8 Cleveland Browns rehabbing major injuries this season
, Jr. tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) against the Cincinnati Bengals last season. He’s well underway in his rehab and in particular, there is an excellent
at warp speed on a treadmill. He appears to be on his way back for the start of the season.
The ACL injury has a high chance of recovery these days, as long as it is not compounded with other injuries at the same time. If there are other ligaments involved the surgery could get messier and the outcome could be more in doubt. It is not like a generation ago, when an ACL took two years to recover from and many athletes never made it back to the field.
The numbers say that most athletes, especially premier athletes have an excellent chance to come back, though it’s not 100%.
OBJ played hurt all of 2019 due to torn abdominal muscles that required surgery. A normal person wouldn’t work behind a desk with that kind of injury, never mind play in the NFL, and he still gained over 1,000 receiving yards. No one should ever, ever question the heart of Odell Beckham, Jr. Not ever.
We never saw the real OBJ, and even in 2020 we only saw him for a few games, and he never really achieved synch with quarterback Baker Mayfield. Most Cleveland fans understand this. However, the national media, who love to complain about Cleveland at every opportunity, often assume that OBJ can never improve his patterns and that Mayfield can never improve his progressions. Well,why not?
In the 2020 season, there were two major debacles, one versus Baltimore to start the season, when the Browns had zero experience with the new Stefanski-Van Pelt offense; and then against Pittsburgh, when Mayfield was banged up and probably should not have played. Anyway, give Baltimore and Pittsburgh their due. They were the number one and number two defenses in the NFL at the time they played against the Browns. They earned their reputation.
In games two through five, the Browns scored 35, 34, 49, and 32 points with OBJ in the lineup. That was not terrible. It’s not just about stats, either. He continued to draw double coverage, helping the rest of the offense. If in 2021, they continue to double cover OBJ and the Browns gain 3000 yards on the ground (and it literally could happen that way), fans should totally be okay with it. Sorry about your fantasy football team, though.
He and Mayfield were still getting better game by game last season. That process will continue.
In summary, all systems are go, OBJ is still a superstar. There are parts of the Browns offense that need to be improved, certainly, but fears about OBJ not fitting in with the Van Pelt offense are way exaggerated.