport science evolution: When NFL teams first inaugurated strength training as a part of daily football life in the 1980s, the strength coach generally was a former player not good enough to play football professionally who knew the head coach and was tasked with barking at players and motivating them to pump iron months before they had to report to training camp.

The first Browns’ strength coach was Dave “Red Man” Redding, a former Nebraska defensive lineman and a colorful character with an orange beard. Redding developed one of the league’s first conditioning programs under coach Sam Rutigliano, and then followed Rutigliano’s successor, Marty Schottenheimer, to Kansas City, Washington and San Diego before ending his career with the Green Bay Packers and a Super Bowl championship after 24 years in the league.

Nowadays, conditioning is a science. Beard’s resume is long and loaded with international training positions and academic achievements.

He was head of physical performance for the Welsh Rugby Union. Head of fitness for British and Irish Lions rugby. Strength and conditioning coach at Western Australia Institute of Sport, English Institute of Sport and Aspire Academy of Sports Excellence.

He has a masters of sports science in biomechanics and is working toward a doctorate in hypoxic exercise physiology from the Université de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“It’s a fancy word for altitude,” Beard said. “Hypoxic environment [is] when you’re in a plane.”

With that academic background, Beard last year made recommendations to reduce jet lag on the team’s trips across three time zones to San Diego and Seattle.

Now, if he can just reduce the occurrence of hamstring injuries and concussions.

Keeping up: The appointment of Beard to reorganize and reconstruct the way the Browns look at training and nutrition is a function of the organization’s reliance on analytics and new technology to plot its future direction.

When it comes to training, however, the Browns are not at the forefront, but rather trying to keep pace.

At the NFL owners meetings last month, Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians spoke of his team’s use of technology in monitoring players’ training regimens and performance.

“The gadgets we have ... I call our strength coach Gizmo,” Arians said. “He’s got a phone that measures the speed of the ball. They have a chip they put in the ball and they measure the speed, how many revolutions they’re throwing at the start of practice compared to the end of practice after 150 throws.

“The conditioning -- strength drills and warmups -- it’s light-years to where it used to be. So I think all these guys are getting better at [age] 33, 34, 35.

"We have [stuff] all over. [We measure] heart rates, how far they run. There’s a guy, that’s his job. He’s got a computer at the end of the field monitoring all those guys.”

Beard takes over a team that led the NFL with 16 concussion injuries in 2015 and routinely had a dozen players missing practice with assorted soft-tissue injuries.

 

“The big thing about pro sport is you want to increase performance but you want to decrease injury,” Beard said. “That’s a really hard paradigm. Because you’ve got to push men to the lengths of making them more powerful and stronger than the average man. There are going to be injuries. I’d be lying if I said we’re not going to get any injuries any more. We just have to learn from them.

“I think it’s an evolution. We have to make sure that guys peak on Sunday. You can develop a lot of those physical qualities in its purity away from contact and competition, but it’s how we maximize that and reduce the detriment of power and speed without getting too many injuries.”

More than 30 years ago, the Browns' were at the forefront of the strength and conditioning movement in the NFL. They got flabby and soft and lost their way. And now they have an army of sports scientists and high performance experts to straighten them out.

Are you surprised?

That was my thought as I was reading these articles. Especially the one written by the former John Carrol QB. I kept waiting to read his credentials asor career as a high-end physical therapist/sports medicine background.

IF you really look at our injuries I don't a lot of critical ones that could be related to conditioning. Let us look at some, shall we?



Chubb : was drilled in his knee while being stood up by defenders.

Watson: was drilled in the shoulder running the ball. If only he had done more heavy lifting with that had shoulder arm.

Myles: Shoulder injury. Do you want to suggest that Myles is not properly conditioned.

Conklin: knee injury

Wills: knee injury

Jones: Another knee on a 380lb body.

Concussions I can think of: DTR, Ward, Amari, Anthony Walker.


Maybe muscle/tissue injuries like Delpit, Newsome, McCloud could be related to conditioning.

Other teams have injuries. How many backup QBs have started this season for NFL teams.

The thing is that from the perspective of the overall cap space in injuries the Browns are at the top, however a closer inspection shows the Browns are not the team with the most injuries or the most players on injured reserve. There are several teams with both more injuries and more on injured reserve. But of course in some people's zeal to paint the most negative picture possible none of that is shown. Here's a look at all the NFL teams injuries and an overview.....

Reserve/Injured Summary By Team

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/injured-reserve/

I know as it stands Browns fans "feel like" they're the most unlucky team in terms of injuries and maybe if you broke that down to the most injuries among key positions that's true. I don't know. But as it pertains to the total injuries on NFL teams the Browns aren't even close to the team having the most injuries.

