Cleveland Browns' Nick Harris takes personal journey through recovery from injury

CLEVELAND — The pain Nick Harris felt in his knee as he lay on the field in Jacksonville was one thing. The Browns center knew in the moment the injury was season ending.

What Harris didn't realize in the moment was the mental and emotional anguish that was going to come along with the physical pain. He also didn't realize just how it would take him much longer to rid himself of that than anything it took to repair his torn-up knee.

"I mean, it was truly a journey, mentally mostly," Harris told the Beacon Journal after Friday's preseason game against the Washington Commanders. "Obviously with what transpired, you're not in control of a lot of things in this life, and that's something I wasn't going to control of. It was tough for the first few months of that. I was in deep depression and just upset and 'Why me?'"

The clock had move passed midnight as Harris reflected in front of his locker at Cleveland Browns Stadium. That made it Aug. 12, exactly one year to the day of when his life was turned upside down.

Harris was in line to take over the starting center position as he ran out for the Browns' preseason opener against the Jaguars last Aug. 12. On the second play, though, his leg got caught and buckled under the weight as he was dealing with a bull-rushing Jacksonville defensive lineman.

The damage was immediately understood, at least in the terms of it being season ending. However, it was more than a usual ACL or MCL tear.

"I dislocated my kneecap, and in doing that I tore my VMO (vastus medialis oblique)," Harris explained, "so my inner quad muscle. I also tore my MPFL (medial patellofemoral ligament), which is the ligament that connects your kneecap to the inside of your leg. So, yeah, it was a big boy injury. It was a big boy injury, and it was a lot."

Harris underwent surgery on the injury in August. That was able to repair the damage done to the knee and surrounding ligaments.

It couldn't repair what was going on in Harris' mind, though. As he recovered and watched free-agent Ethan Pocic take the center job that seemed destined to be his, Harris closed himself off from others, from family to friends to those in his football life.

"It took me a long time to even reach out to people because I was almost embarrassed of the situation," Harris said. "I felt like I let a lot of people down, and obviously it's a weird thing to say, but when you're in that situation, it has that ability for me just because I was so excited to be in that position and I felt like I worked so hard for it. … I didn't talk to anybody for months."

That slowly started to change as Harris started physically feeling better as well, around his Nov. 13 birthday. It started by talking to the people you would most expect one to talk to in a time like he was going through.

Harris opened up to his mom and his sisters. He started allowing close friends back into the conversation.

More important, Harris looked in the mirror. What he saw was a tough guy playing the victim's role, and he didn't like it at all.

"I couldn't control it, so I didn't want to be a victim to it," Harris said. "I was able to accept the situation for what it was, put my head down, and even the stuff that happened in the offseason after that, I can't control any of it, so what's the point of going crazy and making it an issue? … It's a fundamental human thing that I think people kind of get confused is there's so many things in this life that we try to control, and I was just able to just control what I can control."

Harris couldn't control how the journey began that night in Jacksonville. Once he took control of his recovery, especially the mental aspect, the process took off for him.

Despite only being about eight months removed from the surgery, Harris was in the building as an active participant in the Browns' offseason program when it started in April. That included all of the on-field aspects, including OTAs and the June minicamp, which is when he began to truly feel all the way back.

That's carried into training camp and the Browns' two preseason games. Harris started the Hall of Fame Game against the New York Jets, playing 19 offensive snaps, and he came in to replace Ethan Pocic against the Commanders and played 44 snaps.

"He's another guy, you talk about injuries, that has bounced back and worked really, really hard to put himself where he is right now," Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said Saturday. "He's great in our meeting room. He's a younger player, but he does everything the right way. I think he's a great person for our young players to look up to see a guy that really works on his craft."

Those players can also see someone who found, in arguably the darkest moment of his life, a pathway to the light. In fact, as Harris reflects on the 365 days since his life was altered on Jacksonville, he may even call it a turning point of sorts.

"It was a lot, but I'm glad it happened," Harris said. "Honestly, as ironic as it sounds, I needed it. It humbled me in ways that I can't even explain just as a human, as a football player. It made me appreciate a lot of different things in my life, my relationships with my family, my people that I can confide into, my priorities in life.

"I needed it. … You got to use that as fuel and just grow from it, not just as a football player, but as a human."

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

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns center Nick Harris gains appreciation during injury recovery