The Cleveland Browns have been through a ton of turmoil during the 2023 season. The quarterback position is what has gotten the most attention, but it all started with star running back Nick Chubb suffering a gruesome knee injury during the team’s Week 2 loss to the division rival Pittsburgh Steelers.
Chubb suffered MCL and ACL injuries and underwent season-ending surgery. He is now deep into the rehab process and Browns general manager Andrew Berry is confident he will be able to return.
“Very aggressively…since the fall,” Berry said of Chubb’s rehab: according to The Athletic. “He actually started running on land last week. That doesn’t mean he’s running through the woods or anything.”
Chubb was injured in mid-September. Other running backs with serious knee injuries suffered early in the season were able to return to training camp, but depending on the severity of the problem, some took longer. Given Chubb’s importance to the team’s offense, the Browns would obviously prefer to have him back on the field as quickly as possible – but they also need to make sure they don’t bring him back before he be ready.
Berry said he is very optimistic that Chubb crush rehabilitationand that the ball carrier is “progressing appropriately”, according to The Chronicle-Telegram. “[The] The next few weeks and months will be full of feedback.”
Chubb is entering the final season of the three-year, $36.6 million contract extension he signed in 2021, but he agreed earlier this offseason to take a pay cut that reduced his base salary of $11.775 million to just $1.125 million. The Browns need all the wiggle room they can get given the nature of quarterback Deshaun Watson’s fully guaranteed contract, and the likelihood of Chubb not being at full strength made him an obvious candidate for a pay cut.
Entering his season at age 29, Chubb was likely to enter the decline phase of his career anyway, but given how incredibly effective he has been throughout his tenure (he averaged at minus 5.0 yards per carry in each year of his career), there is still room for him to move away a bit while remaining a very valuable part of the offense. If he can return to something close to his previous form, he should be able to stay in the league even beyond the upcoming season.