BEREA, Ohio — Four days before making his season debut in Week 7 against the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb wrote the following story. From The Players’ Tribune We look back on his long journey into the field.
Thirteen months ago, during a Week 2 Monday night game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Chubb suffered a torn left MCL and damage to his meniscus and medial joint capsule. This was his second major left knee injury, ending his 2023 season and leaving the Browns without a loss. The player is often referred to as the “heart and soul” of the team.
In the story, Chubb, who described himself as a “closeted guy,” touched on several topics, including the difficult nature of rehabilitation, his gratitude for fan support, and the influence his mother and grandmother had on his upbringing. So did the “dark thoughts” that came to his mind immediately after the injury.
“You might not get me back together this time. This might be the end,” he recalled thinking as he lay on the floor of Pittsburgh’s Accreiser Stadium.
Chubb’s recovery is back in full swing when the Browns face the Steelers on Thursday (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video) for the first time since the injury. Players and coaches say they have no idea that a player with two knee injuries as serious as Chubb’s has returned. Five games since his return, he has yet to rediscover the form that made him a Pro Bowler in four of his first five seasons in the NFL. But his presence on the field captivated the team and his blue-collar city. He has been personified since being drafted by the Browns in 2018.
“Nick is a very special football player,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said. “He’s a very special person. I think he embodies a lot of what we want as the Cleveland Browns and I certainly think our fans feel that in him as well. And I get to sit in my chair and watch him work and see the fruits of his labor. I was able to see… So I got to witness how hard he worked since last year.”
chub The final offensive starters to be introduced before his season debut on Oct. 20, and the entire stadium at Huntington Bank Field stood to give him a standing ovation. In particular, the cheers were more noticeable as they silenced the boos for quarterback Deshaun Watson, who was introduced right before Chubb. The applause for Chubb was a stark contrast to footage from his final football game.
On September 18, 2023, Chubb took a shotgun handoff near the goal line early in the second quarter of the Browns’ Week 2 “Monday Night Football” game against the Steelers. As he attempted to plow through traffic and into the end zone, linebacker Cole Holcomb grabbed Chubb by the shoulder and attempted to pull him down. Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick sprinted out of the end zone and dropped his helmet on Chubb’s left leg, which bent backwards.
As the players got back to their feet, Chubb remained on the floor, holding his leg. Wide receiver Elijah Moore grabbed Chubb’s hands and lifted him up, but the pain was too much. As athletic trainers rushed onto the field, Chubb took off his helmet and rolled over.
When the replay was shown, the crowd at Accreger Stadium collectively gasped. Stefanski shook his head with an expressionless expression.
“When you see Nick standing still, you know something serious is going on.” Browns assistant athletic trainer Patrick Lock, who cared for Chubb on the field, told ESPN.
Chubb was placed on a cart and taken to a nearby hospital. Shortly after, the Browns announced that he had suffered a “serious” knee injury. It was the second major injury Chubb suffered to his left knee. He tore his MCL, PCL and LCL in 2015 at the University of Georgia.
The Browns overcame numerous injuries to return to the playoffs in 2023, but the dominant running game designed by Chubb has declined in his absence. And Chubb began yet another grueling rehabilitation process.
When asked about writing for The Players Tribune, Chubb said, “People only see me on Sundays and they don’t know what the past year has been like. There’s been a lot of depressing stuff. I’ve been working hard. There’s been a lot going on. So that kind of information. gives you some insight into what’s really going on.”
Chubb experienced: The first of two surgeries in late September 2023 repaired the medial capsule, meniscus, and MCL of my left knee. He had a second surgery that November to repair ACL damage.
Initially, the scope of Chubb’s rehabilitation was limited to freezing swelling in his knee. The brunt of the work occurred in the offseason.
“I come in at 8, 9, or whatever the start time is, and I work pretty much the whole time, whether it’s in the training room or until 1 or 2 a.m. every day,” Rock told ESPN. Or a weight room with just strength training, rehabilitation, attacking from all angles, working the upper body while you can’t work the lower body, introducing the lower body as much as possible.”
Multiple checkpoints gave Chubb confidence that he would return to the scene. By April, Chubb was running unassisted at the team’s practice facility.
“I don’t think he was happy with how it looked the first time,” Rock told ESPN. “I remember seeing him on video looking back at his stride and wearing knee pads. He didn’t like wearing them. … As a running back, it’s hard to cut, jump, do all the moves. Braces. What you want to do while wearing it.
“So I vividly remember him looking back at his stride and saying, ‘What is this? This doesn’t seem right.’ And then I showed him the video and he said, ‘Huh.’ And it was great to see how he progressed. The thing is… it’s cool to see the improvement over time.”
