According to Mary Kay Cabot, Browns 7th round pick CB Ifo Edpre-Olomu will miss his entire rookie season while recovering from a devastating knee injury. Some were holding out hope that he would be able to return late this season, but apparently Coach Pettine wasn’t among them. It looks like the plan when drafting him was not to rush him to the field but to redshirt him for this season.

“Players that have had this injury before, it’s rare that you would return that season,” Pettine said. “Given our depth, we’re very comfortable with him sitting out. That’s just one that we felt it was a low-risk, high-reward move when we took him in the seventh round. There’s no reason to rush it back given the depth in that room now anyway.”

Pettine seems to have an amazing amount of confidence in his young and largely unproved defensive backfield. Joining star CB Joe Haden are second year players Justin Gilbert, Pierre Desir, and K’waun Williams.

Even though he’s missing his rookie year, I still love the pick. Getting someone with 1st round talent with a 7th round pick is great even if he misses a year. This reminds me of when the Raiders drafted injured RB Michael Bush in the 4th round of the 2007 draft.  Lets hope Ekpre-Olomu has a better career than Bush, who is currently out of the NFL. Even if Ekpre-Olomu only becomes a solid special teamer he’s still worth that 7th round pick though. Like Pettine said – low-risk, high reward.