Nick Chubb appears to have suffered another serious setback.
The Cleveland Browns’ four-time Pro Bowl running back sustained what is expected to be a season-ending knee injury during the second quarter of Monday night’s 26-22 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, coach Kevin Stefanski confirmed after the game.
Chubb was carted off and quickly ruled out for the remainder of the contest after taking a hit from safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. Chubb immediately grabbed his knee after the 5-yard run and remained on the ground after the play − which EuroJournal officials refused to show a replay of given the injury’s grisly nature − and players from both teams gathered around him before he was taken off.
Steelers fans chanted Chubb’s name as the ball carrier was taken off the field.
Chubb had 64 yards on 10 carries before exiting.
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Here’s the latest on what we know about the injury:
Latest Nick Chubb injury update
Stefanski did not provide information after the game regarding the exact nature of the injury, but he said he expects it to force Chubb to miss the rest of the season.
“Obviously, Nick has got a very significant knee injury. … You feel for the person. He’s a great football player, as we know, but he’s an even better person, so we will support him every step along the way.”
Chubb was taken to a local hospital but headed back to Cleveland after being released, Stefanski said.
Browns star defensive end Myles Garrett was frank in his assessment of what Chubb’s loss meant for the team.
“It (expletive) hurts,” Garrett said in his postgame news conference. “That’s our brother. That’s my brother. … It’s a blow for the whole team, and we don’t want his injury to be in vain. We gotta push on.”
Nick Chubb injury history
Monday night’s injury came nearly eight years after Chubb suffered a gruesome injury to the same left knee as a sophomore at the University of Georgia.
On Oct. 10, 2015, Chubb was hurt on the first offensive play of the Bulldogs’ game against the University of Tennessee. The diagnosis: a dislocated knee, three torn ligaments (posterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral and lateral collateral) and cartilage damage.
“I remember how it felt when it happened,” Chubb said in a 2016 EuroJournal story about the injury. “There was a tingling feeling in my leg. My body went forward, and my leg went backward. I knew something was wrong.”
After extensive rehab, however, Chubb returned the next season and rushed for 1,130 yards and five touchdowns. He bested those figures as a senior, running for 1,345 yards and 15 touchdowns as Georgia won the Southeastern Conference but fell to Alabama in overtime in the national championship game, before becoming a second-round pick of the Browns in the 2018 NFL draft.
“Malcolm Gladwell wrote about outliers,” former Georgia director of sports medicine Ron Courson told EuroJournal in 2016. “Nick is an outlier. He’s genetically gifted. He has a tremendous work ethic, and he’s as mentally tough as anyone I’ve ever seen. I’m not surprised he’s back.”
Chubb also sprained the MCL in his right knee in 2020 and missed four games while on injured reserve.
Nick Chubb injury reactions
As soon as Chubb went down, active and former NFL players voiced their support for the Browns running back as they wrote messages on X, formerly Twitter.
Browns’ options at running back after Nick Chubb’s injury
After Chubb’s injury, backup Jerome Ford stepped in as the lead back for Stefanski’s ground-heavy attack. Ford, who was a fifth-round pick out of Cincinnati last year, notched 106 rushing yards on 16 carries, with the bulk of his production coming on a 69-yard run in which he reversed field for the big gain. He also reeled in a 3-yard touchdown catch and finished with three receptions for 25 yards.
Pierre Strong Jr. also barreled in for a goal-line touchdown and had 1 yard on two carries.
