The hits keep on coming for the Cleveland Browns as they try to ascend to the top of the best division in all of football.
The latest blow came Friday, November 10, when the team announced that rookie right tackle Dawand Jones will miss Sunday’s road contest against the Baltimore Ravens due to injury. Jones sat out practice all week with knee and shoulder injuries that will sideline him for at least one game, per the Browns’ official injury report.
Jones, a fourth-round rookie out of Ohio State, moved into a starting role less than halfway through his first NFL game, after Jack Conklin suffered a season-ending knee injury against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 1. Cleveland also sent starting left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. to the injured reserve list (IR) this week with a knee injury of his own, meaning he will miss at least the next four games.
The Browns must now head into enemy territory to face the NFL’s second-rated defense without their top three offensive tackles — a dangerous proposition made more so by the nagging shoulder injury that has plagued starting quarterback Deshaun Watson since Week 3.
James Hudson III is the only other tackle currently on the team’s active roster and is likely to start on one side or the other. Who the Browns will move to the other tackle spot remains to be seen, and head coach Kevin Stefanski refused to divulge that information to the media during a press conference Friday.
No matter how good Stefanski and the rest of the organization actually feel about the offensive line situation heading into Sunday, it’s near a certainty that the Ravens feel better about it.
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