If the Browns are ever going to build a "winning franchise" those running the franchise cannot accept a subpar strength and conditioning program. I know I'm not the only one questioning what the hell is going on with all the Browns injuries.

Cleveland Browns strength and conditioning program is failing

By Elliot Kennel | Nov 4, 2021
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The Cleveland Browns are earning a failing grade in strength and conditioning.

This long-overdue article calls out the strength and conditioning program of the Cleveland Browns.


Let’s look at some numbers. Remember, the idea was that the Browns were going to rest up after a long break following the Thursday game, and play the aging, decrepit Steelers, right? Readers of this space were warned that that was not true.

Just look at the injury report.

The Cleveland Browns had 19 players listed on their injury report. The Steelers had only six.

Next week’s opponent, the Cincinnati Bengals, played a terrible game versus the Jets. But you know what? They only had five players on their injury report. Nobody has injury reports like the Browns.

Not only that, Cleveland has four players on their Injured Reserve list with soft tissue injuries: fullback Andy Janovich, halfback Kareem Hunt, defensive back M.J. Stewart, and center Nick Harris. In all, six of the 19 players on the injury list have what appear to be soft tissue injuries.

Three of the six Steelers on the injury list were there with soft tissue injuries, including old Ben Roethlisberger, who always has aches and pains, and Chase Claypool who had a full practice by the end of the week and started. The Steelers do not have anyone on IR with a soft tissue injury.

The Browns and their fans think that they have a premier offensive line, but it’s time to admit that it’s not true, at least not on a week-to-week basis. On a per-snap basis, Baker Mayfield is second in the NFL at getting sacked, having taken 22 sacks in 460 snaps. That’s one sack every 20.9 snaps. Only Justin Fields has had a tougher time, with an astounding 26 sacks in only 408 snaps, or one sack every 15.7 snaps. .

The point is that quarterbacks who are getting pasted like this rarely have good seasons and usually wind up on IR.

Man for man, it could not be more clear that the Pittsburgh defense was able to overpower Cleveland’s offensive line. The Browns players are just weaker than their Pittsburgh counterparts.

This is not a new problem. Back in 2015, running backs coach Wilbert Montgomery called out his players for showing up to summer camp in less than stellar condition, with the result being a rash of minor muscle pulls. He probably could have said the same thing to the entire 2021 team.

"“The disappointing thing was that all those guys not being in tip-top shape. I think that was a total setback and now they are climbing back up hill….your job is to get hit and your job is being able to bounce back from injuries really quickly because it’s most like playing a game every week. Each day you’ve got to be healthy and ready to go and you’ve got to play injured, you’ve got to play sore and you’ve got to play banged up. And if you can’t play with those things, you really can’t play.” – Browns running backs coach Wilbert Montgomery, quoted by Mary Kay Cabot, Cleveland.com, Aug 9, 2015"

Any one injury might be unavoidable and might not be the fault of the player. Certainly, if the player breaks a bone or ruptures a ligament or something, conditioning is not at fault. Also, it’s one thing if a veteran with several surgeries has recurring problems, but the Browns have first and second-year players routinely missing time with pulled muscles. It’s just the magnitude of the number of injuries.

Is there any other team in the NFL close to the Cleveland Browns in terms of pulling hamstrings? It’s year after year after year and we’ve grown used to it. But this is not normal.

Most of us fans thought at the beginning of the season that Cleveland had a truly deep team with real talent even on the practice squad. This isn’t true. At any point in time, with 15 to 20 players on the injured list, that means that there are only about 35 players who are healthy enough to have practice during the week. This is crazy. The Browns are the thinnest team in the NFL and have to populate the practice field with practice squad players just to have practice.

Something is way wrong with the way that the Browns are carrying out their conditioning program. From the outside, we cannot see what is going wrong, but there must be something wrong, judging from the poor results that are all too apparent.

We cannot say whether it is diet, hydration, cardio, weight training, aerobic exercise, anaerobic exercise, or what. But these soft tissue injuries among young players are a sure sign that something is wrong somewhere and they need to get it fixed.

If Cleveland cannot fix it, they are going to continue to get beat up by the Steelers year after year after year no matter many free agents they sign or how many first round quarterbacks they draft.

So let’s not even talk about drafting some kid in 2022 or trading away a bunch of first-round picks for Deshaun Watson or some other high-priced players to fix the team at the trade deadline this week. Not after losing to the Steelers at home with 19 guys on the injury list and four more on IR with soft tissue injuries. That just isn’t going to fix the team.

