The Browns offense would flourish with him back on the field
Good news for Cleveland Browns fans. Nick Chubb is at the point of his rehab, that he is now getting much better.
After suffering a horrific knee injury in the Week 2 26-22 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers last year, Chubb’s rehab process has been slow but deliberate.
Chubb will turn 29 years old towards the end of the 2024 season. He has had his share of injuries including blowing out the same knee in college. When he finally does see the field again this year, what version will Browns fans see?
Recently, Browns GM Andrew Berry was a guest on The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima on Cleveland sports radio station 92.3 The Fan, and of course, the status and progress of Chubb was raised.
Here is the conversation with Berry on 92.3 The Fan:
Q: How’s Nick feeling?
Berry: Nick’s feeling pretty good. He’s doing a really nice job in his rehab. Still got a long way to go, but he’s progressing nicely given this point and time.
Q: How do you shape a running back room, knowing he suffered this devasting injury. You knew what the prognosis was at the time, then there is another surgery. You can do all the research you want on certain players, on how they’ve come back with certain ages, how many attempts they’ve had over the years and can add their college career in. But eventually, you’ve got to proceed forward. How do you do that with the wild card of Nick Chubb is Superman? I don’t know when he will be back.
Berry: I think the biggest roster-building challenges is when you’re trying to plan out a position group and the availability of a player is unknown. Whether it’s because they are coming off a season-ending injury or have some injury history where they will probably miss some games. That can be really tough to plan around. In those cases, we usually plan pretty conservatively in terms of on the more negative side of the expectation for their availability, just because there’s more downside if you assume, ‘OK well they’re going to be on the front end of rehabilitation.’ And we’re going to build the roster that way and then you get surprised. A positive surprise is always a good thing. So you want to kind of plan conservatively, even if you know you’re being conservative in that way.
The running back himself posted this to his Instagram page showing Batman getting up off the ground and being ready to fight:
From @NickChubb IG.
Batman is on the mend. pic.twitter.com/dsU6oWF0vM— Andrew Siciliano (@AndrewSiciliano) May 3, 2024
This past off-season, Berry renegotiated Chubb’s contract which essentially cut his base salary and added more incentives in order to elevate the final monetary value once he is able to hit the field.
It is certainly a good sign that Chubb is doing well in his rehab with the next step for him to begin running again which means his knee continues to be stable.
The Browns offense will need him to become the bellcow once again.
New bodies for this year’s offense include WR Jerry Jeudy who came over in a trade with the Denver Broncos. The receiver room is quite full which means this unit could see more passing this season. Along with Pro Bowler Amari Cooper, Jeudy and Elijah Moore will man the other two receiver spots. Backups include David Bell, Cedric Tillman, and rookie Jamari Thrash.
The running back room has changed as well as Berry has inked former University of Texas stud D’Onta Foreman away from the Carolina Panthers, and signed Buffalo Bills Nyheim Hines who will become the team’s new return man.
Jerome Ford, Pierre Strong, and John Kelly round out the group.
Berry couldn’t deny that they approach situations like Chubb’s cautiously optimistic. Cleveland will get the offense’s heart back this season.
The question that looms is: When?