Cravens ready for “a whole new world”
Last week, as soon as Su’a Cravens found out he had been traded to the Broncos, he downloaded “A Whole New World” from the Aladdin soundtrack for a social media post.
Words couldn’t aptly express his elation. But Princess Jasmine could.
“I felt like it was perfect,” Cravens said Monday as he was formally introduced by the Broncos. “… I wanted a fresh start because I didn’t like the way things happened. It wasn’t part of my plan. I never thought that at 22 years old I’d be at the house watching football instead of playing football. The fact the Broncos gave me this fresh start, this chance to basically create a new image of myself, I just can’t wait.”
Since the trade was made last week, Cravens has closed the chapter on the controversial beginning to his NFL career with Washington and opened a new one in Denver, where he hopes to compete for a starting job at strong safety and dime ’backer with the Broncos’ remade secondary.
But in his return to the game after a year off to deal with personal and health issues, Cravens has much to prove — on and off the field. There are those who still claim he “quit” on the Redskins, the team that drafted him in the second round in 2016. There are those who, according to Cravens, believe “a false narrative.”
“One day I’ll be able to speak a little bit further on that,” he said. “But I’m not a quitter. I’m not a guy that lacks love for the game.”
After an injury-riddled first season in the NFL, Cravens told
teammates last September that he planned to retire. He was later placed on the Redskins’ exempt list and put under the care of Dr. Micky Collins, the director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Sports Medicine Concussion Program, for post-concussion syndrome (PCS).
“A continuous process just flying to Micky Collins in Pittsburgh and going through the concussion testing, going through multiple different tests on computers physically, going to optometrists and things like that until he felt that, in his best medical opinion, I was ready to play,” Cravens said. “I went about five or six times throughout a four- or five-month period where I spent basically a full 24 hours at the office working with him before he felt comfortable giving me the green light.
“There was a point where I was like, ‘I’m done with football.’ But that love for it, that need to compete, that need to be on the field and just want to be with your brothers — that never went away.”
Cravens was medically cleared in December and reinstated in February, which helped jumpstart trade negotiations with the Broncos. But the strange turns of the last eight months have given him a new perspective on the game, on his career and his start with the Broncos.
“As a kid you think I’m going to play until I’m about 40 years old, retire, have a house on the hills, things that like that,” Cravens said. “But when you actually get into the gist of things and realize this is a job and doesn’t matter who you think you are, the ability you may have, it can all be gone the next day. I never really looked at it that way. I just thought football will always be there.
“But having it taken away, with no choice … it kind of matured me in way to where I never take that for granted again. No practice, no missing out on rehab or, ‘I don’t feel like icing today.’ Things like that, I’m 100 percent committed to.”
Previous concussions and bouts with PCS are believed to increase a player’s susceptibility. But Cravens said he begins his next phase with the Broncos without hesitance or fear of recurring symptoms.
“I know what I’m signing myself up for,” he said. “I’m aware of my situation that I was in and I’m aware of the dangers of the game. I experienced it firsthand. I’m still willing to go out there and put everything I have on the line.”
If all works out, Cravens could be a key contributor to the Broncos’ defense, with the size and athleticism to help stop holes in the run game and plug leaks in coverage against tight ends. And his versatility puts him in competition with multiple players, most notably starting safety Darian Stewart and dime ’backer Will Parks.
“We’ve been competing since high school. We do camps and then we get into the Pac-12 and he’s a guy laying people out and sending me the clips, saying, ‘You can’t do what I do,’ ” Cravens said of Parks. “When I get here, it’s going to be a healthy competition. It doesn’t matter if he’s on the field, I’m the field, whoever is on the field — as long as we’re winning, that’s all that matters.”