Browns cornerback Justin Gilbert explained he feels as if he’s a different player this year.
“Most definitely, yeah,” Gilbert said Sunday after the 12th practice of training camp. “I’m not going to elaborate on it too much, but yeah.”
Where has he improved the most?
“Mature,” Gilbert replied.
The eighth overall pick in the 2014 draft, Gilbert has been a colossal disappointment in his first two NFL seasons partly because of maturity issues and an undisclosed personal problem that plagued him as a rookie.
The Browns effectively suspended him for the 2014 regular-season finale after he showed up late to a team meeting the previous day. Then two days before the 2015 regular-season opener, Gilbert was involved in what Brunswick police described as a road rage incident.
Gilbert, though, has supposedly been on his best behavior so far under the new coaches.
“Justin Gilbert has done everything we’ve asked,” defensive coordinator Ray Horton said recently. “We came in — I came in — and we talked about having a clean slate. I remember Justin in college [at Oklahoma State University], coming out, what kind of player he was. I said, ‘I want you to be that type of player.’ He’s done everything we’ve asked, and I’m very happy with him.”
Gilbert added, “That’s what I’m supposed to do. So I feel like whatever they ask me to do, that’s my job to do it. That’s what they pay me to do.”
The franchise also pays him to make plays, and that’s still a work in progress.
Two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Joe Haden, who’s coming off March 16 ankle surgery, participated in team drills Sunday for the first time since camp opened July 29. But coach Hue Jackson ruled out Haden for the Browns’ preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday at FirstEnergy Stadium.
So Gilbert is expected to start opposite cornerback Tramon Williams just like he did Friday in the team’s 17-11 preseason-opening loss to the Green Bay Packers. Gilbert had also practiced with the No. 1 defense in Haden’s absence.
The Browns want Gilbert to benefit from the experience.
“Most of the time when you watch the film, he’s only a step away here or there, and he’s not in bad position,” Williams said recently. “So I think he’s progressing as a player. He’s really growing from a mental standpoint.
“He needed to grow mentally for sure. That’s the toughest part of the game. Physically, we all can do it. It’s who can do it mentally. Who can stay in the game mentally enough to come out and be able to make a career out of it ’cause a lot of guys can’t do it.”
Whether Gilbert can ever turn his career around remains to be seen, but the new coaching staff has granted him a fresh start in hopes of finding out.
“It just feels different when I walk in the building now,” Gilbert said.