CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Browns running back Nick Chubb is a budding star and he’ll soon be paid like one if he keeps playing the way he has since being selected in the second round of the 2018 draft.
After finishing second in the league with 1,494 yards rushing in 2019, Chubb is in line for a big payday if he follows it up with a strong 2020 season.
Chubb, who is in the third year of his rookie contract, is eligible for an extension next spring and with the bar reset recently, it figures to be a big one too.
The extension for Carolina’s Christian McCaffrey averages $16 million per year. Ezekiel Elliott got a $15 million per year average from the Cowboys. Derrick Henry is set to pull in $12.5 million from Tennessee.
LeVeon Bell of the Jets and David Johnson of the Texans are set to pull in over $13 million annually.
“I see it, I know it’s happening, I’m aware of it,” Chubb said Thursday. “But I’m just focusing on this team right now. I’m a big believer in everything happens for a reason. Whatever happens to me, it’ll be for the best, I believe. So I’m just trying to get better every day here and not worry about the future.”
Chubb doesn’t say much.
He doesn’t need to.
“You can just tell how much he loves football by the way he practices,” rookie receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones said. “It has been very inspiring to me just to see how he practices and how he finishes. Great to be around.”
Chubb has started 25 of the 32 games he’s appeared in for the Browns. He’s averaged 5.1 yards per carry and scored eight touchdowns on the ground in each of his first two NFL seasons.
“He’s a man of few words, even less than me,” head coach Kevin Stefanski said.
“I love how Nick Chubb works. You see him on the grass and you see him in the classroom, he is all ball all the time. He is a good person. He is a solid citizen. He is a great teammate.”
Cornerback Denzel Ward is grateful he doesn’t have to worry about slowing Chubb down on Sunday’s.
“You guys see what Nick Chubb can do. He is a big back. He can run. He is shifty. He is a one-cut guy,” Ward said. “He is definitely a playmaker out there. Some people will probably be hesitant seeing him come around on the edge as fast as he comes. He is a great player.”
No hard feelings – Last month Chubb missed three practices after suffering a concussion when linebacker Mack Wilson tackled him up near the neck area, but he was back on the field by the end of the week.
“It was a scary moment,” Chubb said. “I knew I was fine. Just a little dizzy, but that’s it.”
The next day, after being demoted to the second team defense as punishment for the overzealous hit, Wilson hyperextended his left knee while trying to defend on a play. Chubb didn’t hold any grudges.
“It’s football,” Chubb said. “He’s playing hard, going hard, as he always does.”
A second opinion of the injury confirmed Wilson will avoid surgery and potentially can return at the end of September or early October.
“I did feel horrible the next day seeing his knee injury,” Chubb, who suffered a torn PCL, MCL, ACL and cartilage damage at Georgia in 2015, said. “It was me and him inside the training room. I’m the perfect guy for him to talk to about knee injuries, so I encouraged him.
“It turns out his injury isn’t as near bad as mine, so that’s a positive that came out of it. Now we’re just trying to get him back out there with us.”
Return to form – Ward made the Pro Bowl as a rookie despite missing three of the final four games of the season due to a concussion and he hopes to return in 2020.
“That’s definitely a goal of mine,” Ward said.
After his sophomore season was slowed by a hamstring injury early, Ward has his sights on returning to elite form and help the Browns start to win games.
“Every time I go out there it’s a big opportunity to show that I’m an elite corner in this league and do what I can do to help my team win,” Ward said.
Dress rehearsal – Friday night’s practice at FirstEnergy Stadium will resemble a practice more than a game or scrimmage, but it will include players going through game day warm-ups and coaches wearing headsets.
“It is a dress rehearsal in the stadium,” Stefanski said. “I mean that literally in terms of they are going to be in their uniforms, the coaches are going to be dressed in their game attire, we are going put headsets on and the coaches will be up in the booth. It is going to be a crisp, quick practice. It is not going to be a scrimmage. It is not going to be something where we are going to play the young guys for an hour to see what we have because the truth is, this whole camp has been an evaluation of those young guys. They get evaluated in their individual period and they get evaluated in the classroom so it is way more of a dress rehearsal. The guys need to go through what pregame warmup looks like.”
Mission accomplished – Stefanski feels he was able to accomplish what he set out to during a much different training camp that was disrupted by COVID-19 testing, injuries and attention to social justice.
“I think the credit goes to the coaches and to our staff. We put together a plan, and we adjusted and we adapted,” Stefanski said. “I cannot tell you how many times we have changed the schedule on the players and the coaches. Again, it has been a resilient bunch. I feel like we have done the things that we set out to do, and now, we just have to go play football.”
