Browns roster: Enemies become friends, set to write a new story

The powerful rivalry has brought together Michael Hall, Zak Zinter

Auburn vs. Alabama’s Iron Bowl. The Civil War of Oregon State vs. Oregon. USC-UCLA and the Lexus Gauntlet. Army vs. Navy: America’s Game. The Sunshine Showdown of Florida State vs. Florida. Texas-Oklahoma Red River Showdown. Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate of Georgia versus Georgia Tech. Clemson against South Carolina’s Palmetto Series. Harvard vs. Yale: The Game.

All of these are traditional college football rivalry games. Each one has its own following and no matter what happens during the season, or what each team’s win-loss record is, this one game on the schedule can make or break a season. Beat your hated rivalry, and live to brag about it.

As intense as each one of these games is, none compares to Ohio State-Michigan. Or is it Michigan-Ohio State?

Fans of either college team absolutely despise each other. Would they help each other in a drowning incident? Maybe. What about a flat tire? Can’t say. Run into a burning building? If they are wearing street clothes perhaps, but in full college garb? Probably not.

Some situations force fans of either team to become civil and actually work together towards a common goal. Being stationed in a branch of the military is one. Working on the same team for a court case for another. On-staff at a school forces complete civility except on rivalry weekend.

Working on the same team branches out even further, say for instance, to an NFL team. Well, yes, it does. Players from different areas of the country and Canada are suddenly mixed into one football salad in order to perform on game day. They are expected to get along, learn, and work together to accomplish one common goal.

Do they get along? Certainly mandated. Do they remain enemies? One day a year, yes. But their beliefs, traditions as well as allegiance are set aside for 364 days.

Two new members of the Cleveland Browns have more than just the usual rivalry conditions.

They are linked once again after this year’s NFL draft: Rookie defensive tackle Michael Hall Jr., and rookie offensive guard Zak Zinter.

The incident

Let’s examine “The Game” which is traditionally the reference of the Michigan versus Ohio State college football game.

It is an annual event that is the final game between the two Big 10 schools.

A quick glance at a list of the college football teams with the most wins in the history of NCAA College Football finds Michigan on top with 1,004 wins. Second is Alabama with 965 victories followed by Ohio State’s 964. As far as win percentage, Michigan and Ohio State are tied with the best ratio with a .734 followed by Alabama’s .733 and Notre Dame at .730.

So, the programs are elite and appear to always be on top. Especially lately.

The longest win streak in this series was Michigan from 1897 to 1918 in which the Wolverines went 13-0-2. Ohio State’s lengthiest was eight contests from 2012 to 2019. Michigan has won the last three and holds an edge in the series 61-51-6.

The final game played on November 25, 2023, had an incident. And this situation has now become an oddity with the Cleveland Browns.

Roll to the end of the game in which Michigan won 30-24. It was an exciting game in front of 110,615 fans on a chilly, sunny day. That kills the spoiler alert. Now, back up a bit.

The game was tied 17-17 in the third quarter. Michigan had the ball with 5:35 left in the third quarter and facing a second-and-nine. QB J.J. McCarthy had dropped back to pass. Michigan offensive captain Zinter had engaged from his right guard spot with Ohio State backup defensive tackle Hero Kanu.

To Zinter’s right, backup RT Raheem Anderson was blocking DE Jack Sawyer. To the leftside, DT Michael Hall, Jr. was locked up with center Drake Nugent. Zinter never moved much as he had complete control over his man who was not able to penetrate whatsoever. Anderson had Sawyer spread out wide but was about to challenge the pocket. Meanwhile, Nugent was struggling with Hall in the middle.

McCarthy hit tight end A.J. Barner for a nice gain over the middle with a good run for added yardage. The play gained 18 yards and set up Michigan at the 22-yard line with a new set of downs.

The crowd went ballistic seeing the first down obtained, and then suddenly, the stadium as a whole went quiet.

