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‘Business decision’ starts sequence leading to Jedrick Wills Jr.’s ‘frustrating’ benching

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3 weeks ago

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‘Business decision’ starts sequence leading to Jedrick Wills Jr.’s ‘frustrating’ benching

BEREA — Jedrick Wills Jr. said he made a “business decision” prior to the Browns‘ Week 8 win over the Baltimore Ravens to take care of a knee that wasn’t feeling right. That decision, though, set off a chain reaction that led to the former first-round draft pick losing his starting left tackle spot.

Wills said Monday that it was his call to not play against the Ravens because he didn’t feel like his right knee, which he re-injured the previous week in a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. That led to a conversation leading into the Browns’ loss to the Los Angeles Chargers with head coach Kevin Stefanski where he was informed that Dawand Jones was going to remain the starter going forward.

“I think upset isn’t a good word to use,” Wills said Monday. “I would say it’s more frustrating, but I mean, it’s not my decision. I can only do what I can do.”

Wills is playing on his fifth-year option, which he restructured for the Browns in March. Asked if the current situation would impact his chances of signing an extension, he said, “Yeah, I mean, it’s not up to me,” while adding he wasn’t certain if his agent, Nicole Lynn, had been in recent extension talks with the team.

Should Wills not re-sign with the Browns, he’s already a $11,812,056 cap hit next season thanks to various contract restructurings he’s under gone through with the team. In March, the Browns converted $10.44 million of Wills’ $14.175 million fifth-year option into a restructure bonus.

As for a potential trade, that opportunity has come and gone with the passing of the Nov. 5 deadline. Wills, though, didn’t necessarily dismiss the idea that he would’ve welcomed a trade.

“I mean, there really wasn’t enough time,” Wills said. “It was more just we were getting ready for that Baltimore game that week. Or not the Baltimore game. Was it the Chargers game? So more just like being ready to play, if anything. Yeah.”

Wills was Andrew Berry’s first draft pick as the Browns’ general manager, taking No. 10 overall in the 2020 draft out of the University of Alabama. While injuries have been an issue at times, mostly notably the season-ending right knee injury almost exactly a year ago, when he’s been available to play, he’s not only played, but started.

The 25-year-old had only missed five games in his first three seasons, and three of those were COVID related. He missed two games early in the 2021 season while coming back from an ankle injury he sustained in the season opener at the Kansas City Chiefs, one he tried to play through for multiple games.

That situation was something Wills acknowledged was in the back of his mind when the latest injury concern emerged.

“I mean, you wouldn’t want to go out there and put forth 70% of your effort while you’re injured, and then you have somebody else who can go out there and give 100%, you know what I mean,” Wills said. “I don’t want to be out there the whole time thinking about my knee. I got to focus on my assignment. Like you said, in the past with my ankles, I played and I didn’t play as good, so why would I do the same thing risking a worse knee injury?”

The first 57 appearances Wills made with the Browns were all starts at left tackle. The 58th appearance, though, was a two-play appearance as a backup swing tackle prior to the bye week against the Chargers.

Wills characterized it as a “quick conversation between me and Kevin. Maybe like a minute long. He just told me I wasn’t playing and that was it.”

“I mean, it was pretty shocking,” Wills said. “I mean, I decided myself that, I made a business decision not to play after the Bengals game going into that Ravens game because I was injured. And then the next week is when I received the news.”

That news was reiterated after the Chargers game, when Stefanski confirmed they wanted to see what they had in Jones, the 2023 fourth-round pick out of Ohio State, at left tackle. Jones, who had started 14 games at right tackle over the last year-and-a-half, lost his right tackle starting spot when Jack Conklin returned from injuries.

Wills, meanwhile, has been working at both left and right tackle as the swing tackle. While he had spent his entire four-plus-year pro career at left tackle, he played right tackle both in high school and college.

“It would probably feel new,” Wills said. “I mean, it’s been five years since I’ve been over there, but I did some reps in practice and it was fine.”

Both Wills and Conklin suffered season-ending knee injuries last year, injuries which they missed all of the offseason program and training camp recovering from. Wills, who practiced for the first time on Sept. 4 after having arthroscopic surgery on the knee last December, returned to game action in the Week 3 loss to the New York Giants.

Wills re-injured the knee in the third quarter of the Giants game, which led him to miss the following week’s game at the Las Vegas Raiders. However, he played every offensive snap the next three games following the loss to the Raiders.

The first offensive snap of the Bengals game, Wills was pass blocking when Cincinnati’s Sheldon Rankins — who was pushed down on a block by left guard Joel Bitonio — rolled into his knee. Wills didn’t go down in the moment, nor did he miss a single snap, but acknowledged it was a concern for him.

“I got hyperextended on the very first play,” Wills said. “I kind of felt it, but we were going up on the ball and everybody was getting set, so I was like, well, I’ll stay in, if it hurts later and I got to come out, then it is what it is. But I ended up finishing the game. The next day I got some treatment and stuff, and my knee was really swollen and I couldn’t really bend it. So played out the week how it went. I wasn’t ready for game time, so I didn’t end up playing.”

Wills did not practice at all the week leading into the Ravens game. He said he tried to do some things prior to the Friday practice that week, but just couldn’t.

The Browns officially ruled Wills out that Friday. However, he said there were some brief conversations about pushing it up to a game-time decision, but he didn’t feel like he could play.

Thus, Wills made his “business decision.” However, he discounted the impact of his impending free agency on the decision.

“I mean, I don’t think I would play hurt regardless of any time it was in my career,” Wills said. “I mean, if I’m healthy enough to play, I’ll play. If I’m not healthy enough to play, then I won’t play.”

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

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