CLEVELAND - Nick Chubb's runner-up finish to Tennessee Titans star Derrick Henry for the NFL rushing title last season still irks the Cleveland Browns. Most of them, anyway.
"I think it bothers everybody else besides Nick Chubb, just to be quite honest," Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield said this week.
Chubb is unlikely to dethrone Henry this season after missing four games with a sprained right knee. He will, however, have a chance to showcase his skills in a matchup that includes Henry as the Browns visit the Titans on Sunday. The game between 8-3 teams will serve as a good measuring stick for Cleveland, which lacks quality wins despite its record. The Titans lead the AFC South and are hunting their first division title since 2008.
Chubb, in his reserved nature with no frills and a focus on simply playing ball, said being second to Henry was somewhat irritating but not a feeling that lingers.
"A little bit, but it is nothing personal against him," said Chubb, a second-round draft pick out of Georgia in 2018. "It is more of just myself. I am not mad at Derrick Henry for getting the rushing title last year."
Chubb's teammates, on the other hand, haven't quite gotten over it.
"I was just crushed for him because I just know how hard Nick works, how hard he runs and the type of guy he is and more for him as a person," left guard Joel Bitonio said, recalling he was seated next to Chubb on the team's flight from Cincinnati when he learned Henry had passed his teammate. "The difference was what, 50 yards or something like that?
"An NFL rushing title and things of that nature are things that you can look back on in 10, 15 or 20 years and tell your grandkids you led the NFL in rushing. It was tough."
The Browns, with a strong tradition rooted at running back that includes eight-time rushing champion Jim Brown, haven't had a player lead the league since 1968, when Leroy Kelly did it for the second straight year in a career that eventually allowed him to join Brown in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Chubb was positioned to win the crown last season. He led Henry with two games left, then gained only 86 yards in his last two games and finished with 1,494.
Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry salutes fans as he walks off the field after last Sunday's 45-26 road win against the Indianapolis Colts to take control of the AFC South.Henry, who sat out his team's penultimate regular-season game in 2019 with a nagging hamstring injury, went into the finale with 1,329 yards and broke free for 211 against the Houston Texans. Henry's 1,540 yards made him the rushing king, and this week he stood by his story that he didn't know how much he needed to overtake Chubb.
"I was focused on what we needed to do," he said of the Titans, who headed to the playoffs and made a run to the AFC title game as a wild card.
Chubb and Henry, the 2015 Heisman Trophy winner at Alabama, have similar running styles with some subtle differences.
"We do not do a lot of dancing. Just kind of north-to-south guys," Chubb said.
Both have the ability to turn a short gain into a long touchdown with a stiff-arm move or by breaking a tackle. Chubb may be a little shiftier, while Henry is more of a punishing runner. Neither is super fast, but it's rare for either to get caught from behind; there's speed, and then there's game speed.
"Sometimes we get wrapped up in that 40 (-yard dash) time from Indianapolis," Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said, referencing one of the rookie standards at the NFL combine. "When you have a guy like Nick, when you have a guy like Derrick Henry, they play very fast, faster than I'm sure whatever their times are.
"When you play in the fourth quarter and teams have been tackling those guys the whole game, it obviously takes its toll on the defenders as well."
Titans coach Mike Vrabel said Sunday's matchup will pit the league's current two best backs. Henry's 1,257 rushing yards this season have comes on 256 carries, including 12 touchdowns, for an average of 4.9 per attempt. Chubb, with four fewer games, has 719 yards on 115 carries (6.3 average) with 10 scores.
"Both those guys are excellent," Vrabel said. "Vision, strength, lower-body strength, they break tackles. They stretch, cut, they have the ability to get the edge. Sitting there watching them, you forget sometimes that you have to find ways to stop them because you kind of like the way they play and the way that these guys are blocking for them in front."
Jack Conklin has blocked for both of them. After spending his first four NFL seasons in Tennessee, he signed as a free agent with Cleveland in March. It didn't take the offensive lineman long to appreciate Chubb's persona on and off the field.
"He's not a vain guy in the way about how he goes to work," Conklin said. "He wants to be the best, but he is not going to go talk about it and talk about his stats or anything like that. He is the exact teammate you would want on any team and the type of person you would want to be around every day."