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Nick Chubb seems to have suffered another serious setback.
The Cleveland Browns’ four-time Pro Bowl running back suffered 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.
After the hit on safety Minka Fitzpatrick, Sub was thrown into the cart and quickly ejected for the remainder of the contest. After the 5th, Chubb immediately clutched his knee and remained on the ground after the play — ESPN officials declined to reveal the severity of the injury — and both teammates rallied around him before he was ejected.
Steelers fans chanted Chubb’s name as the ball carrier was taken from the field.
Chubb had 64 yards on 10 carries before exiting.
Here’s the latest we know about the injury:
Latest update on Nick Chubb injury
Stefanski did not provide information after the game on the exact nature of the injury, but said he expected it to force Sabb to miss the remainder of the season.
“Obviously, Nick has had a very significant knee injury. … You feel for the guy. He’s a great football player, we know that, but he’s an even better person, so we’ll support him every step of the way.”
Chubb was taken to a local hospital but returned to Cleveland after being released, Stefanski said.
Browns star defensive end Myles Garrett was candid in his assessment of what Chubb’s loss means to the team.
“It (expletive) hurts,” Garrett said in his postgame news conference. “That’s our brother. That’s my brother. … It’s a blow to the whole team, and we don’t want his injury to go to waste. We’ve got to push on.”
Nick Chubb injury history
Monday night’s injury comes nearly eight years after Chubb suffered a gruesome injury to the same left knee as a sophomore at the University of Georgia.
On October 10, 2015, Chubb was injured on the first offensive play of the Bulldogs’ game against the University of Tennessee. Diagnosis: A dislocated knee, three torn ligaments (posterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and lateral collateral ligament) and cartilage damage.
“I remember how it felt when it happened,” Chubb said 2016 ESPN Story About the injury. “I had a tingling sensation in my leg. My body went forward and my leg went back. I knew something was wrong.”
However, after extensive rehabilitation, Chubb returned the following season and rushed for 1,130 yards and five touchdowns. He ran for 1,345 yards and 15 touchdowns as Georgia won the Southeastern Conference, but fell to Alabama in overtime in the national championship game, and became the Browns’ second-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
“Malcolm Gladwell wrote about outliers,” former Georgia director of sports medicine Ron Courson told ESPN in 2016. “Nick is an outsider. He’s genetically gifted. He’s got an amazing work ethic and he’s as mentally tough as anybody I’ve ever seen. I’m not surprised he’s back.”
Chubb sprained the MCL in his right knee in 2020 and missed four games while on injured reserve.
Nick Chubb injury reactions
Once Chubb went down, active and former NFL players, previously writing messages on X on Twitter, voiced their support for the Browns running back.
Browns’ options at running back after Nick Chupp’s injury
After Chubb’s injury, Stefanski’s ground-heavy offense was again led by Jerome Ford. Ford, a fifth-round pick out of Cincinnati last year, racked up 106 rushing yards on 16 carries, with most of his production coming on a 69-yard drive in which he turned the field for a big gain. He also reeled in a 3-yard touchdown catch and finished with three receptions for 25 yards.
Bear Strong Jr. barreled for a goal-line touchdown and had 1 yard on two carries.
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