The same week Chubb began running, he and the Browns reworked the final year of his contract. Chubb’s base salary was $11.8 million, none of which was guaranteed. Because they needed cap space, the Browns could have cut him, which Chubb acknowledged in an article in The Players Tribune.
“Listen, I’m 28,” he wrote. “What’s a running back these days? 57 years old? I know the business. I’ve seen the rumors.”
But the two sides have agreed to a new contract that will lower Chubb’s salary but allow him to earn up to $12.2 million based on the level of performance he achieved before the injury, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Despite Chubb being in rehab, this was a resolution both sides wanted and a show of faith from the Browns organization.
“The only thing he cared about throughout the whole process was putting me in jail,” Rock recalled. “Once you do squats, you’ll be fine.”
Last July, Chubb posted a video of himself squatting over 500 pounds at a gym in his hometown of Cedartown, Georgia.
When training camp opened, Chubb worked around the team’s schedule, starting most of his work before the sun rose and meetings began.
Ninety minutes after the end of the second day of Browns training camp, Chubb and Nyheim Hines, returning from a serious knee injury, stood on one of the fields at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia with a few athletic trainers watching.
For the next half hour or so, Chubb sprinted, performed light agility drills and shuffled between cones while tucking a soccer ball into his chest with his right arm.
The practice in late July was the first time reporters have seen Chubb since he injured his knee in September 2023. Standing atop a short hill a few yards away, co-owner Jimmy Haslam watched from afar.
“If anyone can do it, it’s Nick Chubb,” Haslam said the next day. “So we’re looking forward to seeing what can happen.”
Chubb was unable to participate in team practices during training camp and was placed on the physically inactive list, but was designated to return to practice on October 2.
“His work ethic and overall attitude, the way he approaches the game and the way he approaches the week is infectious,” offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey said.
Chubb is involved In front of the Browns’ locker room backdrop, four days before his debut in Week 7.
Chubb’s expected return date was now well known, and as his teammates entered the locker room from their pre-practice walk-through, cheers and cheers filled the room upon seeing Chubb. A slight smile crept onto the normally stoic face of Chubb, who tries to avoid the limelight. “I missed you,” he later joked.[ed] A time when he could walk around anonymously and no Browns fan recognized him at Cleveland International Airport, like in the opening scene of 2018’s HBO’s “Hard Knocks.”
The night before the Browns’ game against the Bengals, Chubb named the team a game-day captain (Stefanski later named Chubb a captain for the remainder of the season). Chubb downplayed the brief speech. “It was my first game back and I was really excited to get out there. It took a long time to come,” he told ESPN.
But the moment resonated with his teammates.
“It was a really cool moment to see how hard he works,” center Ethan Pocic told ESPN. “It’s surprising, but it’s not surprising that he’s doing that. He’s so tough and hard-working, so in the end, it’s not surprising because that’s who he is.”
Right guard Wyatt Teller said Chubb’s actions were more important than anything he could say.
“I don’t mean that in a negative way, but it means that no matter what he says, we already know what he’s doing behind the scenes,” Teller said. “I don’t think anyone has come back from this injury twice and done it, and I just hope he continues to heal and gets better every week and can get back to the level of dominance he’s used to every week.”
On his first play in a year, Chubb beat defenders and spun into the end zone for a 1-yard score. But the big day was overshadowed by the Browns’ fifth straight loss and Watson’s ruptured Achilles tendon. The injury irritated his teammates as fans cheered him on. But the game marked another milestone for Chubb, as he kept the ball he scored.
“It was special,” Chubb said.
Chubb’s return hasn’t happened yet It was enough to unleash an offense that reached 20 points once this season.
The team limited his workload and he ran for 163 yards in four games, averaging 3.1 yards per carry behind an offensive line that ranked 25th in run block win percentage. That’s well below his career average of 5.2 yards per catch, which trails only Jamaal Charles in NFL history. But there have been signs Chubb is regaining the form of a player who was named to four straight Pro Bowls before the injury, including dropping a tackle and moving into the second level.
“Every time I go out and practice or play, I feel a little better. I feel good right now,” Chubb said. “… If I just go out there and keep doing what I’m doing and be patient, it will come.”
Chubb’s long-term future in Cleveland remains uncertain. He turns 29 in December and becomes an unrestricted free agent after the season. The Browns, who are 2-8 and have one of the oldest rosters in the NFL, face several difficult personnel decisions in the offseason.
But Chubb, who recently made a comeback, remains a respected figure.
“He’s one of the cornerstones of the city,” defensive end Myles Garrett said. “Not just the team, but a Cleveland player. So it’s always nice to see his face. You can’t say you heard his voice because he doesn’t say much. But I mean, he’s just a little beacon of hope. It’s just that.”
