BEREA, Ohio -- Browns running back Nick Chubb isn’t thinking about shutting it down right now, even with the Browns out of the playoffs and him returning from a serious knee injury. Saving wear and tear doesn’t sound like something he’s interested in doing.
“I have a long way to go before I shut anything down,” Chubb said. “So I mean, every time I go out there, it’s practice reps, game reps, it’s me just getting better physically, mentally, all around, so I’m nowhere near shutting it down. Not even a thought.”
Chubb has now played seven games in his return from the second major injury to his left knee. He has carried the ball 93 times for 291 yards, a 3.1 yard average, and just had his longest run of the season on Sunday in Pittsburgh, a 19-yarder with 2:58 left in the third quarter.
Chubb took a handoff out of the shotgun and got his first taste of the open field at around the 50 and barrelled his way to the 36-yard line on the carry.
“It felt good to get in the open field,” Chubb said. “Obviously it’s been a while since I’ve done that off a run play, but it felt good.”
His progress so far is incremental and it goes beyond just what he’s doing on the field -- even on that long run it was hard not to imagine the Chubb of old turning it into a long touchdown run, leaving defenders in the Steelers secondary in his wake.
“It’s the small things with me,” Chubb said, “just as simple as breaking a tackle or making the right cut or right read. That’s the biggest thing for me right now.”
It has been slow going for Chubb and the Browns running game. They currently rank 31st in the NFL in rushing yards per play and are one of just five teams with fewer than 300 rushing attempts. The other four teams, the Jets, Raiders, Bengals and Jaguars, all have losing records, which contributes to the low total -- trailing teams won’t run as often -- but the Browns, with 299 attempts, are on pace to finish with fewer than 500 rushing attempts in a season for the first time since 2021 and will fall well short of their previous low since Kevin Stefanski took over as head coach, 485 attempts in 2021.
Volume, of course, isn’t everything, of course, and simply turning and handing off the football over and over is mostly a thing of the past, but the Browns, especially over the last two games, have leaned more on quarterback Jameis Winston and the passing game and it has yielded mixed results.
Winston has thrown 99 times the last two weeks. In Denver, it resulted in 497 yards and 32 points, but also two pick-sixes. In Pittsburgh, the Browns scored 14 points and Winston threw for just 212 yards and two more interceptions. Meanwhile, they’ve handed the ball to a running back 39 times over the last two weeks.
“I think we’ve got to give a reason to run the ball more,” Chubb said, “in which I feel like that’s my responsibility.”
It was certainly easier to be one of the league’s best rushing attacks when the Browns had the workhorse duo of Chubb and Kareem Hunt running behind road graders on the offensive line. Hunt is back in Kansas City where his career started and is on pace to have his best season since he ran for 841 yards with the Browns in 2020, though his workload will decrease now that Chiefs starter Isiah Pacheco is back from injury.
“Kareem looks good,” Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski said. “Kareem is obviously a person and a player that I have a ton of respect for. He’s elite in short yardage, which we’ve seen firsthand. He’s elite in the screen game, which we’ve seen firsthand. He runs hard, he looks good.”
Hunt had a second stint with Cleveland last year after Chubb was lost for the season, serving as the team’s short yardage battering ram behind Jerome Ford. The Browns chose not to re-sign him and he signed with the Chiefs this season after Pacheco fractured his fibula in Week 2.
Browns running back Nick Chubb (24) runs for a first down
Browns running back Nick Chubb finally found some open field on Sunday in Pittsburgh.Josh Gunter, cleveland.com
Chubb said he was blessed to play with Hunt, who he called a brother, but wasn’t going to question the decision to not bring him back.
“I love Kareem,” he said. “I love the running backs we have here.”
The Chubb-Hunt duo isn’t about to be reunited, so the reality for the Browns run game the rest of this season boils down to two things: a commitment to it and Chubb and Co. paying off that commitment.
“The way that I grew up knowing football, you establish the game with the running game and you work things off of that,” Winston said. “And I like playing that style of football, but I’m willing and able to play any style that I’m required to play. Obviously I think when you’re able to possess the ball for a long period of time where you have a mixture of runs and passes, it just makes the congruence of the offense be a little bit more effective and efficient.”
Getting Chubb to look more like the back who rushed for 5,345 yards between 2019 and 2022 would help, but it appears that’s going to take some more time.
It’s impressive enough that he’s back on the field at all, which is why his teammates voted him their Ed Block Courage Award winner for 2024.
Cleveland Browns vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, December 8, 2024
Browns running back Nick Chubb is still working his way back from his knee injury in 2023.Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com
“It means a lot, obviously, my teammates thought of me to win the award and just thinking back to all the rehab process, everything I’ve been through I couldn’t have done it without my teammates,” Chubb said, “my coaches, the city of Cleveland, everyone around me.”
When Chubb received the honor at the Providence House Cleveland “Deck the House” event on Tuesday night, he said he wants to be a Brown for life.
The free-agent-to-be made it clear on Wednesday the importance of finishing what he started here.
“I would say it’s important. I started here. I’d like to finish here,” he said. “Cleveland just means a lot to me. Everything we’ve been through, ups and downs, but I’m proud to be drafted here.”
Whether the Browns ever run the ball like they did in those first three seasons under Stefanski with Chubb and Hunt giving opposing defenses nightmares, is something we’ll find out another day. Whether they should even try to do that again is up for debate. What isn’t, however, is that it would all look better if a healthy, rejuvenated Chubb is doing the running.
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