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BEREA, Ohio — Browns linebacker Jordan Hicks returned to practice this week, which means he's back on our minds. Perhaps you've forgotten about Hicks over the last six weeks, during which he has played one game and often been reduced to a name on an injury report. Or at least, part of a name, plus a few body parts, plus his practice status.

"J. Hicks, Ribs, Elbow, Triceps, DNP."

If only you knew the half of it.

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Hicks explained to reporters Wednesday the harrowing season that's been. After Cleveland's Week 2 loss to the Giants, Hicks checked into the hospital with an infected bursa (fluid sack that protects joints) in his elbow, not to mention broken ribs. He started one week later against the Raiders, but he fell on the same elbow with 30 seconds left in the first quarter.

Hicks has battled a triceps injury since, and reporters gawked as the 10-year veteran recalled his injuries like he was describing a toothache. He's seen and lived worse — two torn Achilles, one scare with compartment syndrome — because most football players have.

In Browns guard Joel Bitonio's words, the NFL boasts a "100 percent injury rate." Bitionio compares playing a football game to living through "70-something car crashes" each week. And somehow, in the All-Pro's mind, these are selling points to the game he plays (or survives).

"It's part of the business though, and I think it's a great part about the sport is, it's a tough sport," Bitonio said. "How can you come back from (injury)? How can you do it on a week-to-week basis and be consistent? The guys that can do it like that, it's very impressive."

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How was your day at work? Before you say bad, consider what the 2-7 Browns are battling through with so little left to fight for. Cleveland could still mathematically make the playoffs, but you'd need an accountant to solve for X = wild card spot at this point. In the meantime, this locker room plays for pride, for the person next to them and, in some cases, for another pricey contract.

Yes, players get paid. Eight and nine figures, in some cases. But they still suffer pain in the process, even if they don't say anything about it.

"It could be a simple thing where on a Thursday I get my finger stuck in the jersey during practice, and then I have to deal with my finger being dislocated for four or five weeks," Browns tackle Jack Conklin said. "But it's not something you talk about. It's not something that really goes on the injury report because it's like, all right, I'll just tape it up and then you got to figure out how to punch and grab without it.

"It's just different things like that that you've got to just work around. But it's normal, so it's not like it's a big deal."

No big deal? If I dislocated my finger, you wouldn't read my byline for a month. Instead of writing, I would cry from my couch wrapped in a big ol' body cast reading the back of a pain pill dispenser. How many can I take?

When a professional football player suffers the same injury, they mum the word. If anything, they complain about how it happened, not how badly it hurts.

"It's worse when it happens in practice," Conklin said. "Like, it's not even a game!"

By "game," Conklin means, "series of car crashes." His word sounds better, but Bitonio's description hits closer to truth. The biggest, strongest people in sports move full speed every Sunday, then hit the closest player breathing. I know we watch every week, and we all hate seeing a player limp, get carried, or get carted off the field. But I wonder how long we register those moments before the next man up subs in for the next play.

People know it's a violent game I feel like," Delpit said. "But of course, I mean, I don't know what they do in their everyday job, so I wouldn't expect them to know what we do."

We don't know. They don't tell us. And maybe it's better (or at least more palatable) that way. But the next time I see Hicks — sorry, J. Hicks, Elbow, Triceps, DNP — make a play, I will appreciate it more. The next time I see another person reduced to initials and injured body parts on a report, I'll think harder about their plight. And when the Browns play the Saints this Sunday, Cleveland shouldn't take any player's availability for granted, even if they had a "clean" week of practice.

Because, as Bitonio reminds us:

"It's a one hundred percent injury rate in the NFL," he said. "If you play in the game, you're feeling something the next week. it doesn't always end up on the injury report or it's not serious enough where you have to get necessarily rehab for it specifically. But guys are battling through, and most guys are pretty quiet about it, so you don't even understand the severity of things and how guys fight.

"It's a tough sport for tough guys, and to be out there on a week-to-week basis is impressive. But guys go through a lot of stuff, and it is kind of crazy how much some of the guys put their bodies through."