Cleveland Browns: Is a Nick Chubb extension the smart move?

RB contracts never work for the team

Other teams have paid their star RBs in the past, and it’s almost never worked out. Le’Veon Bell, Ezekiel Elliott, and Todd Gurley are the three biggest whiffs in recent history, and while Derrick Henry, Alvin Kamara, and Christian McCaffery are still going strong after signing new deals, they haven’t actually reached the points in those contracts where the big money kicks in, so the jury is still very much out.

Making a mistake by paying an RB can be devastating because it always comes at the expense of another position. If the Browns keep Chubb, they will have to say goodbye to a very good player at a much more valuable position.

It’s hard to say exactly who that will be, however. The team is rolling $20 million in cap space into 2022, and has extensions for Mayfield, Ward, perhaps an offensive lineman or two, a safety, etc. looming on the horizon, and Myles Garrett’s contract skyrockets to over $30 million in 2023. Funds will be tight, and the team will have to say goodbye to some key players. This is a good problem to have, and certainly better than having no players worth paying, but it is a problem nonetheless.

The bottom line is that Cleveland has limited funds and the history of RB contracts is downright ugly. Adrian Peterson and LeSean McCoy are two exceptions, but that was almost 10 years ago. The game has changed a lot since then. Chubb could very well be on the level of Peterson, but how much does that really change things?

The closest those Vikings teams got to the Super Bowl was with 40-year-old Brett Favre, years before Peterson was extended. Peterson was the greatest back of his generation, but without a QB, it didn’t matter much.

Cleveland has a quarterback, and that’s part of what makes this discussion so interesting. Chubb is entirely capable of being an offensive centerpiece (whether that’s a good idea was addressed previously, the answer is no, it isn’t), but he doesn’t have to be, because Mayfield has shown he can be as good as any other passer in the NFL, in spite of a WR corps that suits him terribly.

That issue should be somewhat fixed in 2021 and should continue to be addressed moving forward. The threat of Chubb, while still the league’s best runner, should be secondary, which has to scare a defense.

One of the arguments for extending Chubb is that he has a relatively low amount of touches to this point in his career, and thus he can play at a high level for longer before his body begins to break down. That’s an inevitability for running backs; it happened after Gurley’s fourth year in the league, and it happens to many good players before they turn 27, when they should be in the midst of their athletic primes.

Chubb has touched the ball 752 times over the past three seasons. For reference, Henry has 1,135. Chubb has not been a bell cow for the Browns, and while he likely could be, that will never happen as long as Hunt is on the team. Perhaps they would even find a Hunt replacement who could get 200 touches a season behind Chubb moving forward.

But this begs the question; is it a good idea to pay a player at a low-value position who is splitting touches top dollar? It is exceedingly unlikely that Chubb has three high-level seasons left in him. Maybe he does, but the chances are slim based on all the other backs in the league over the past decade.

Every team with a good running back thinks they have the unicorn, and no one ever does. History is against a Chubb extension working out for the Browns. That doesn’t mean it won’t, but we know this front office relies on data, as all smart decision-makers should. The key is contextualizing that data, accounting for positional value, opportunity cost, and ultimately, projected wins and losses.

The Browns are clearly a worse football team without Chubb. They won’t find a player as perfectly suited for this scheme as he, let alone a back as good. He is special, but is he special enough to pay?