Following the season-ending injury to Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski has named a new team captain: popular running back Nick Chubb.
Watson had been named one of the team's five captains before the start of the season along with offensive guard Joel Bitonio, edge rusher Myles Garrett, cornerback Denzel Ward, and long snapper Charley Hughlett. On Oct. 20, though, Watson tore his Achilles tendon during the Browns' 21-14 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, ending his season after just seven games.
With Watson sidelined and replaced for the foreseeable future by Jameis Winston, Stefanski opted to name an offensive captain to replace him.
During his media availability yesterday, Stefanski, who relinquished offensive play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey following Watson's injury, said he chose Chubb as a “season-long captain with Deshaun not out there.”
Nick Chubb returns from injury, earns captain honor
While Watson just went down with a catastrophic injury, Chubb recently returned from one. The seventh-year running back underwent two knee surgeries in 2023 to repair his MCL, ACL, meniscus, and medial capsule after suffering a gruesome injury vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 2 of the season.
Unlike Watson, whose Achilles injury elicited cheers from Browns fans as a result of his poor play and/or numerous sexual misconduct allegations, Chubb is a beloved player in Cleveland. The Georgia product rushed for more than 1,000 yards in four-consecutive seasons from 2019 to 2022, and in his rookie season, he ended the year 4 yards shy of reaching the 1K mark.
While recovering from the injury, Chubb missed the first six games of the 2024 season before finally making his return against the Bengals in the same game Watson suffered his injury. Chubb rushed for 22 yards and a touchdown, in addition to catching a pass for 10 yards in his first game in more than a year.
Against the Baltimore Ravens the next week, Chubb rushed for 52 yards as the Browns, with Winston as the starter, notched their first win since Week 2.
Chubb previously served as a Browns captain during the 2022 season, but before the 2023 season, Watson, entering his second year in Cleveland, replaced Chubb as one of the five captains. Although Chubb did not comment on the move, Jerome Ford, who was a rookie during Chubb's year as captain, attested to the star running back's leadership.
“We all look at Nick as our big brother,” Ford said before the 2023 season. “So any questions we have about life, football, anything, we ask Nick. And I feel like it kind of helped keep him on his toes too, even with the playbook. Be like, ‘Yo, Nick, what we got on this?’ And he’ll get us back.
“If he know it, he’d tell us right then and there. And if it’s something new that we just might have just went over, he’d be like, ‘Yo, coach, what’s this?’ For new guys who ain’t ready to just be like, ‘Yo coach, what I got?' in the middle of a meeting in front of everybody, he’ll ask for you, stuff like that.”
The Browns will try to earn a second win in a row this weekend vs. the Los Angeles Chargers.
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