Browns rookie outside linebacker Barkevious Mingo is doing some work on the field, but CEO Joe Banner said it’s still too soon to know if he’ll play this week, after Mingo suffered a bruised lung in the preseason.
Banner told Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal that more tests will be done this week to determine Mingo’s availability.
“I think that we’re pleased in how he’s doing and the fact that he’s back out on the field, limited, but back out on the field,” Banner said. “We’ll probably know in the next two to three days whether he’ll be able to play this week. We’re still hopeful, but we won’t know for sure until later in the week.”
Mingo spent two nights in the hospital after spitting up blood on the sidelines on Aug. 15. The sixth-overall pick said previously he didn’t break any ribs, and Banner said they’ve seen nothing to think the diagnosis is anything other than a bruised lung.
“Well, here’s what I’m comfortable with: We have absolutely the best of the best at Cleveland Clinic from emergency medicine to general medicine to pulmonary experts have evaluated this, and they’ve done every test that they’ve deemed appropriate,” Banner said. “And they’re very, very confident in where we’re at, and I have complete trust and faith in them.
“I’m not even remotely a doctor. I’ve never seen the injury before, and I’ve been in the league 19 years myself. But my confidence in them and the thoroughness of them evaluating every question that’s come up of all the possibilities — that’s what they did —leaves me confident in their assessment and that they’ll make the right evaluation as to what it was and what it wasn’t and when the right time is to put him back out on the field.”
Since then, he’s done some individual drills and warmed up with the team during the part of practice reporters there are allowed to watch.
The Browns said Mingo wouldn’t be available to talk to reporters until Friday, at which point they should have a clearer idea of where he stands.