Nobody said it was going to be easy for the Browns to get themselves turned around.

And it sure hasn’t been.

So why, then, should anyone be surprised by what happened late in Wednesday’s practice when rookie defensive end Myles Garrett suffered what could turn out to be a serious ankle injury? More should be known Thursday, but it certainly doesn’t look good.

The injury, to the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft and a guy who has not disappointed one bit since arriving in town – the guy who was being counted on to live up to his bold claims and put pressure on Ben Roethlisberger and every other quarterback he faced this year — could not have happened at a worst possible time. The Browns, looking for the signature win that would jump-start their total rebuilding project and stand as its first signature moment, was hoping that would come Sunday in the regular-season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers at FirstEnergy Stadium.

That was already going to be daunting task. The Steelers are the defending AFC North champions and have dominated the Browns recently.

Now, with the good chance that Garrett will not play – or at least that he will be limited – that challenge obviously becomes even more difficult.

But it’s not impossible.

In 2006, in the opening minutes of the second practice of training camp, center LeCharles Bentley, the Cleveland St. Ignatius High School and Ohio State product who was the Browns’ big prize in free agency, suffered a career-ending knee injury without being touched. When it happened, almost all of the team’s top football people nearly fell over on the opposite sideline. Really.

The only one who didn’t was Romeo Crennel. Unfazed, he simply hitched up his short pants and got back to coaching.

Say what you want about Crennel’s ability as a head coach, but he was the Bill Belichick of the NFL in terms of keeping his cool in tough situations.

Hue Jackson, the second African American head coach in Brow ns history, needs to be just like the first one was.

It’s not exactly the situation that Jackson and the Browns wanted to be in, but they can’t do anything about it now. All they can do is deal with it.

Like I mentioned, nobody said this was going to be easy.

And oh, by the way, while the 2006 season without Bentley wasn’t good, as evidenced by the 4-12 finish, the Browns recovered significantly in ’07, going 10-6 for their best record of the expansion era and coming within a millimeter of making the playoffs.

So it can be done.

Just sayin’.