Avery, a fifth-round pick by the Browns, has risen up the depth chart and followed in his cousin's footsteps.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Chris Avery has a unique way of describing his cousin, Browns linebacker Genard Avery.
"I call him a walking muscle," Chris said. "He's a walking muscle."
Genard's teammate and fellow linebacker Joe Schobert has one, too.
"He is a human bowling ball," Schobert said.
Browns special teams coordinator Amos Jones offers an impressive comparison.
"The guy would kill me if I said it, but you know who I am thinking about, right?" Jones said. "He wore number 92 for Pittsburgh."
Yeah, that No. 92 for Pittsburgh.
"When I first saw (Genard) cover a punt," Jones said, "James (Harrison) played left tackle (on the punt unit) for us (when Jones was in Pittsburgh) -- when I first saw him cover a punt out here for us in OTAs, just the way that he ran with those big legs and big upper body, he reminds you a lot of a guy that has the potential to be a dynamic player in whatever phase he is playing."
Avery has a long ways to go to reach Harrison's level, but the University of Memphis product, selected by the Browns in the fifth round of April's draft, looks like he could manage some of Harrison's insane Instagram workouts. He has muscles on top of muscles -- if he were a Spongebob character, he would gain easy entrance into the Salty Spitoon. Saying someone's legs are tree trunks is a cliche, sure, but there's no other way to accurately describe them in this case.
Avery is using that strength to bully his way up the Browns' depth chart. He received first-team reps last Thursday night against the Bills. He's also carrying the dreams of his family on his broad shoulders, creating a path for his mother and brothers and following in the footsteps of his older cousin.
'A country boy'
Genard Avery has shown off his speed around the edge to go with his strength. Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com
Avery's size belies his athleticism.
"He's a country boy, now," Chris said when Genard's surprising combination of strength and athleticism was brought up to him.
Grenada, Mississippi, where Avery grew up, is about 100 miles north of Jackson. Memphis, Tennessee, is about 100 miles north of Grenada. According to the U.S. Census Bureau website, the population is a shade over 21,000. Of that, 22.5 percent are estimated to live in poverty.
"It's country. Not a lot of avenues. Income real low," Chris said.
"It's not like the city where there's a lot of things that you can venture off to do," Chris said. "Only thing he could do was sports and work."
And Genard did both.
His mom, Tiffany and Chris' mom are sisters, making Tiffany and Chris first cousins. They both shared a house with their grandmother, who had 12 kids. The house always had people living there.
"Hey, man, this is Mississippi. We have a big family," Chris said with a laugh.
Tiffany eventually set out on her own and Genard lived with her and his three younger brothers. She worked odd jobs and did, said Chris, "whatever it takes to put one and one together to get two."
She wasn't easy on her boys, either.
"It was hard growing up in that household because she applied so much (pressure)," Genard said. "She held us to a standard."
Sports and work. That's what Genard did. He searched for whatever work he could find to help out his family. Farm work. Yard work. Working with Chris at his trucking company.
"I used to cut a lot of grass and do a little farmwork and wash cars and stuff like that," Genard said. "My grandad had his own little construction business, so I used to help him a lot working growing up."
"That was his drive to do the best he can to support his brothers and help his mom," Chris said. "At that time, he was so young, that was the only option he could do for us, do those side jobs."
Even when he was in college at Memphis, he would come back home during weekends off and work.
Getting to Memphis first, though, took some work of its own.
Genard saw Chris make it out of Grenada. He played football at Kentucky State and spent time in the Arena Football League and NFL Europa. He spent a training camp with the Dallas Cowboys. He's back in Grenada now where he runs a trucking company, but he made something of himself. His son, C.J., currently plays football at Louisville.
Genard, almost 20 years later, set out on Chris' path
"I used to hear all the talk about my cousin, this and that, and I was like, 'Man, I want to be better than my cousin,'" Genard said. "I was always that person, I always wanted to be better and do more than my cousin."
So, of course he played football. It's also why he took up powerlifting.
"I used to come in and, on the wall, they used to have all the state champions and stuff like that and I said, 'Man, I want to be on that wall one day,'" Genard said. "So I ended up powerlifting."
And he ended up all over that wall, winning the 6A state championship and rewriting the school's record book.
He also ran track. Sure, he threw discus and shot put, like every muscled-up football player, but he also did sprint relays and hurdles. That's how he made it to states as a runner, too.
