Nick Chubb Is Laying Claim To The "Best Running Back Alive" Title
Through the first three games of the 2022 season, nobody has rushed for more yards, and been more productive doing so.
Perhaps the most incredible accomplishment by running back Nick Chubb this season is that he’s made it okay to lavish praise on a prominent member of the Cleveland Browns offense, and not feel totally disgusting about it (as you would when discussing a certain you-know-who1 that has yet to be inserted into Cleveland’s lineup).
Of course, that’s not the only thing Chubb has accomplished to date.
For those not paying close attention: Chubb currently leads the NFL in rushing yards, accumulating 341 yards and four touchdowns on the ground, while averaging 5.5 yards per carry in the process.
And lest you look at this as cherry-picking a trend stemming from a small sample size, let’s not forget:
Chubb is coming off of three-straight seasons with more than 1,000 yards rushing
He averages the most yards per carry among running backs since 20192
Since 2018, no running back has had more games with 100+ yards rushing than Chubb
He was the 3rd-fastest player to reach 5,000 career rushing yards
The advanced analytics back up the empirical evidence: Football Outsiders actually had Chubb ranked among the top four running backs3 in each of the prior two seasons.
Entering the 2022 season, the biggest question I wrestled with, in terms of projecting Chubb’s performance for this year, was how much “running space” he’d have, given that teams really didn’t have to worry about stopping Cleveland’s passing game.
So the fact that Chubb has been putting up this level of production, despite having the second-highest percentage of rushing attempts against defenses with 8 or more guys in the box4, is that much more impressive.
With all of that said, even after Jonathan Taylor's monstrously productive 2021 season, Derrick Henry's rampage through defenses over the past three seasons, and the incredible dual-threat production of guys like Christian McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara and Austin Ekeler, asking if Nick Chubb is “the best running back” in the NFL isn’t just empty social media clickbait—but rather a highly legitimate question with plenty of supporting arguments.
Again, Chubb is currently ranked as the best running back in the NFL according to PFF, and the second-best running back in the NFL according to Football Outsiders. He's second in the NFL in total yards from scrimmage. His unbelievable lower-body strength5 allows him to run with a terrifying combination of agility and power— he’s as proficient and dangerous when running between the tackles as any running back in the league, and he’s forced more missed tackles by himself this season than the entirety of the remaining 31 NFL teams6.
And lest you think of him as some short-yardage battering ram 7, regardless of what the opposing defense is doing8: his combination of yards after contact per attempt plus forced missed tackles per attempt over the past two seasons. There's a reason why he's tied for the league lead in carries of 20+ yards this season.
Simply translated: no running back in the league makes the most out of every attempt to the extent that Chubb does.
It’s not hard to see why his teammates and coaches love him so much (they named one of Cleveland’s two offensive captains), as do many onlookers around the team. Head coach Kevin Stefanksi calls him “a no maintenance guy.” His fellow team captain(s) laud the way he carries himself, and how hard he works and practices. He talks like a coach, saying things like “we got a long way to go” when reminded that he leads the league in rushing.
At a position that sometimes tends to create self-centered primadonna’s, Chubb has been described as "Captain America jumping on the grenade-type unselfish". After Cleveland’s Week 2 meltdown loss to the New York Jets, Chubb took responsibility for the team’s defeat, blaming himself for the touchdown run that actually gave the Browns a 13-point lead with less than two minutes left in the game, instead of kneeling down before he got to the end zone and allowing the Browns to subsequently drain the clock9.
Were it not for said collapse by Cleveland, the Browns would be 3-0 to start the season—and Chubb would almost certainly be considered the MVP on said (almost) winless team.
But between an otherwise “unsexy” Cleveland being lumped among all the rest of the teams with a 2-1 record, combined with the overall devaluation of the running back position in the NFL overall, Chubb still isn’t getting the full recognition that he probably deserves.
Still, at the level in which he's playing, he's well on pace to conclusively pass all the usual names we mention as “the best running back alive”10 , giving us no choice but to bestow that recognition upon him.
