Sam Kamara, the only player from Stony Brook in the NFL, elevated to Browns' roster vs. Jets

The only Stony Brook University product currently with an NFL team will be playing for the Browns against the Jets at MetLife Stadium on Sunday.

Sam Kamara, a defensive lineman on Cleveland’s practice squad, was elevated on Saturday for the game. He will likely see his first action of the season due to a rash of injuries to the Browns’ defensive front. Mason Graham (knee/ankle), Kalia Davis (quad) and Mike Hall Jr. (ankle) were all ruled out.

“I hold that banner with pride being the lone Seawolf right now in the league,” Kamara told Newsday just a few weeks ago. “It feels good. I get to represent Seawolf Nation and show a lot of guys from the school that it’s possible and it can be done with some hard work.”

Kamara’s last season at Stony Brook was the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign so there aren’t many players at the Long Island school who have personal ties to him, and the coaching staff has turned over as well since then. But third-year coach Billy Cosh said he is very familiar with “the reputation that Sam has within our building” and that the program is “rooting for him.”

“It’s always great to see someone who once wore our logo playing at the highest level of the sport,” Cosh said.

Others have reached the NFL from Stony Brook, including Will Tye, who played tight end for the Giants from 2015-17, and Victor Ochi, who appeared in two games for the Jets as a linebacker in 2016. No one has stuck around as long as Kamara, though. Now in his sixth NFL season, most of that time spent bouncing between Cleveland’s practice squad and active roster since 2022 after spending his rookie season with the Bears, he’s appeared in 26 games and made 38 tackles with two starts.

“I look at it as an extension of the roster,” he said of being a practice-squad player. “I come in and I practice hard, I move fast, I do everything like I am preparing for game day. That’s what has kept me around the league for so long.”

Kamara played five seasons at Stony Brook, where he recorded 15 sacks and 110 tackles in 41 games, but he grew up in New Jersey. He has some experience playing at MetLife Stadium. His Carteret High School team won a state championship there in 2012 when he was a freshman. But he hasn’t been back since and he was excited to see this game on the Browns’ schedule . . . even though he had no guarantees he’d be playing in or even traveling to it with the Browns.

“That’s the one I want to make sure I’m active for,” he told Newsday last month.

Now he will be.

“It’s a great feeling,” Kamara said of getting that call and being elevated from the practice squad in the past. “You get the chance to shine and show them what you’ve been working all this time for.”

At Stony Brook, and around the NFL, they’ll be watching for it.