BEREA, Ohio -- Browns receiver Corey Coleman's fall on the ball last week in organized team activities was a little worse than first thought, and he might now be out until training camp at the end of July.

"Right now I'm going to keep him out for a little while and again, that was a tough spill for him,'' coach Hue Jackson said after practice Wednesday. "A little tougher than I thought, but he's making his way through. You know Corey. He wants to be back out there right now, but I just think now is the time if a guy is kind of banged up a little bit to make sure they take care of him so that we get him back for training camp. But we'll see how it all unfolds here at the end.''

Jackson couldn't say for sure if Coleman will be idle until camp opens. If so, he'll miss the final week of OTAs next week and the mandatory full-squad minicamp June 13-15. The Browns then disperse until camp begins in the last week of July.

"Once I go in and talk to the doctor and see exactly where he is I'll know more,'' Jackson said.

Coleman, who missed the first two preseason games of 2016 with a pulled hamstring and six regular season games with a broken hand, worked off to the side with the trainers and other injured players at the beginning of practice Wednesday. The current injury is a concern given Coleman's recent history.

"I understand why it's like this,'' Jackson said of the interest in Coleman's injury. "Nobody wants to lose a good player in a practice at any time. But I know those things happen and again, like I said, if I wanted to push him through it, I could, but what's most important is that we get him back. He's demonstrated the ability that we're looking for. Obviously he's got to do it in a game.



"There's no games right now, and the most thing for the whole football team is health, is making sure that we can get everybody back to when it really starts to count ready to play. He's done a good job. He's improved, I stand behind my statement that I made earlier that he's got to be the guy to do it for us. That's what we drafted him for and I'm sure he'll do that.''

Related: Corey Coleman breaks his hand in practice



Asked if Coleman, last year's No. 15 overall pick out of Baylor, broke a bone in the spill, Jackson said, "No.''

But he acknowledged it was worse than it seemed at first, when he caught a deep ball from Brock Osweiler with Jason McCourty in tight coverage, fell hard on the ball and then remained down on the field for about three minutes while a trainer looked at him. Jackson came over and helped him up. Coleman made the long, slow trek into the locker room with a dour look on his face.

"I think it's a little bit of the ball, ground, all of it and also a player on top of you,'' Jackson said. "If you go back and look at it, it was a little bit of everything."

With Coleman sidelined and veteran receiver Kenny Britt sitting out some practices with an unspecified injury, second-year receivers Ricardo Louis, Rashard Higgins and Jordan Payton are getting more reps and have made progress from their rookie years.

"Those guys have to continue to step up,'' Jackson said. "We have a lot of young players at that position ...and we've got to see that they can play, because that whole group has got to take another jump.''

Jackson acknowledged that the Browns were counting on Coleman to be their No. 1 receiver, even with the addition of Britt in free agency.

"We don't have a guy who's a leading returning player in the National Football League at that position other than Corey that's really played a lot of football in that group,'' Jackson said. "So I can see everyone saying that, but I feel comfortable that there's talent there and if we can develop it and harness it the right way and the guys keep working at it and working at it every day, who knows what can happen?''

Coleman's injury is significant because he struggled to catch up last year after so much time off. Upon returning from the broken hand with eight games remaining, Coleman caught only one TD pass and did not eclipse 41 yards in a game. He averaged just over three catches a game and never caught more than five.

This offseason, he was working on his timing with all of the quarterbacks, including newcomer Brock Osweiler and rookie DeShone Kizer.

Now he'll have to go back to taking mental reps, at least for the time being.