I want to know if the Browns have strength and conditioning coaches and trainers who are truly at the top of their profession. Do they understand injury prevention, and how are you able to measure their expertise?

Are they on top of the latest methodologies for avoiding muscle pulls and other injuries? For example, when is the last time each employee took a university class invoving sports medicine and training? What plan do they use, and how do they know it works?

Do the Browns know what the Steelers, Bengals, and Ravens are doing? Whatever the Browns are doing now, they need to be doing something different because the 2021 program is the pits.

If Cleveland is missing eight players due to soft tissue injuries and another half dozen are playing hurt; and the Steelers have only one player out and three playing hurt, who do you think is going to win?

My problem is I believe the Browns have better athletes, but I also believe deep down that, the Steelers, Ravens and even the Bengals just have better strength and conditioning training and it is starting to show at the midpoint of this disappointing season.

They are going to manhandle the Browns down the stretch while key players have to sit on exercise bikes hoping to get well. Better order a few extras, because these hamstring injuries are not going away.

Elliot Kennel - I cover mainly personnel decisions, salary cap, team building and the human element of football. I watch semi-pro, high school, college XFL and NFL ball, it's all good. I follow all four teams in the AFC North and write about the Cleveland Browns.

https://dawgpounddaily.com/author/ekennel/

What is his expertise in strength and conditioning again?

Mary Kay Cabot
@MaryKayCabot
·
6m
#Browns left tackle Jed Wills Jr. underwent arthroscopic surgery this morning and is out for the season, source says

You make a lot of accusations, ask a lot of questions but are lacking in substance. You haven't pointed to a single thing that the strength and conditioning department have done or is doing wrong.

Pointing those things out is not a defeatist attitude and you still can't face the obvious that several NFL teams have more injuries and more players on injured reserve than the Browns.

I do agree with your over-arching point that the Browns should take a hard look at their S&C program, but you gotta look at it over the long-term, and compare to other teams. This year is crazy, and freak injury years do happen (Ravens went through similar last year).

You also have to acknowledge that some injuries just can't be avoided regardless of how well you've prepared for the rigors of the NFL. Chubb got hurt on a brutal hit to the knee, Watson because he somehow hasn't learned how to slide, all the concussions, Conklin's body has simply degraded to glass.

With the soft-tissue stuff, I absolutely agree with you. I've felt that we pick those types of injuries up at a crazy pace... but this year those seem to be down (this is just my feeling after peeking at the injury list each week).

There are other areas (like lower-body/joint injuries on linemen) where I'd be really curious to see if changes to S&C could help. When I ran cross-country in high school and college, strengthening and stabilizing the ankles was always a priority (did quick resistance exercises with bands). I always felt that helped on missteps while running on uneven ground. My example is probably not applicable to 300-400 lb men slamming into and stepping on each other, but maybe there is an equivalent... I honestly don't know.

This article is from 2021. It took me a while to realize it and was questioning because I was trying to figure why Andy Janovich was mentioned.

Let me know what those routines are. I've been running on neighborhood trails through the woods by Kyle's Station and damn near thought my ankles were going to disintegrate last week. Don't know what I did. Got new shoes, which has helped.

I challenge you to use your own data and tell everyone that the Browns don't have a problem with the number of injuries. I used your data to show that the Browns have had an issue dating back a number of years, with the Browns being near the upper 1/3 of teams with the most injuries in the NFL.

Try to be honest about the trend that is being shown...and admit it is not a good trend if the franchise is looking to be a consistant winner in the NFL. The article below is just another that touches on the Browns problem with so many injuries. The article is dated March 25, 2021 and again, I post it to show the trend the Browns have had over the last few year.

It's a trend that will keep the Browns from ever winning a Super Bowl if THE BRAIN TRUST of the Browns do not turn it around.


The injury stat that proves the Cleveland Browns are even better than you think: Doug Lesmerises

Updated: Mar. 25, 2021, 9:18 a.m.|Published: Mar. 25, 2021, 6:15 a.m.
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If the Browns’ health could be even league average in 2021, that would be another way in which they can take a step forward.

Football Outsiders provided new context with rankings this week that compiled games lost last season, with an emphasis on the players who matter most. Here’s their nuanced definition of how they produce their rankings of “adjusted games lost.”

Adjusted games lost captures that distinction with separate weightings of starters, replacement starters, situational players, and bench players. In addition, the metric adjusts the weightings of active players who appeared on their teams’ injury reports prior to playing to account for an anticipated decrease in effectiveness while playing hurt.

