Cleveland Browns running back Trent Richardson has been hampered by injuries and he appears to be growing more and more frustrated with his inability to return to action. Luckily for Richardson, he is on the right path towards a return to the field, but he understands that he needs to take things slow.
“The ultimate goal is to make it to Miami, but it’s one day at a time,” Richardson told the Beacon Journal after practice Sunday. “You don’t want to do nothing too crazy to get hurt. At the same time, you want to be on time with everything, with your timing, the game conditioning and everything like that. Coach [Chudzinski] lets me take my reps in practice here and there and we’re just seeing how everything goes through with my shin.
“I wanted to be out there [in the preseason opener]. Coach makes the decisions. They just told me they were going to sit me down, and that was that. There were no words other than that. Coach made a decision, and it happened like that.”
The concern for the team is whether or not rushing Richardson back to the field could result in him having a setback and missing even more time during the season. That shouldn’t be a problem, however, because he insists that he is 100 percent.
“Oh yeah, 100 percent, ready to go, and Coach will let time heal and let time do what it does,” said Richardson. “I’m with Coach and letting him tell me what to do.”
If he is in fact full force for the start of the regular season, it is great news for the Browns. They plan on having Richardson become their workhorse back this year, so we can expect the former first-round pick to get the ball early and often when he finally returns to the field.