BEREA — Jamal Lewis couldn’t have envisioned his career ending like this.

Not with a 1-yard carry for a 1-10 team, followed by a nerve-racking trip to the doctor.

Lewis was placed on injured reserve Wednesday night with post-concussion symptoms. He announced last month this would be the final season of his 10-year career.

The Browns also put safety Brodney Pool on IR with a concussion suffered Sunday in a 16-7 loss to Cincinnati. Lewis may have suffered a concussion Sunday, but the team didn’t specify and never announced an injury during or after the game.

“After consulting with our medical team, we felt that this was in the best interests of both Jamal and Brodney at this time,” coach Eric Mangini said in a statement. “Organizationally, players’ health and safety are paramount in any decision we make with regards to putting them back on the field.

“Jamal has been an integral part of this team and he has exhibited a great work ethic. I’m disappointed that Jamal and Brodney are not going to be able to finish out the season.”

The Plain Dealer, citing an unnamed source, reported Lewis was meeting with a brain trauma specialist Wednesday after an MRI showed “abnormalities” of his brain.

Lewis’ combination of power and speed made him one of the league’s most feared running backs of the decade and a candidate for induction into the Hall of Fame.

“As long as I can leave this game healthy and with the numbers I have and the stats that I have and the things that I’ve done,” he said when announcing his retirement plans. “I have a Super Bowl ring and I’m happy.”

His run will end with five games remaining on the schedule.

Lewis turned 30 in August and is listed at 5-foot-11, 245 pounds. He was known for a grueling offseason training regimen that left him in great shape, but had a bruising style, didn’t shy away from contact and absorbed countless hits over his 2,542 carries.

The final one was for 1 yard off left guard with 14:02 remaining in the fourth quarter in Cincinnati. The Browns passed the rest of the game.

He won a Super Bowl as a rookie with the Ravens and finished for a Browns team off to a franchise-worst 1-10 start.
Lewis, who wasn’t available to reporters Wednesday, ranks 21st on the NFL’s all-time rushing list with 10,607 yards. He’s 36 yards behind Ricky Watters for 20th place.

Lewis has been critical of the length and intensity of Mangini’s practices. He missed two games with a hamstring injury early this season, was bothered by a sore ankle and hampered by the Browns’ inept offense. He carried 143 times for 500 yards, a 3.5 average and no touchdowns. No Browns running back has scored a touchdown this year.

Jerome Harrison and Chris Jennings are first in line to get the carries.

The NFL’s newly intensified spotlight on concussions has shifted to the Browns.

Pool, 25, will need to decide if he wants to play again in 2010 after suffering at least the fourth concussion of his five-year career.

He started his pro career by getting knocked out covering the opening kickoff in his first preseason game. He walked to the locker room Sunday in the third quarter and never returned.

“We haven’t talked about the long term,” Mangini said of Pool, who was at team headquarters but not available to reporters. “That is a discussion for a later time period.”

A series of new medical studies detailing the long-term effects of concussions, pressure from Congress regarding the NFL’s handling of the injury and an emphasis on player safety under commissioner Roger Goodell have combined to make concussions the biggest story in the league the last week. Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks Ben Roethlisberger and Kurt Warner sat out games Sunday when minor symptoms lingered.

“You have to look at the long run,” veteran linebacker David Bowens said. “The best thing I can say is just to listen to the advice of the doctors.”

Goodell has required each team to have an independent neurologist to determine when it’s safe for a player to return to the field. But that doesn’t solve the conflict within the player.

“It’s the business,” said quarterback Derek Anderson, who’s had a concussion in high school, college and the pros. “Guys play with things they’ve got no business playing with. It’s the nature of the beast.

“I wouldn’t say forced to play, but your job security is so … it’s not there. You sit out for a month, you’re not playing. It’s just reality.”

Anderson missed the final two weeks of the 2008 preseason after suffering a concussion against the Giants. He returned to play in the regular-season opener.

“I still wasn’t really right,” he said. “I was like foggy, still had days where I’d wake up and feel weird.”

The NFL is reportedly considering cutting back on offseason practices and practicing without helmets to lessen the head trauma.

“I just don’t feel like I’m enough of an expert on the topic,” Mangini said. “I’m totally in support of whatever can help in terms of player safety, especially anything that has long-term effects.”

Bowens said the way teams handle the injury is night and day from when he started in 1999.

“Early in my career, it was like, ‘OK, he’s got a concussion, can he count to three?’” he said. “Now it’s a big deal. You see the older players, how it’s affected their lives post-career, and it is a serious issue.

“The awareness level has definitely heightened because of it, and the teams are taking better precautions.”

Even with all the new information, some players want to play, regardless of the long-term risks.

“Ask my wife, she thinks about it more than I do,” offensive lineman Hank Fraley, 32, said. “Now that I’ve gotten up there in years, I’ve definitely weighed it and thought about it.

“The problem is, you ask me today and you ask me 10 years later and 10 years earlier, I’d probably do the same thing. Play.”

Contact Scott Petrak at 329-7253 or spetrak@chroniclet.com.

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