Back at the line of scrimmage, Zinter was rolling around on the turf screaming and holding his leg. He was hurt. He was hurt badly.

The network showed the play again, but the focus on screen was the blocking then followed the path of the throw along with the long run by Barner. If the viewer was able to stop the replay, right before the throwing motion of McCarthy began, you could see when Zinter went down, and how exactly he became injured. But it was only a quick glance before the camera focus was now centralized on the ball carrier.

The injury

The injury was a gruesome guise. The network did not replay the injury due to its grotesque manifestation at a second glance.

Zinter was down. He had teammates around him attempting to console him. The trainers immediately came out, but their assessment wasn’t good. Not one bit. His teammates immediately waived to the sideline for help. They knew something was wrong, and so did Zinter.

As Zinter lay there in agony, he didn’t know what had happened. He knew his leg was broken because he had heard it break, and of course, he felt it. What he didn’t know exactly was how bad it was or any of the details.

As the offensive lineman lay still on the field with full medical staff and as many of his teammates as possible were allowed near him, the stadium with a full capacity of just over 110,000 was dead quiet. Anyone who might happen to yell from one side of the stands could be heard across the field – clearly. Players from both squads were praying.

Nobody talked, nor stirred.

It looked as if Zinter had broken his leg. To be factual, he broke both the tibia and the fibula in his left leg.

Zinter was part of an elite offensive line unit. In his junior and sophomore years, Michigan’s offensive line was awarded the prestigious Joe Moore Award, given annually to the nation’s best offensive line group. It is an enormous honor to win this award once, much less for two years in a row which had never been won in consecutive seasons.

And now Zinter was lying in agony on the ground. He had made 42 career starts, including four as a freshman. He was named a William V. Campbell Trophy Finalist − given annually to the college football player with the best combination of academics, community service, and on-field performance − and a Lombardi award semifinalist. He had been projected to be a borderline first-round pick by multiple experts.

And now, an injury.

As the trainers looked further, they discovered that Zinter had a clean break of his tibia and fibula but suffered no damage in any of the ligaments in his ankle or knee.

Zinter had to be carted off the field and rushed to the University of Michigan Hospital, where he was quickly diagnosed with a broken tibia and fibula in his left leg and rushed into surgery. Later, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh was at the hospital and everyone was hoping for the best but prepared for the worst.

What was not revealed to this point, was exactly what happened. How did Zinter get his leg broken?

Back to the passing play in which Barner snagged the pass that gained 18 yards and moved the chains in a 17-17 game. Zinter was engaged with his man who was not able to get through Zinter. The two hadn’t moved more than two feet either direction.

Meanwhile, Michigan center Drake Nugent was in a dogfight with DT Michael Hall, Jr. to the left of Zinter. As Zinter was straight up with his man Kanu and Nugent was in a stalemate with Hall, all of a sudden left guard Trevor Keegan blasted Hall which knocked him down to the ground.

On his way to the ground, he landed on Zinter’s leg with all of his 290-pound frame with a blow that shattered the guard’s leg.

The end result was that Hall was the big body which ended Zinter’s season.

Because it was a clean break, his recovery timeline was shorter and put his rehab a bit ahead of schedule which ended up being a three-month recovery. He has invitations to both the Reese’s Senior Bowl and the Combine, but could not compete in either. This made him eligible to be able to play during his rookie season in the NFL.

In the NFL draft, Hall was Cleveland’s first selection taken in Round 2 while Zinter was their second draft pick chosen in Round 3.

Suddenly, Zinter is Hall’s teammate.

With the two men playing on different sides of the ball, they will certainly battle in practice. The fact that Zinter is an interior offensive lineman with Hall a defensive tackle, their interaction will become a daily occurrence.

They went to rival colleges and fundamentally hated each other’s guts just because, and now have to take each other on while competing for a roster spot as well as contending for starting positions on different sides of the ball.

You can’t make this stuff up.