As the Kansas City Chiefs put the finishing touches on preparations for Week 15’s game against the Cleveland Browns, they had a familiar face finally join his teammates on the practice field. After a long road to recovery, wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown had his practice window opened on Friday after it was reported on […]
As the Kansas City Chiefs put the finishing touches on preparations for Week 15’s game against the Cleveland Browns, they had a familiar face finally join his teammates on the practice field.
After a long road to recovery, wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown had his practice window opened on Friday after it was reported on Thursday that he was cleared to return to work. This marks the first time Brown has participated in serious football-related activity since the preseason, when he suffered a sternoclavicular injury against the Jacksonville Jaguars on August 10.
Once the injury didn’t heal properly, Brown underwent surgery in September and was faced with a lengthy rehab timeline. Now on the other side of most of that, there’s growing hope that the Chiefs’ free agent pickup can play by the end of the regular season.
Speaking to the media on Friday afternoon, head coach Andy Reid shared his initial thoughts on Brown’s return to practice and announced that he’s out for Sunday.
“He practiced today [and] did a nice job,” Reid said. “He won’t play this week, but it’s nice to have him back out there and going. He got a lot of good work in today. You can tell he’s been working, and the conditioning part wasn’t a problem. Like I said, he took quite a few reps.”
Regarding Brown’s potential regular-season debut, Joshua Brisco of Kansas City Chiefs On SI recently documented what The Athletic‘s Nate Taylor said on Tuesday’s episode of “Only Weird Games.“
“The target date, as I understand it, is Christmas in Pittsburgh against the Pittsburgh Steelers, to get Hollywood Brown on the field in a limited role to try to help the offense yet again,” Taylor said on Tuesday. “Now, it could happen as early as next Saturday against the Houston Texans, but everything would have to go right, and certain circumstances would have to make the coaching staff feel comfortable bringing Hollywood into that game, again, in limited reps, maybe basically what we saw from DeAndre Hopkins in a sense, where it’s like, ‘Hey, can you give us 12-to-18, 20 snaps if necessary?'”
While Brown will miss this weekend’s game in Cleveland, Kansas City can afford to be patient. After all, the reigning Super Bowl champs have a game next Saturday and again on Christmas Day. The quick turnaround presents multiple opportunities for Brown to get back into the lineup, yet it also leaves the door open for exercising caution.
Considering the Chiefs’ end goal for this season, they can afford to make sure Brown is 100% ready to play. Friday marks another massive milestone for that eventually being the case.
