Joe Haden

Joe Haden could miss the start of the 2016 season with his ankle surgery.

(Joshua Gunter/Northeast Ohio Media Group)

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Browns Executive Vice President Sashi Brown acknowledged that cornerback Joe Haden might not be ready for the start of the season because of his left ankle surgery, and that the Browns have contingency plans.

"Too early to tell at this point,'' Brown said at the NFL Annual meeting here. "We don't now enough about it, but we do know that Joe and we were disappointed, obviously, to hear that Joe was going to need surgery. The first we heard about it was probably a week before last, maybe about 10 days ago.''

Brown reiterated that Haden will miss the offseason program, which begins April 4, and that he's expected to be ready for some kind of football activity in training camp.

"We understand that he went through the procedure with Dr. (Robert) Anderson in Charlotte and will need rehab that will take him through voluntary offseason and the mandatory program, the OTAs. We're looking forward to him getting back,'' he said. "I know Joe will put the work in. We'll obviously be in good communication with him throughout."

Brown revealed that Haden suffered the injury during an offeason workout, but the details are sketchy.

"That's unclear (if it's a lingering thing),'' he said. "We haven't dug into it in that amount of depth. He had mentioned he had hurt his ankle in I think the Cardinals game initially. That he had some sprain of the ankle. Whether it's tied to that I don't know. I know he did injure it in an offseason workout.''

Brown said Haden, who missed 11 games last season with injuries, had surgery to repair cartilage and ligaments.

Brown acknowledged that the club will have a plan B in the event it can't count on Haden.

"Depth is something we're going to prize here," he said. "Hue (Jackson) can talk about his philosophy there in terms of preparing all our players as backups. It will be a good opportunity for some of our guys to step up and get some reps.''

The Browns have Tramon Williams, Pierre Desir, K'Waun Williams and Justin Gilbert as current starting cornerback candidates, although Gilbert hasn't demonstrated he's even close to being ready. Still, Jackson is bracing himself for life without Haden, at least in the early going.

"We're going to get him back at some point,'' said Jackson. "In the meantime, there's still guys on our team that we need to grow and get better, and that's what our staff is here to do and that's what I'm really excited about, whoever's there. We're not going to worry about the people who are not there. We want them all back, but the people there, we're going to coach them. I'm excited to watch the staff go out and take these guys.''

The Browns will likely have to use some of their 10 draft picks on cornerbacks.