"When I made it to state, them guys, they're 150 (pounds) rolling and I was 220 in high school," Genard said, "and I'm like, man, I can't keep up with these guys."
Which was fine, because everything he was doing was about football.
"I always worked hard at other stuff to help me with football," Genard said, "and being a track runner, conditioning, throwing, all that, I always relied back on football and that's when it helped."
Growing up, he wanted to play for Ole Miss. He wanted to stay close to home. He was only a two-star recruit, though, so that opportunity wasn't coming. He ultimately settled on Memphis because the coaches at the time, Justin Fuente and his staff, seemed to genuinely care about his situation at home.
Avery told the website RebelGrove.com that his mom got sick his junior year in high school and he almost left Memphis in 2016 after a new staff came in. He didn't go into detail during his interview with cleveland.com about his mom's situation.
"It's getting handled now," Genard said.
Norvell convinced Avery to stay and he finished his career at Memphis with the second-most tackles for loss in school history (45.5) and third in career sacks (21.5). He set a single season tackles for loss record with 22 in 2017.
Most importantly, he graduated in three-and-a-half years. He became the first person in his family to do it.
"I did that for mom," he said. "I had a hard summer, but I took a lot of courses through my senior year for that summer to graduate because I knew if I didn't graduate then, it's hard to try to come back and graduate."
"He made a statement to the family," Chris said, "because no one had done that in our family and that was real big. For him to go through what he went through and come from where he came from, that was great."
Genard said it was more meaningful to his mom to see him walk in December than when he got drafted to the NFL a few months later.
"She wanted us to graduate and she said just keep going farther and farther," Genard said. "Hard work does pay off, that's what she always said and she taught me that growing up. I used to clean up the house, be on time and everything she used to teach I'm doing now."
'100 miles per hour'
Avery got work with the starters in the last preseason game and has worked up the depth chart throughout camp. Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com
Mychal Kendricks sees some of himself in Avery. It make sense. Kendricks is listed at 5-foot-11, 240 pounds, not much smaller than the rookie.
It goes beyond that, though. It's Avery's passion and drive that stands out to the veteran linebacker.
"In walkthroughs, he's going 100 miles per hour," Kendricks said.
Then he said this next thing very slowly with emphasis on the last part. "I'm like, 'walk-through.'"
"He takes it and goes 100 miles an hour in any direction he wants to go," Schobert said.
Jones sees it, in good and bad ways.
"I would agree with that," he said when presented with the assessment of Avery always going all-out. "Usually when he makes a mistake, he makes it 100 percent, which might not be right technique, but at least it is 100 percent.
"Shoot, that you have to love, especially as a linebacker."
Chris definitely saw that in him.
"Genard had that 'it' about him," he said. "When I look at him, I see how he attacked things. Don't nothing bother him and he did everything full speed."
He put it on display early against Buffalo, collapsing off the edge to help bring down LeSean McCoy for a two-yard loss on the Bills' second play of the night.
It was the next logical step in the quick rise for the rookie, now playing with the starting unit, a rise that didn't surprise head coach Hue Jackson.
"I saw the tenacity, the relentlessness, the power and the speed," Jackson said. "Those things show up and it is real, and it is against the first team offense all of the time. He can do it."
And he's putting in the work, too.
"He has been anxious to learn more about the game," linebacker Christian Kirksey said. "He is explosive. He is a workaholic. He works his butt off."
A lot of that came from Chris, who preached to Genard to always hone his craft, always take care of his body; that whatever he puts into it, that's what he's going to get out of it.
And something simple that Chris taught him, too.
"Football is football," Genard said. "Either you can play or you can't. A team's not going to draft you if they think you can't play, so you just keep doing what you did throughout this whole process in your life and don't ever change up."
That process in Avery's life includes a work ethic that allowed him to help support his family. It includes a drive that made him want to follow in Chris' footsteps and go even further. It is the values instilled by his mother that made graduating college a priority.
It's why he's in the NFL, making NFL money and talking about buying his mom a house.
"It's great," Chris said. "She's deserving of it and he is, too, because they went through a bunch of hard times."
Chris is having fun watching it, too.
"Wherever I fell short at in sports and powerlifting," he said, "(Genard's accomplishments) make me complete because now I see him taking it to the next level."
The early returns are good, too, that this could just be the beginning for Genard.
"There are not a lot of people in the NFL that can stop him if he gets going where he wants to go," Schobert said.
Nothing has stopped him yet.
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