The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Chubb focused on Titans, not Henry
Browns RB lost out on 2019 rushing title to Tennessee powerhouse in final game
If Browns star running back Nick Chubb circled dates to get revenge, it would be “Dec. 6” in big thick lines.
Nick Chubb doesn’t circle dates on his calendar, unless he needs to remind himself of a dentist appointment or that it’s time to get his tires rotated.
But if the Browns star was the kind of guy who did circle dates to get revenge, he would have surrounded “Dec. 6, 2020” with the widest, thickest mark he could make as soon as the 2020 NFL schedule was released, because that is the day the Browns play the Tennessee Titans in Nashville.
More specifically, Dec. 6 is the day Chubb and Titans running back Derrick Henry will be on opposite sidelines in the
same stadium.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” Chubb said Dec. 2 on Zoom after practice in Berea. “I’m not really focused on anything that has to do personally with me.
“It ’s nothing persona l against him. It’s more of just myself. I am not mad at Derrick Henry for getting the rushing title last year.”
Chubb led the NFL in rushing heading into the final Sunday of the 2019 season, but he carried the ball only 13 times for 41 yards — his lowest output of the season — in a depressing 33-23 loss to the Bengals in Cincinnati.
Meanwhile, Henry carried the ball 32 times and steamrolled the Houston Texans for 211 yards and three touchdowns in a 3514 Titans victory.
Henry won the NFL rushing title with 1,540 yards. Chubb was second with 1,494 yards.
“I think (not getting the rushing title) bothers everybody else besides Nick Chubb, just to be quite honest,” Browns quarterback
Baker Mayfield said Dec. 2.
Any hope Chubb had of winning the rushing crown in 2020 ended when a knee injury forced him to miss Games 5-8.
Still, Chubb is seventh with 719 yards despite missing 25 percent of the season. Henry is leading the pack with 1,257 yards followed by Dalvin Cook of the Minnesota Vikings with 1,130 yards.
And t hough the CBS television crew of Ian Eagle and Charles Davis will likely make the game about Chubb-Henry, it is much more than that.
The Browns are 8-3 and trying to hang onto the top wild-card spot in the AFC. The Titans are 8-3 and trying to stay in first in the AFC South.
“I know everybody is going to want to say it’s all about these running backs
— the three of them (including the Browns’ Kareem Hunt),” Mayfield said. “They’re extremely special; don’t get me wrong. But this is a great game and great teams. It’s going to be all three phases against each other. We’re going to have to play complementary football and play as a team to win this game. It’s going to be a physical one.”
Jack Conklin knows Henry and Chubb better than anyone. He was the right tackle in Tennessee and blocked for Henry for four years before signing as a free agent with the Browns in March.
“They’re two very different backs,” Conklin said. “Derrick is special because he’s just so big. He’s 6-3, 250, and he runs a 4.4. That’s just a giant.
“Nick is just a different body build. Another ex
tremely, extremely special back. They’re both guys who are very good at reading the holes and setting up blocks. They both are great at breaking tackles. You see that in the yards after contact. Both of them really excel at that.”
Statistically, the Browns have the better run defense. They rank 10th with 1,190 rushing yards allowed. The Titans are 16th with 1,271 yards allowed.
Injury report Denzel Ward (c a l f ) did not practice with the Browns Dec. 1. He has been ruled out of the game with the Titans.
Running back D’Onta Foreman (knee), cornerback Adoree Jackson (knee), guard Roger Saffold (knee), defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons (knee) and tight end Jonnu Smith (knee) did not practice for the Titans.