Cleveland Browns: Emmanuel Ogbah may not miss any games

Emmanuel Ogbah was expected to miss some time after injuring his ankle against the Pittsburgh Steelers, but there is a chance he plays Sunday against the Saints.

Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson is holding out hope that starting defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah will be able to play Sunday against the New Orleans Saints.

Ogbah sprained his ankle late in the first quarter of the Browns regular season opener against the Steelers and was only able to play a limited amount of snaps. He returned following the injury, but did not play many snaps.

After initially saying Ogbah will miss Sunday’s game against the Saints and potentially more, Jackson said on Wednesday that they will see how Ogbah practices this week before making any decisions – via Patrick Maks of clevelandbrowns.com.

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"“We’ll see how he practices during the week,” Jackson said. ”Lets just see where is and we’ll go from there.”"

When Jackson said that Ogbah was going to miss time during Monday’s press conference, he did say that they would be re-evaluating the 24-year-old defensive end before saying how much time he would actually miss.

It seems that after they did re-evaluate his ankle, the injury was not as bad as the team initially expected.

After dealing with injuries and missing six games last season, Ogbah was hoping to have a healthy, breakout season. This injury is certainly not letting the third-year defensive end to get off to a fast start.

When Ogbah and Myles Garrett were on the field together in 2017, they were quietly one of the best duos of edge players in the NFL. However, their time sharing the field was limited as they both missed games due to injury. The hope was that with both players healthy in 2018, they could both have massive seasons. But Ogbah’s early injury through a wrench in the plan.

Even if Ogbah can return from his ankle injury on Sunday, the Browns should handle the injury carefully. Garrett endured an ankle injury early last season, and it was apparent that the injury hampered him all season.

The Browns have solid depth on the edge with Chris Smith, Anthony Zettel, and Genard Avery. Even if Ogbah can play, they should not try and rush him back and have him play more snaps than necessary. With how early it is in the season, there is no need to have Ogbah risk injuring his ankle more, forcing him to miss more time.

There is also a chance that Jackson could be trying to cause confusiong as the Saints game plan for this weekend’s game. Ogbah did not practice on Wednesday, but will likely be limited in practice the next couple of days.

But after intially believing that Ogbah was going to miss a couple of games, it is a great sign for the Browns defense that he may not miss any games at all. Even in limited action, his presence would prove to be beneficial.