They ranked all 32 teams both on adjusted games lost to injury and COVID, and to those only lost to typical injury. I think the combined ranking tells you the most, because it was a crazy season, and luck, both good and bad, played an even greater role. Sixty-seven players opted-out of the season because of COVID concerns. Others missed time because they were diagnosed with COVID, or because they were held out by close contact monitoring.

The Browns, with their Week 16 wipeout of the receiver room by COVID, directly lost a game to the Jets as a result.

So guess which team had the fewest missed games last season? Why ... it was the Super Bowl champion Tampa Buccaneers, with 30.6 adjusted games lost in the Football Outsiders formula.

Which team had the most games missed? The San Francisco 49ers, who went from the Super Bowl the year before to 6-10 and last place in the NFC West.

Of the 13 teams with winning records last season, which did it while dealing with the most adjusted games lost?

Obviously, the Browns. Again, the metric measures a player’s value, so the Browns didn’t rank high just because they were second in the NFL in full opt-outs with five. Three of those players had little effect, but backup offensive lineman Drew Forbes and rotational defensive tackle Andrew Billings mattered. But this is putting a number of everything they lost with Delpit, Williams, Beckham, the five games lost by Wyatt Teller, the four lost by Nick Chubb, the two by Myles Garrett, and more.

Injuries are part of the game. The Browns won through them better than any team.

With Tampa (30.6 adjusted games lost) at No. 1 and San Francisco (166.6 adjusted games lost) at No. 32, Football Outsiders ranked the Browns No. 22 with 89.7 adjusted games lost in the overall metric, combining injuries and COVID. Without COVID, the Browns were still No. 22, Tampa was still No. 1 and San Francisco was still No. 32.

Reviewing some other playoff teams, Pittsburgh missed 55.2 games, Baltimore 59.6, Buffalo 63.1 and Kansas City 65.2.

The 2020 issues on defense are easier to take with the reminder that the lost games were focused there. In offensive games lost, the Browns ranked No. 11. In defensive games lost, they were No. 27.

That’s it. That’s the point. They played hurt and won. While it happened, I think some people didn’t take it into account enough. The favorable schedule got a lot of attention. The lost players, I felt, not as much. It’s because injuries are so prevalent, and no one wants to use them as an excuse in a violent sport.

These Football Outsiders numbers tell a story. The Browns saw players miss more than their fair share of games last season and still were one of the final eight teams standing. Imagine if they have more injury luck on their side this year.

Pitt and others..l posted this article to point out that the Browns have had an injury issue dating back years, 4 yrs in this case. The TREND was not good and THE TREND IS NOT GETTING BETTER. Some tried to make that point years ago...and the Browns didn't find a fix to change that trend and that is on OWNERSHIP AND BROWNS MANAGEMENT.

DePo must have hired the strength and conditioning team.

How does "strength and conditioning" prevent: Concussions, blown out knee, jacked up shoulders, another knee, etc?

Analytics.

Yeah stuff like that, jfan.

Now instead of getting the FO and coaches fired, because we’re 8-5 despite all the injuries, let’s see if we can run the athletic trainers out of town.
Might as well give pink slips to the nutrition staff. They’re obviously screwing up the vegetable portions.

Cool should we narrow it down to Shaun, Larry, Josh, Monty, Dale, Ty, Katy, Carson, or Anthony?

These guys and gals are hired to do a job..

Support staff
Senior assistant/special projects - Kevin Rogers
Coordinator of coaching logistics – Riley Hecklinski

Strength and conditioning
Director of high performance – Shaun Huls
Director of strength and conditioning – Larry Jackson
Assistant strength and conditioning/sports science – Josh Christovich
Assistant strength and conditioning – Monty Gibson
Assistant strength and conditioning – Dale Jones
Assistant strength and conditioning – Evan Marcus
Director of performance nutrition – Katy Meassick



The question becomes, are these the people responsible for developing the present Browns S&C program..?

OR, are these folks following a S&C program that originated from someone at the top of the franchise..?

The trend line for injuries is obvious and as this season progresses and the injuries continue to mount as the Browns announced the loss of two more starters being placed on IR just yesterday.

The Browns S&C program is a failure if the goal is to condition the Browns players to help PREVENT INJURIES and promote DURABILITY.

Why would any NFL team continue a failed program for years if the program showed terrible results?

How hard is it to admit that the present Browns S&C program is a failure and the best path forward is to look at those franchises that have a history of establishing successful S&C programs that do produce the kind of results the Browns say they are seeking?

It is rather obvious that those at the top of the Browns franchise must accept responsibility for the continuation of the Browns failed S&C program.

The buck stops at the TOP..!

Based on what?

