Three Cleveland Browns players who suffered major injuries in training camp/preseason
The Cleveland Browns got bad news that Mack Wilson suffered a devastating knee injury. His season is in doubt, and with all major injuries, his career. This isn’t the first time the Cleveland Browns had to deal with a player getting severely injured during training camp. The team has seen this kind of thing before. Wilson is just the latest casualty.
It can happen to any team but it feels like it happens most to the Browns. Maybe that’s because the team has had so few opportunities to succeed, so fans focus more, but this list seems unique to Cleveland and not just because the team’s track record since 1999.
Throughout the Browns’ history, there’s always been this issue just before or following major seasons for the team. Be it losing the best defensive player before the start of the 2002 season, the only playoff season in Browns’ history since their return in 1999 or in 2006 when a star of the area returned home.
It even happened after the team’s best statistical season in 2007. The next season had all sorts of hope around it but the loss of a key piece or two may have been all that was holding the team together. Will Wilson’s injury be as significant? Considering how weak the defense is, yeah, it’s a possibility.
So while we all hope for the best for Wilson, let’s take a look back at some of the other players that got hurt or sick during the preseason and ended up unable to not just play that year, but ever again. These the three players who couldn’t overcome their preseason injuries.
Jamir Miller
This one might be cheating a bit, as Jamir Miller tore his knee up in a preseason game. That should count. Technically anything that happens after the NFL Draft and before Week one of the regular season should count. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Count this, that is. Jamir Miller was by all accounts a bust. The 10th pick in the 1994 NFL Draft, Miller went to the Arizona Cardinals as one of the top picks in the draft, as well as one of the most celebrated players athletically speaking.
Miller failed in Arizona and eventually found himself in Cleveland where he resurrected his career. Through three years he averaged over 101 tackles a season and had a career-high 13 sacks in 2001. He became the first Browns player since the return of the franchise to represent the team in the Pro Bowl.
Then in the first preseason game of 2002 against the Minnesota Vikings, Miller ruptured his Achilles tendon. It would be the last time he’d ever put on football pads for the Cleveland Browns or any other NFL team. Miller was cut in early 2003 and retired soon after. The injury didn’t just devastate Miller, but the Browns defense as a whole. Without Miller, Mark Word became the team leader in sacks with only eight. He wasn’t even a starter. The defense was ranked 10th worst in the NFL for yards allowed and was the sixth-worst team in total sacks with only 28. Seven more than the Arizona Cardinals who had only 21 all year. The Philadelphia Eagles lead the league with 56.
For comparison, with Miller, the team was still ranked 21st in total defense (tenth worst) in 2001 but were ranked in the top ten in total sacks with 43. Miller had that much of an impact on the entire team.
Joe Jurevicius
Technically a stretch, yes. Joe Jurevicius was a veteran of two SuperBowls, one as a little-used slot guy for the New York Giants that featured Kerry Collins, Tiki Barber, Jason Seahorn, and Michael Strahan but after a big 2001, left for Tampa Bay, where he helped lead the Buccaneers to a SuperBowl win that season. With titles and money, Jurevicius was keen on returning home. A local area star in Mentor for Lake Catholic, Jurevicius went to Penn State with the hopes of one day playing for the Browns. The veteran got to do just that in 2006. After two strong years, including the year Derek Anderson tore the league apart, Jurevicius needed minor surgery on his knee
Jurevicius returned to Berea during training camp to begin rehabbing with the idea of being ready by the start of the 2008 regular season. While training and doing his rehabilitation at the Cleveland Browns training facilities in the preseason, he developed a staph infection that quickly ended his career. He’d undergo seven total surgeries to clean out the infection and the team ultimately released him in 2009.
Jurevicius, and several other former players and coaches who all contracted staph opted to sue the Cleveland Browns for how their lack of a sterile environment. Jurevicius was in the midst of a career season prior to his surgery and as he wasn’t an overly fast wide receiver, more bit and mobile, he was someone who had more than a few years left. The staph infection though sapped him of his skills, and eventually, in 2010, the Browns settled out of court.
His injury and forced retirement was a huge deal locally for a long time. With his roots in Cleveland and the fact that it was his beloved hometown team that essentially ruined and ended his career, it’s incredible he doesn’t harbor any ill will. Jurevicius still does the occasional Browns related piece of media to this day.
LeCharles Bentley
The Browns didn’t just get hometown kid Joe Jurevicius in the 2006 offseason, but also LeCharles Bentley, of St. Ignatius’s fame. Bentley went to Ohio State and became a star offensive linemen for the team, starring in the middle as the team’s steady and award-winning center. He was drafted in the second round by the New Orleans Saints where he started his first two seasons as a guard and went to the Pro Bowl in his third year. In his third year, he switched back to center and played two more years for the Saints where he went to another Pro Bowl.
A rare two-position Pro Bowler is rare. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the Sean Payton, Drew Brees era of the Saints, and Bentley was very dissatisfied with how the team treated him. The team didn’t extend an offer of any kind to him, due to Bentley threatening to sit out the season if they were able to regain his rights.
Bentley was the top-rated free agent and had his eyes set on one place; home.
He had a deal with the Eagles down but rumor has it the Browns upped their offer and Bentley picked Cleveland. He came in with fellow hometown kids Jurevicius and punter Dave Zastudil (Bay Village). The team also added key pieces like Kevin Shaffer and Willie McGinest, all key pieces of the magical 2007 season that saw the team win 10 games.
The team just needed a quarterback and they would be locked. With Ryan Tucker, Shaffer, Hank Fraley, and Joe Andruzzi, the team saw Bentley as the last piece for a league-best offensive line. Then on the first play of the first 11 on 11 drill, Bentley tore his patella tendon and would never play football again. Like Jurevicius, Bentley developed a staph infection in his leg from unclean conditions during his recovery. The virus nearly caused the doctors to amputate his leg in order to save his life.
Luckily the surgeries worked and Bentley got to keep both of his legs.