T Jack Conklin (12.13.22)
On his rehabilitation process following last year’s season-ending knee injury and evaluating his performance in 2022:
“It sucked going through it all. It was rough. Really props to my wife and my family for getting through it. I couldn’t bend my leg for about eight weeks just out of surgery so I had to keep it straight. It was brutal. Having my son at the time had just turned one and my daughter was four so there was a lot on my wife’s hands, and I couldn’t help a whole lot. She was dealing with me acting like a baby too on top of that (laughter). It is funny to look back now, and like you said, coming back and saying we are a little over a year – December 1 when I had surgery – and to be able to come back with the help of the training staff and everybody getting me right for this year and to be able to play the majority of this year after having a surgery like that tearing my patella tendon is I think it is a credit to everybody who has helped me get here and helped me get back to playing the way I want to play and have my health be the way I want it to be. As far as this year playing, I think it has been as good as it can be for coming off my surgery like that in the sense of I have not been thinking about my knee. It is not something I have really thought about this season. It is not something that has hindered me or been a confidence issue for me at all. It has been something I really haven’t thought about much luckily, especially as the season went on. It really hasn’t hindered me at all, and it has been handling playing very well.”
On being the 2022 Browns Ed Block Courage Award winner, as voted by teammates:
“Like you said it right there, anytime the team votes on something and they honored me with that, it is huge to me. It means a lot to me to have my teammates see the work I have put in, see how hard it was, and to believe in me and vote me in. It means a lot.”
On if his foot injury hindered him at all in past weeks:
“No, it feels great. It feels great now. It was definitely something that was hanging around for a while, but I just had to dial in. You deal with that stuff throughout the season. Everybody is dealing with something. I don’t think it has hindered me too much, and it is feeling great now.”
On why the Browns run offense has not been as effective as earlier in the season:
“I think it comes down to us. We have to finish drives. Anytime you start falling behind, the run game kind of is just off of the table. It is what eats up the clock, and you have to throw to catch up like that if you want to save time. Especially when we get down multiple scores, you really can’t get into a rhythm. The run game is more of something that is built. You don’t just set the table at the beginning with the run game. With most teams, when you start seeing big runs it comes in the end of the third or fourth quarter when teams are getting tired. When we build ourselves a hole, we really can’t get to that point. I think it really comes down to us being able to sustain drives and finish drives, and we haven’t been able to do that.”
On if the Browns OL is playing as well as now as earlier in the season:
“I think everybody has some plays they obviously would like back. It is tough when you don’t finish drives. I think we are playing well and then there are little things that it comes down to that we have to finish better with certain areas. It is hard to tell. Like I said, when you fall behind and you are having to sit back and one-on-one pass block a lot of the game, it is tough on an offensive line, it is tough on the quarterback and it is tough on the receivers. It all comes down to again us being able to finish drives in the red zone and put points on the board so we are not digging our own selves a hole.”
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