AP

If one were looking for one word to sum up Bengals wide receiver John Ross‘ rookie season, pain wouldn’t be a bad one.

Ross was in pain because of shoulder and knee injuries that limited him to 17 snaps and the Bengals offense was pained to find a replacement for what they expected to get from their 2017 first-round pick. For Ross, there was also the pain of having people question his desire to play while he was injured.

“When people question the things that you desire when they don’t understand, it’s kind of tough on a player,” Ross said to Bruce Murray and Brady Quinn of Sirius XM NFL Radio. “Because you don’t understand why they would do something like that, because they just really don’t know what you’re going through. And I think that’s the problem sometimes, the fact that people don’t understand that you are dealing with something that’s traumatic to your career and they really can’t seem to feel the pain that you’re going through. So they really don’t understand.”

Ross was healthy and doing team drills this offseason, which is a change from last year that he and the Bengals hope will be the first of many differences after a painful 2017 season.