Based on he wishes Freddie Kitchens and John Dorsey would come back.

They don't lie, they're just not actually saying what you're saying. You reference an article that talks mostly about COVID holdouts in the COVID year, which is not at all applicable. You post an article further up about players showing up out of shape... also not applicable. You post these articles thinking nobody is going to actually read them and pay attention. These articles are saying 1/2 - 3/4 of what you're saying, and you're trying to fill in the rest with assumption and innuendo.

I do think the FO should look at the trending of certain injuries. Soft-tissue injuries (pulls and some tears) should absolutely fall within a standard deviation of league average. Point is, we don't know... but I know that's not going to stop you from grinding that axe.

Based on innuendo and nothing more.

Now please explain what blown out knees have to do with strength and conditioning. What concussions have to do with strength and conditioning. What Covid had to do with strength and conditioning and what players coming into camp out of shape has to do with the strength and conditioning department.

Magic? It has to be something, so I am going with magic, after of course an incompetent FO, coaching staff and owner. One thing I am pretty sure it isn't the announcer. Or is it? Has anyone checked to see if more players are injured when Jimmy D does the games? Gotta be worth looking at.

So, based on purely circumstantial data and conjecture.
You're saying they should look at other programs while knowing absolutely NOTHING about our program, much less any of the programs you're suggesting they look at, OR whether or not they already do look at those other programs.

There are some things that Strength & Conditioning just cannot account for and big ass collisions is one of them.
Guys diving to make tackles out of position is another.
Guys reaching out to tackle a guy going past them is one more.
Legs getting rolled up on is another.
Getting your knee blown out because it is forcibly bent in directions it shouldn't go is another.

On top of it all, you have to always be riding a fine line between flexibility and explosiveness. Well stretched, elongated, muscles are not explosive. Muscles that aren't explosive are not fast. You want the body warmed, but not totally loose. On top of that, every individual is different and responds differently. There are no "one size fits all" solutions.

Even if those are your feelings it still has nothing to do with injuries.

Browns have lost 14 key players to multi-game injuries this season


December 12, 2023 5:43 pm ET
Tyler Greenawalt, USA Today Sports
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The Cleveland Browns have endured some devastating injuries this season.

The Browns currently have 12 players on injured reserve after offensive tackle Dawand Jones and defensive tackle Maurice Hurst were added this week. That number is tied for fifth in the NFL, per Spotrac.

However, the players who’ve landed on said reserve list have been major Browns contributors. Key Week 1 starters like offensive tackle Jack Conklin and running back Nick Chubb were lost by Weeks 1 and 2, respectively, while offense tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. and quarterback Deshaun Watson joined them by Weeks 10 and 11, respectively.

And yet, the Browns sit at No. 5 in the AFC playoff picture with an 8-5 record. They control their playoff destiny with four games left and veteran quarterback Joe Flacco at the helm.

Give credit where credit is due – head coach Kevin Stefanski has this team believing that no one injury can tank their seasonal hopes.

It’s still daunting, though, to see so many big names on the injured list. Here are 14 important Browns players who’ve already missed or are expected to miss at least three games this season.

QB Deshaun Watson (shoulder) – injured reserve since Week 11
RB Nick Chubb (knee) – injured reserve since Week 2
OT Jack Conklin (knee) – injured reserve since Week 1
OT Jedrick Wills Jr. (knee) – injured reserve since Week 10
WR Jakeem Grant (knee) – injured reserve since preseason
OT Dawand Jones (knee) – injured reserve since Week 14
S Rodney McLeod (biceps) – injured reserve since Week 11
LB Jacob Phillips (pectoral) – injured reserve since preseason
OT Ty Nsekhe (biceps) – injured reserve since Week 8
DT Maurice Hurst (pectoral) – injured reserve since Week 15
CB Cameron Mitchell (hamstring) missed 4 games
WR Marquise Goodwin (concussion) missed 4 games
CB Denzel Ward (shoulder) – missed 3 games
S Juan Thornhill (calf) – missed 3 games


This story first appeared on USA Today within the last 24 hours, I'm not even sure if the story is up to date as now.

The better approach for anyone looking to change things - or just throw shade - would be to start with identifying how many of those injuries absolutely could have been prevented by changes in the S&C program.

So, of the players that have gone on IR, or have missed multiple games, which ones would have benefitted from doing something different?

So you think that strength and conditioning coaches for the Browns don't know as much now as your high school coaches and yourself knew decades ago? If you can't see how far you are reaching here I don't think anyone can help you. The impact that knees take in the NFL and the subsequent injuries that result from those impacts can not be stopped by conditioning.