Alex Wright Fighting For Starting Role With Cleveland Browns After Lost Season

1:48 on the clock, fourth quarter. The Jaguars trailed by three, 16-13, as Trevor Lawrence took the shotgun snap in the end zone.

Cleveland Browns defensive end Alex Wright was lined up in a three-technique off the right side. At the snap, he put a swim move on left guard Ezra Cleveland, weaved around some reinforcements and corralled Lawrence with his right arm, spinning him down in the end zone for a safety.

Not only did the play seal a victory for the Browns – one of just three on the season – it also represented an official arrival for Wright, a 2022 third-round pick of the franchise, who seemed to be finally finding his footing in the pros.

Two weeks later, Wright's season was over. Halted, disappointingly, by a torn triceps, turning that arrival into more of an unsatisfying tease.

"It was a very frustrating experience, just because me having to cut my season short, not able to play," Wright said of the ordeal. "It was just all about being positive. I just felt like it just did the most to my mental."

Watching his teammates go to battle without him every week wasn't easy. Neither were the constant phone calls he had from doctors walking through each step of his recovery, and those from his teammates, friends and family trying to check on him. Wright wanted to be playing football instead..

Oftentimes, it's the adverse moments in a person's life that end up being the biggest learning experience. Wright certainly found a silver lining in his ordeal, and believes he's better for it.

"I want to say that pretty much it built me up better than what I was coming back to be," said Wright. But the way I looked at it was just, I wanted to be more physical when I come back. I want to be stronger, faster, or build better, be better, so I pretty much use that time just working on myself."

Wright revealed that his recovery was fairly straightforward, but still came with some more difficult steps, particularly mentally.

"It was quick, but it's also so you have your moments," said Wright. "You got your moments where you feel like it's not or you feel like it's like, 'when is this gonna end?'"

The injury is behind him now. And with training camp looming large in just a few weeks, Wright has turned his focus toward winning a starting job at defensive end opposite Myles Garrett. He has some competition, though.

2023 fourth-round pick Isaiah McGuire will be one of Wright's biggest challengers for the role. The 23-year-old is coming off his best season as a pro after earning more snaps in the aftermath of Wright's injury and the team trading veteran Za'Darius Smith at last season's trade deadline.

Vice president of football operations Andrew Berry also added some depth this offseason by signing former first-round pick Joe Tryon-Shoyinka. In Jim Schwartz's defense, all three players will get playing time, rotating in and out quite a bit on Sundays. They'll spend much of training camp, however, duking it out for the right to be called a starter.

Wright believes that if he hadn't been injured last year, he'd have already made his case to be starting opposite Garrett.

"I feel like me, personally, just thinking about it, I felt like, once I got hurt, I was on the way to becoming that," he said. Still, he's bringing an inspiring attitude to the competition that awaits him in the weeks leading up to the season.

"So now it's like, I have to start from scratch, which is fine," he added. "It's kind of like you just accepted the challenge, right? You shy away from it, or you just, you take it head on. And I'm the type of person, I'm gonna take it head on and give it all I got."

Inside the Browns' facility, there is no shortage of confidence in Wright, so much so that the team felt comfortable parting ways with veteran DE Ogbo Okoronkwo this past week. There's an internal confidence in the team's overall depth at DE, with many believing Wright – and even McGuire – will take a major leap this season.

"Being told from other like players and stuff like you were definitely missed and having that talk with Schwartz, he's like 'we miss your physicality, miss your ability to disrupt the run and pass' and stuff like that. Me being told I was like a key piece, I feel me personally, I was a key piece that was missing. But just for that, it's just like that gives me an extra boost for it to be said out loud, I was missed."

There's an interesting wrinkle added to this competition in that Wright and McGuire have grown close over the last two years since the latter was drafted in 2023, one year after the former. That bond between the two was on full display while Wright was on the mend from his season-ending injury.

"{We're} kind of like twins, I guess," Wright said of his relationship with McGuire. "But yeah, I pretty much ... he texted me, like, since my surgery, and he was just like, 'is there anything I could do?' I'm like, 'bro, you just go out there and you make your money. I'm down but I'll be back. But just make your money, you make the plays, and then when we get back, good things will happen.'"

When the two reunited this spring for the start of voluntary OTAs, they wasted no time trying to set the tone for 2025. With Garrett opting not to participate in the workouts, it was the young pass-rushing duo that stepped up to lead the defensive line group.

There was some real momentum built during the spring practices, with each taking reps with the first team defense during minicamp in June. And even though their competition will reach its climax when training camp commences later later his month, there's a healthy respect that exists between the two as well.

"He's a hell of a f****** player. He's a hell of a f****** athlete," Wright said of his teammate. "Things he can do at his size, it's very, amazing. So the way he grown, the way he took his first year to really, pretty much sit down and learn and stuff like that."

"There's some stuff you'll see him do that I do, there's stuff that I do, that he does. And we kind of just, we talk about it, and we sit down together and just look at it. So, I mean, we have a great relationship. We really are the two people that kind of push each other."

Competition breeds excellence, as they say. The Browns are certainly counting on that between these two young edge rushers.

Still, it's a contract year for Wright, and after a lost season in 2024, he's chomping at the bit to finally build upon his memorable moment against the Jaguars. There's a hunger permeating from him.

So what does year four look like for the 24-year-old?

"Carry on to what I did last year, but ... times 10, times 100, times 1000," he asserted. "I just felt like it was a lot on the table that I left. I mean, of course, I never wanted to end my season off of the safety and then two more games. But, I feel like I was just sitting there, just looking at the games from home, just being in a brace, it kind of like, lit a fire under me, because I wanted to be out there so bad.

"So I just, I'm carrying that along with me. I'm carrying as motivation. I'm carrying as like, just being determined. I'm carrying it as like just being that best Alex that I was, the best version Alex that I can be."