Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski confirmed that running back Nick Chubb is out for the season with a knee injury that will require surgery in his Tuesday video conference.
“I talked to him this morning, he’s in the building,” Stefanski said. "[He’s] disappointed, as you all can imagine. And it’s hard because these guys put so much into this. These are very real people and it hurts him, it hurts us.
“So, like I said before, we will support him in every way. The best thing we can do to support him, the best thing we can do to honor who Nick Chubb is is go out there and perform, go out there and work. I think that’s ultimately what Nick expects this team to do.”
Winning games will be harder without Chubb, who has averaged 5.3 yards per carry over his career and was averaging 6.1 yards per carry this season at the time of his injury on Monday night. Stefanski said G.M. Andrew Berry and the Browns’ personnel department are looking at external options. But at least for now, Cleveland will roll with Jerome Ford as its featured running back.
“As you know — you don’t replace Nick Chubb. You just don’t do that,” Stefanski said. “Great players in the league, you look around, they go out, it’s always not one person that replaces a player of his caliber. So, everybody’s got to do a little bit more. You’ve got to do a little bit more everywhere. But we’ll look at options there in terms of who we bring in.”
Stefanski noted that the offense may change somewhat without Chubb available, but there’s some of that happening on a weekly basis regardless.
“I think you do that week-to-week, based on who’s available to you,” Stefanski said. “Obviously, you lose Nick, but we have players back there that we really trust and we like a lot. So, it does shift some things to different guys and we’ll work through that throughout this week and really throughout the season.”
Ford recorded 106 yards on 16 carries, including a 69-yard burst that set up a touchdown. The Browns also have Pierre Strong available and Elijah Moore has been used out of the backfield some.
Former Browns running back Kareem Hunt is still a free agent and it might make sense for Cleveland to take a look at him as a veteran option.