Chase Winovich ready for homecoming in Browns finale vs. Steelers
There’s a lot riding on the Browns’ season finale Sunday at the Pittsburgh Steelers. A lot of that is due to the Steelers’ playoff hopes, and what the Browns can do to spoil those chances.
For defensive end Chase Winovich, there’s a lot riding on the game as well. Personally, more than anything else.
“First off, I’m from Pittsburgh, the suburbs, shoutout to Thomas Jefferson (High School),” Winovich said during a Monday Zoom call. “So this is a really cool game for me. I never made it to the district championship, which is played at Heinz Field. And so this is my first time actually playing at the field. So this is really exciting for a couple different reasons. But on the Browns notes, as a Browns player, I don’t wanna say I’m contractually obligated, but I definitely feel some sort of obligation as a Browns player to try to win this game with everything that’s on the line, and I really look forward to that opportunity.”
Winovich, like so many who grew up in the Pittsburgh area, had his share of Steelers jerseys as a kid. He had a “favorite Steeler player,” if you will, in Hall of Fame safety Troy Polamalu.
However, Winovich wasn’t necessarily one of those typical Pittsburgh kids who just twirled his Terrible Towel and cheered on the Steelers. In fact, he acknowledges he may have been one of those kids who was swimming up-stream, so to speak, with regards to his football loyalties.
“I was always a rebel,” Winovich said. “Like, I respected players. … However, I was actually a Marshall Faulk fan. I was a huge Rams fan and went to the game as a kid wearing a Marshall Faulk jersey one time when they were playing the Steelers. So I think it’s apropos that I ended up as a Patriot and as a Brown, who knows how the rest of my career plays out.”
It’s a career that Winovich, while running around the Pittsburgh suburb of Jefferson Hills as a youth, admits wasn’t something he envisioned for himself. To him, football was something he did, if not as a hobby, certainly as something to do for fun.
That’s why Winovich didn’t see himself becoming the next James Harrison or Brett Keisel or any number of other Steelers legends. It was the sport itself that he loved as much as a given team.
“I didn’t really have the idea of me making the NFL,” Winovich said. “I just liked playing football. It wasn’t like ‘Hey, I want to play for the Steelers’ or something like that. So I was maybe in like middle school when I was just like, ‘Hey, why not? Why not do this?’ And I was just like, ‘I wanna play in the NFL.’ And once I set my mind to it, it was kind of one of those things. But I don’t know if it was necessarily for the Steelers, it just was what it was. I’ve always kind of been a rebel. I’ve always beat to my own drum.”
Winovich has started to find his place within the Browns’ defensive front now that he’s overcome some nagging injuries that bothered him both in training camp and early in the regular season. He’s played in the last three games after alternating being active and inactive in his first four games back off of the injured reserve list.