BEREA, Ohio — Offensive tackle Dawand Jones doesn’t know what it feels like to make it to the finish line with the Browns, win, lose or draw.
In each of his first three NFL seasons, Jones has undergone a season-ending surgery and finished the season on injured reserve.
His rookie year in 2023, it was a torn right MCL that landed him on IR on December. In 2024, when the Browns went 11-6 and made the playoffs, he was nursing a broken right ankle, and this year, it was a torn LCL and hamstring avulsion (torn from the bone) that cost him the final 14 games of the season.
On Thursday, Jones stopped in the locker room and talked to reporters for the first time since Packers safety Javon Bullard dove low at his leg on the fourth play of the game in Week 3, chopping him down and ending his season. The Browns sent the hit to the NFL office for review, believing it was illegal, but never shared the answer.
“Honestly, it sucked,” Jones, the Browns fourth round pick in 2023 out of Ohio State, said. “I cried, I cried tears. It happens. But I put in a lot of work this offseason. I’ve got to do the same thing again unfortunately, but it is what it is. Part of the game. Got to chalk it up.”
He acknowledged that he was lost for the season on a needless blow that could’ve been avoided.
“It sucked In my opinion,” he said. “I feel like he kind of took me out. So that was just kind of the bad part about it.”
Poised to come back strong this season from the broken ankle and anchor one of the tackle spots, Jones has had to fight the blues. Injuries can be isolating for NFL players, and it’s been that way at times for Jones.
“It sucks,” he said. “It’s sad. When I watch the games, it just hurts not being out there. But I try to just cheer my teammates and with the team as much as possible.”
Browns left guard Joel Bitonio acknowledged that Jones has approached his rehab this season with a renewed vigor.
“He was a little bit down for a few weeks, but he’s been back and he’s been in here rehabbing and doing his thing,” Bitonio said. “It sucks, but he’s kind of used to the rehab process now. But I think he’s grown as a person that’s rehabbing, too. He’s doing a really good job.
“He’s been back in meetings a little bit and trying to pick up things and just understanding you’re still a young player in this league. Don’t know how many games he started, maybe 10 or 15, and it’s like you’re going into Year 4 next year, but you want to build and pick up and he understand this offense and just the NFL play as much as possible. But his attacking the rehab, in my opinion, has been much improved and he’s been very focused.”
Jones, 24, expects to be cleared for football activity by organized team activities in May, and back on the field at the start of next season.
“That’s my timeline, just the nine months,” he said. “I’m just sticking with that.”
He also has “no doubt” he’ll be back out there competing for a starting job in 2026, the final year of his rookie contract worth $1.145 million.
“I was out there, I felt in the air I was going to probably have one of my best games and it got snatched away from me,” Jones said. “But I’m going back to the drawing board next year and just going to keep doing it like I did last year and I should have a chance. That’s my main goal.”
Coming back strong this season from the broken ankle showed him he has what it takes to return better than ever.
“Last year kind of laid the foundation just for this,” he said. “I’m really just following the same footsteps I did from last year and just trying to just implement it again.”
Jones (6-8, 374) started the first two games of the season at left tackle, but switched to the right side for that Packers game, possibly to get him more comfortable coming off the broken ankle and trying to knock off the rust. In those first two games, Jones struggled to protect Joe Flacco’s blindside, grading out at 29.9 against the Bengals, and 47.7 against the Ravens, according to Pro Football Focus.
For comparison’s sake, a starting grade is usually in the 70s. Overall, PFF ranked Jones 74th among qualifying NFL tackles this season with a 30.9 grade, but he may have fared much better on the right side, where he excelled as a rookie.
Would he prefer right or left tackle next season if given the choice?
“My future is whatever the team needs me to play,” he said. “I would love to play right tackle. But whatever the team needs me to do, I will do.”
During training camp, Jones acknowledged that switching to the left side was a big adjustment, even though he had played it some at Ohio State.
“It was something that you play your whole life,” Jones said of playing right tackle. “It’s hard to adapt to something else. I have a big, strong, right-hand punch. I’m right handed so it’s easier punch to the right, but left side I feel like it’s more finesse. The game, it comes through you a little bit slower and sometimes faster at times, just depends.”
Fortunately for Jones, he’s felt the full support of the team in his third comeback bid.
“They’re always there in my corner and I appreciate that with just anybody, whether the defense, offense, special team guys, they’re all just trying to make sure I’m in good spirits, which I already am,” he said. “I try to come in with a smile and honestly they just keep me up, honestly.”
Despite hitting the trifecta with season-ending injuries in his first three seasons, he’s confident a successful career is still in the cards.
“I just came back from my MCL and I didn’t have the best year, but like I said, I bounced back off the broken leg and I feel kind of like the same from my MCL year, so I just need to get back to there,” he said.
Jones takes some solace in the fact that the last two injuries were flukey and beyond his control.
“It’s out of my hands half the time,” he said. “The first one, I got pulled forward and my MCL (tore) and then had the broken leg last year, Wyatt (Teller) fell on it, nothing that he could control. And then (Bullard) went through my leg. There’s nothing I really could control through those three injuries. I’m just trying to face it, fight through it, get back to me.”
The terrible trio followed a relatively healthy high school and college career.
“Probably broke one bone in my body, my wrist, but that was the only thing,” he said. “It’s definitely been a rude awakening and like I said, it sucks. It’s part of the game. So I kind of just look at it like that. I see all the other guys come back from injuries. So I try to just put my mindset to that because those guys back out there playing, they’re doing the same profession I am.”
With three of the Browns five starting linemen in the final year of their contracts in Bitonio, Ethan Pocic and Wyatt Teller, the Browns can certainly use a healthy Jones next season.
And not just to start the season, but to finish it for the first time.
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