Here Comes Nick Chubb
Credit: David Dermer-USA TODAY Sports
Nick Chubb got his ACL repaired in November last year, which is a procedure that can take up to a year to recover from for an NFL player. If you’re lucky and have that Wolverine-style (X-Men, not Michigan) healing ability, you can push that up to nine months. Conventional wisdom indicated Cleveland Browns fans wouldn’t see their star back take the field until November, with an outside chance for October.
Someone should really tell Chubb’s knee.
JOC Films, a production company with a Chubb documentary in the works since 2022, released a video on Monday showing the running back squatting 585 pounds. It has been just eight months since his surgery.
.@NickChubb looks ready to get back out there. 😤👏
(via joc.films/IG) pic.twitter.com/RiNqK9oVIH
— NFL (@NFL) July 15, 2024
Nick Chubb 2024. He’s running, folks. It’s just a matter of when.
What’s more, you have to start wondering just how good Chubb can be when he comes back. In normal circumstances, it’d be almost certain to see a diminished version of Chubb as the knee continues to rehab to full strength. Even without the ACL tear, Chubb turning 29 in December is at least a bit of a red flag for most any running back.
But if this is what Chubb is capable of so soon after surgery, we have no idea what the upper limit is for him this year. It’s impossible to not start at least thinking of Adrian Peterson, who tore his ACL in December 2011 and returned in Week 1, eight months and two weeks after his surgery. You know the story. Peterson won the AP MVP award after torching the league for 2,097 yards.
No one’s going to think even a running back as great as Chubb is going to threaten the single-season rushing record, of course. But if Chubb is showing that kind of strength in coming back from injury, why can’t he have just a standard Nick Chubb Season? Especially since Chubb has about another month of recovery time that the admittedly younger Peterson had.
That sort of season (1,300-1,500 yards) could be in reach for Chubb, even if he starts with a relatively light workload. Remember, Peterson started relatively slow in 2012, with “just” one 100-yard outing and 499 yards through six games. As he got stronger, things became more unbelievable, as his average of 160 yards to close out his remaining 10 games would tell you.
Again, the point is less that Chubb can match those numbers (he almost can’t), and more to illustrate how much stronger he can get throughout the season. Peterson started hitting his stride in late October and early November. If Chubb can match the Peterson timeline, you can circle the calendar on those games to watch for the old Nick Chubb.
No one has to say that Chubb returning to full health this year would be huge for the Browns, right? It feels dumb to even ask, but this is a team that got to the playoffs with two games from Chubb and six games from Deshaun Watson. Adding a healthy Chubb to the mix — which is starting to look like a reality — would be the kind of impossibly good luck that hasn’t been seen much in Cleveland. Is it pie-in-the-sky thinking? Maybe, but also: Just look at Chubb. Watching what he’s able to do makes absurd optimism feel rational.
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