Another day, another problem for the Browns as rookie wide receiver Corey Coleman, their first-round pick in the NFL Draft, will be out for four to six weeks after breaking his hand in practice on Wednesday.
All this after he had a breakout game in last Sunday’s 25-20 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.
Yikes!
And so it goes.
If this doesn’t check the moxie of Browns head coach Hue Jackson, then nothing will.
Jackson has maintained after each one of these explosions, as it were, that his world hasn’t been rocked. He was asked about that again on Thursday.
“No, I keep telling you guys, I’m not blinking,” Jackson said. “I think you guys know me. I’m never going to do that.
“This football team and this organization depends on me to have a positive outlook about it all, and I do because I have seen this before. We all have. When you are changing things and you are trying to come from where we’ve been, these are the things that you have to go through.
“There is that saying, ‘Without struggle, there would be no progress.’ We are struggling, but we are going to get some progress here pretty soon. I promise you that.”
The Browns players are watching for Jackson to blink, to flinch. If he does, then maybe they will, too. But as long as Jackson is standing in there, arms crossed, staring down those problems and refusing to budge, then his players will keep at it.
Indeed, these are troubling times right now for the Browns. Everything seems to keep coming apart at the seams. It sure couldn’t get any worse, could it? You shudder to think what it would be like if it did. But if things do bottom out even more, then Jackson will have to dig in just that much harder. He’s the face of the team. He’s driving the ship. That’s his job.
That Jackson gets that, and that he can chuckle through it all, is the best thing the Browns have going for them right now.
