5 Cleveland Browns players having career seasons in 2021
By John Suchan
No. 4: Cleveland Browns RB Nick Chubb
At Week 13, Nick Chubb sits at 867 yards on the year. His best season was back in 2019 when he ran for 1,494 yards. Despite only playing nine games this season, he’s still averaging 96 yards a game. Can he catch his previous best mark? If you do the math, he certainly will get close.
Last weekend against the Baltimore Ravens, Chubb was able to carry the ball eight measly times in which he gained only 16 yards. It was very uncharacteristic for Chubb to get so few carries. If the Browns want to win games over these next five weeks, they need to stick to their bread and butter. If not, head coach Kevin Stefanski may get run out of Cleveland.
In the five previous games, before the Ravens game that Chubb had played in, he went over the century mark in yards gained four times. He’s also averaging 5.8 yards a carry, even despite the 2.0 yards a carry average last week. The 5.8 average is the best in Chubb’s career.
I’m looking forward to Stefanski learning his lesson, with that loss against Baltimore and allowing Chubb and his counterpart Kareem Hunt to run the ball more than 15 times in a game and not have Mayfield dishing out 37 passes.
No. 3: Cleveland Browns TE David Njoku
David Njoku, the Browns veteran tight end, who’s been in Cleveland since 2017 is having a great year. He stands at 407 yards receiving, which actually leads the team in receiving yards. It’s usually not a good sign for a team when their tight end leads the team in receiving yards.
Despite that, he’s closing in on his career-best of 639 yards. He also has three touchdown catches, which if he can get to five would be a career highlight. He’s averaging over 15 yards a catch which is also a personal best for him.
Njoku is in his last season with the Browns on his current contract, where he’s getting paid $6 million. Does he return to Cleveland next season? Austin Hooper is scheduled to earn $9.5 million next year and isn’t a free agent until 2024. With the addition of second-year tight end Harrison Bryant, one really has to think Njoku could be on the way out, unfortunately.
With that in mind, if Njoku can be targeted enough in this up and down offense, the star tight end will try and do his best to get to those career bests.