Smart and selfless. That’s what his teammates and coaches said about Browns running back Nick Chubb said about his 59-yard run near the end of Cleveland’s 10-7 win over the Texans on Sunday. Chubb could have skated in for a touchdown, but the idea was to have Baker Mayfield end the game with two kneeldowns instead, which is what happened. What the Browns did not want was to give Deshsaun Watson the ball back with any time left on the clock.
“I would not have been mad at him if he scored, but we told him – our code word for that is ‘no mas,” head coach Kevin Stefanski said after the game. “We told him that before the third down. You are thinking gain the first and go down. Well, he gained the first and more. I would not have been mad at him, but knowing Nick, when you tell him to do something, he is going to do it.”
That's our RB 😤
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— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) November 15, 2020
“I got a call from the coach and from Baker to not score and to get the first down to end the game, so that is what I did,” Chubb said. “Luckily, the run was a little bit longer because I didn’t think about it until the last 10 yards. I think that reminded me, running all the way down there.”
Is it tough for Chubb to not score in a situation like that?
“Yeah, it is. That is the natural instinct to get into the end zone. Something came in my head and said let’s go out of bounds. I should have just taken a knee or slid to keep the clock running, but it was a split-second decision.”
Mayfield praised Chubb’s “team-first mentality.” which is accurate, but the most agonizing thing for Houston’s defense is that they knew what was coming — they just had no way to stop it.
Houston safety Michael Thomas, when asked to explain what happened:
“They ran their crack-toss play that they ran previously in the game. We knew it was coming and I saw guys fit in where they needed to fit – I think it was T.A. [Texans LB Tyrell Adams] – he comes up and sets the edge and takes out a part of the line. I see [safety] Justin Reid coming downhill and relentless – he goes hard every single game; he never takes a game off – and unfortunately, Chubb found a way to get outside and we did not get him to cut back into the teeth of our defense, nor did we get a way to push him out of bounds, which would have been better.
“You see him somehow stay in bounds and tightrope the sideline. I think our guys fought hard. They knew the situation and they knew we needed that play to keep ourselves alive and give us a chance to come back and win the game. Chubb made one more play than we did.”
Well, you can see Reid [No. 20] coming downhill, but you can also see Reid missing any real attempt at a tackle. Chubb is one of the NFL’s best power/speed runners, so if you want to take him out at the sideline, you’re going to have to do better than that. And Adams [No. 50] had an angle until he got blocked out by tight end Harrison Bryant. One of the most important parts of this play was having Bryant [No. 88] and tight end David Njoku [No. 85] blocking back to the formation as the offensive line was sliding out. Just as Bryant took out Adams, Njoku helped left tackle Jedrick Willis [No. 71] deal with edge-rusher Whitney Mercilus [No. 59]. That’s about all Chubb is going to need on any play for a big gain.
“That was a smart football play,” Thomas concluded. “There will probably be some fantasy football participants who have Chubb and are upset about it, but he made the play he is supposed to make. You want to go out of bounds and never let special teams or the opposing offense touch the ball again. It was a good decision by him, and that is why he is one of the best running backs in the game. For us, we are beating ourselves up about that, because we were doing a great job as a defense, stopping the run. If we had gotten that stop, which we set ourselves up for, we knew the play, we were there to make the play and we did not make it. That is tough on us.”
J.J. Watt, who was on the other side of the formation for this play, was more succinct in his postgame analysis.
“From my vantage point, we strung out the play all the way to the sideline. He was about five yards behind the line and then, somehow he ended up at the one-yard line.”
Well, that’s how it happened, and it’s a big reason the Browns are now 6-3, while the Texans sink to 2-7 on the season.