Football fans were rejoicing at the start of last evening as the NFL scheduled two games to be played on Monday night. The night started off fine since the Panthers and Saints matchup started an entire hour before the Browns and Steelers faced off.
The game started off as an ugly, gritty battle between heated division rivals as most Browns-Steelers matchups are. However, things took a turn for the worse for not just Cleveland Browns fans, but football fans in general.
Superstar running back Nick Chubb took a handoff up the middle in the red zone like he has done hundredsof times before in his NFL career, however this carry would change his life forever.
As his leg was still planted into the ground, The Steelers’ Swiss army knife Minkah Fitzpatrick went low and smashed into Chubb’s knee. His leg bent the completely opposite way at an almost 90-degree angle, and he immediately went to the ground, holding his knee and writhing in pain.
Out of respect for Chubb, I will not show a picture of the injury, as even the national broadcast deemed the injury too gruesome to even show a replay of.
Football fans across the country and players alike began sending out wishes and prayers for Chubb as he was carted off the field. He was almost immediately ruled out of the game with a knee injury, and everyone knew the worst had most likely happened.
It is very uncommon to see such an outpour of prayers and support for a knee injury in the NFL, but for Chubb it was different. Teams usually wait to do preliminary testing before announcing an injury.
However, like I previously stated, Chubb was ruled out with a knee injury almost immediately. Immediately after the game during his postgame interview, head coach Kevin Stefanski said he expects Chubb to miss the entire season, although they do not know the official diagnosis of the injury quite yet.
For Chubb however, this may be his career on the line. In 2015, when he was still in college playing for Georgia, he suffered an eerily similar injury where his leg bent in a way it wasn’t supposed to.
This resulted in a dislocated knee, along with a torn MCL, PCL, and LCL. Chubb tore almost every ligament in his knee and unfortunately, he may have just done the same thing last night to the exact same leg as before.
NFL running backs already have an extremely short shelf life and have an extremely difficult time getting paid fairly. Luckily for Chubb he signed a nearly $40 million contract, so he got paid a good amount of money opposed to the other people that play his position. Unfortunately, with two catastrophic injuries to the same knee, he may never step on an NFL field again.
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