Better late than never, I suppose. ■
2022 NFL Picks — Week 4
My picks in bold
Miami at Cincinnati (-3.5)11
Washington at Dallas (-3)
Chicago at NY Giants (-3)
Cleveland (-1) at Atlanta
Jacksonville at Philadelphia (-6.5)
Minnesota (-3) at New Orleans
Cleveland (-1) at Atlanta
Seattle at Detroit (-3)
Tennessee at Indianapolis (-3.5)
NY Jets at Pittsburgh (-3.5)
Buffalo (-3) at Baltimore
LA Chargers (-5) at Houston
Arizona at Carolina (-1)
New England at Green Bay (-9.5)
Denver at Las Vegas (-2.5)
Kansas City at Tampa Bay (pick ‘em)
LA Rams at San Francisco (-1.5)
Last Week: 5-9
Season To Date: 22-23
Let me just say this about Deshaun Watson and his legal situation: it’s the definition of “being considered innocent only because he wasn’t proven guilty.” If, even for a second, you believe that he actually didn’t commit a large number of the transgressions for which he’s been accused, I simply don’t know what to tell you.
Minimum of 300 attempts
Based on Football Outsiders’ DYAR (or Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement) metric, which gives the value of the performance on plays where this RB carried/caught the ball compared to replacement level, adjusted for situation and opponent and then translated into yardage.
If you consider yourself a football fan, do yourself and subscribe to Football Outsiders. Their basic subscription is free—that’s what I currently have—so you really don’t have much of an excuse
The only running back with a higher percentage of carries against defenses with eight or more defenders in the box? That would be Kareem Hunt—which only further solidifies the fact that opposing teams are selling out to stop Cleveland’s running game, but haven’t been able to stop Chubb (or Hunt). To date, Cleveland leads the NFL this season with 19 runs of at least 10 yards, after leading the league in the same category last season.
If you watched the Browns-Steelers game last Thursday, you saw the clip of Chubb squatting well over 600lbs—basically the equivalent of two smallish refrigerators, or an adult male grizzly bear.
As one person commented on Twitter: it’s amazing what Chubb has been able to accomplish after suffering what was described as a grotesque, gruesome, and career-altering injury during his sophomore year at the University of Georgia. That awkward landing on his left leg instantly tore his PCL (posterior cruciate ligament), MCL (medial collateral) and LCL (lateral collateral), and even dislocated his knee cap. Yet 10 months later, Chubb returned to the Bulldogs’ lineup, and would go on to run for 2,475 yards and 23 touchdowns during his final two seasons at Georgia.
No running back has had more rushing attempts (62) than Chubb through the first three games. He’s currently on pace to carry the football over 351 times. And yes, it is fair to wonder about the sustainability of his current level of play, given that has missed time in each of the prior two seasons with a lower body malady—two games due to a calf injury in 2021 plus another one that season after testing positive for COVID-19, as well as four games in 2020 due to an MCL injury. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that he’ll turn 27 years old this December—an age in which wear and tear could start affecting him, as is the case with most high-volume running backs.
Before I make it sound like the Browns’ entire offense is just “bludgeoning Chubb (and Hunt) against the opposing defense,” head coach Kevin Stefanski, offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, and the rest of Cleveland’s offensive staff deserves their fair share of credit in the way they’re attacking defenses with Chubb and Hunt—like pulling out running plays that include as many as eight offensive linemen on the field, for example.
Props to Chubb for owning this, even if it is a “chicken or the egg” type of argument. Yes, Chubb could have knelt down before he got to the end zone and ended the game for Cleveland, given that the Jets didn’t have any timeouts left and there was less than two minutes left in the game. Except:
Cleveland wouldn't have been at the point in the game to close out the win had it not been for Chubb's 113 yards from scrimmage and two additional touchdowns prior to the one in question, and the strength of the Browns was supposed to be their defense
It’s really not a good look to blame Chubb for blowing a 13-point lead with less than two minutes left when everyone on the Browns went into this season telling anyone that would listen that their goal was to have the #1 overall defense in the NFL this year.
You can somewhat write off the early-season struggles of guys like Jonathan Taylor or Derrick Henry (they're the focal point of opposing defenses while their team's passing game is still working out the bugs) or Austin Ekeler (a rusty start for the entire offense compounded by a ton of injuries).
But no coaching staff has done the polar opposite for their running back that Stefanski and company have done for Chubb than the Carolina Panthers. Matt Rhule, with a healthy assist from Ben McAdoo, is committing coaching malpractice, on the verge of criminal negligence, with Christian McCaffrey and the Panthers' offense in general.
While it’s not elsewhere recorded, I promise you that I made this pick prior to kickoff of Thursday’s night game—especially considering the line was still Cincinnati getting 3.5 points when I wrote down my pick, before the spread moved to 4 points.