Andrew Berry: Nick Chubb is progressing nicely given this point in time
After suffering a season-ending knee injury in Week 2 of last season, Browns running back Nick Chubb continues to progress in his recovery.
In a Thursday interview with The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima on 92.3 The Fan, General Manager Andrew Berry said Chubb is "feeling good."
"He’s doing a really nice job in his rehab," Berry said. "Still has got a long way to go, but he's progressing nicely given this point in time."
While the Browns did not use one of their six selections in this year's draft on a running back, the team is still planning for the possibility that Chubb will not be available for at least some of the 2024 season. Jerome Ford started 12 games for Cleveland last season, finishing with 1,132 yards from scrimmage with nine total touchdowns, and remains on the roster. Cleveland also brought in veterans Nyheim Hines and D’Onta Foreman in free agency.
Berry noted that as a general philosophy, the Browns like to make sure a position is fortified with depth if there’s an injury concern.
“One of the biggest roster-building challenges is when you’re trying to plan out a position group when the availability of a player is unknown — whether it's because they're coming off a season-ending injury, whether it's because they maybe have some injury history where you know they're probably going to miss some games,” Berry said. “That can be really tough to plan around. In those cases, we usually plan pretty conservatively in terms of on the more negative side of the expectation for their availability, just because there's more downside if you assume, ‘OK well they're going to be on the front end of rehabilitation.’ And we’re going to build the roster that way and then you get surprised. A positive surprise is always a good thing.
“So you want to kind of plan conservatively, even if you know you're being conservative in that way.”
Chubb has started running, which is a positive sign. Cleveland and Chubb agreed to a renegotiated contract that cut his base salary and he’ll have a chance to make up the balance with incentives.
