BEREA, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns are getting their final preparations in order before hitting the road and heading to Carolina for their season opener against the Panthers Sunday. That includes placing cornerback Greedy Williams on the injured reserve list and listing three other players as questionable for the game.
Williams has been dealing with a hamstring injury, and not long before being placed on IR was listed as out for Sunday's game.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski said that Williams would be "out for a little while" and that the situation is "unfortunate — feel bad for Greedy."
This is not the first time Williams has been sidelined with injury. The cornerback has dealt with a nerve injury in his shoulder that sidelined him for the full 2020 season. He's been sidelined at times for other issues like groin and hamstring injuries like he's dealing with now.
With Williams out for at least four games after being placed on IR, rookie MJ Emerson will be called to step up in his place.
"With all rookies, there's a learning curve and those type of things, but he's done everything we've asked him to do out here on the practice fields, in the meeting rooms, has performed well in the preseason so excited about his development," Stefanski said.
After an impressive preseason, Emerson feels ready for Week 1.
"I’m very confident. It’s football, so I’ve been doing it my whole life. I’m just excited to get out there and just play," Emerson said.
The Browns also signed cornerback Herb Miller to the active roster from the practice squad after losing Williams.
Meanwhile, three other players enter the road trip as "questionable" to play.
Offensive linemen Jack Conklin and Chris Hubbard and wide receiver Michael Woods II are questionable for the game with a knee injury, elbow injury and hamstring injury, respectively.
Conklin has been working hard to bounce back from the knee injury that took him out for the season last year and required surgery to repair. He said he feels confident that he's in a good place to be ready soon.
"It's going to be a game time decision, we're working towards that and doing everything I can to get back and be a part of the team," Conklin said. "I'm not too worried about the knee anymore, it's just excitement of getting back out there and sometimes I think the trainers have to pull you back a little bit, make sure you don't do too much too early and stuff, so for me, I'm a competitor and I want to be back out here with these guys and it's getting close and I'm excited, definitely excited."
With or without those players, the Browns will kick things off against the Panthers Sunday afternoon in Bank of America Stadium at 1 p.m.
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
