The difficult Nick Chubb comeback circumstances for Bears to ponder

Then the Browns had something happen that's very familiar to Bears fans. They had a revolving door on the offensive line due largely to injuries.

Cleveland wound up playing 10 different offensive linemen for at least 170 snaps each. That allows for a tremendous lack of continuity and poor blocking. And it all happened under a new offensive line coach, with a terribly disruptive quarterback situation and passing game that struggled to take pressure off the running game. They had Jameis Winston, Deshaun Watson, Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Bailey Zappe all start games and no one getting more than seven starts.

The Bears should know how disruptive this all is. They complained about this lack of line continuity all year as they constantly switched between players on the line with injuries, all with a rookie QB.

But the Bears only had seven linemen with 170 snaps or more who were causing their lack of continuity. Imagine going between 10 players like this.

So it should surprise no one that Cleveland dropped to an even worse ranking for its running game than the Bears had. The Browns were 29th in rushing yards and the Bears were 25th.

The knee, always the knee

These were the challenges Chubb faced trying to make his comeback from the knee injury.  

Chubb had the same injury, though not quite as severe, in the same knee back in 2015 in college at Georgia and easily came back from it to gain 1,130 and 1,345 yards the next two years.

There have been so many cases in NFL history of players failing to come back from a torn ACL that it's easily the most devastating injury for backs. The classic Bears ACL injury, of course, was Gale Sayers' spectacular career ending virtually in an instant with Kermit Alexander's tackle at the knee in 1968. He came back a year later, no longer the brilliant back and his career carried on painfully for a couple of years with another injury ending it. 

One of the great separating factors in Walter Payton's career and Sayers' was how Payton managed to avoid the ACL injury. He had scopes to clean the knee out or "a tuneup," as he referred to it, but never a serious knee injury. The same was true for Chargers great LaDainian Tomlinson and Dallas' Emmitt Smith.

Sayers' career-ender was long ago without modern surgery and rehab procedures, but the injury is still a back's major problem. Adrian Peterson is the exception to the rule.

The Minnesota Vikings great came back the next year after a torn ACL with his career-high total of 2,097 yards, 337 yards more than any other season in his career. He was only 25 at the time, though, and had an incredibly long, successful career after that. Age seems to make all the difference.

No greater a recent example of this was 2024 NFL Offensive Player of the Year and 2,005-yard gainer, Saquon Barkley. The torn ACL he suffered on Eddie Jackson's tackle at Soldier Field in his third season couldn't stop him from going on to succeed.

Hall of Famer Edgerrin James was very similar to Barkley. He refused to let a torn ACL in Year 3 end his career after he had 1,553 yards, 1,709 yards and averaged over 100 yards a game into the year of his injury.

He went on and eventually averaged 1,000 yards five straight seasons.

Not everyone is as fortunate. Terrell Davis' Hall of Fame career started with 6,413 yards in four years and then ended for all intents and purposes while tearing an ACL making a tackle on an interception return. He had only 983 more career yards after that tackle.

Youth can be served

If anything, age makes all the difference. It may have been why Peterson came back so fast, why Chubb came back from his college ACL tear and others like James and Barkley did it.

Jamaal Charles tore an ACL against the Lions in Week 2 of the 2011 season with the Chiefs and then came back his next year with a career-best 1,509 yards. He was only 24 then. In 2015 he suffered another torn ACL against the Bears at age 27 and never really made it back, gaining only 707 more yards over four seasons.

Coming back the next year is uncommon, though, and perhaps Chubb needed that next year of recovery time like so many others needed.

When James bounced back from his injury, he gained 989 yards the next year but only 3.6 yards a carry, then 4.1 the next year and 4.6 en route to his five straight 1,000-yard seasons.

Former Falcons back Jamal Anderson came back from one ACL tear after an 1,846-yard season and in his first year back had 1,024 yards but he averaged only 3.6 yards a carry. Then he suffered another one and his career ended at 28.

Chubb's late bid?

The small ray of hope for a Chubb comeback were two straight games at the end of last season.

Chubb had waited until Week 7 to make his comeback from the knee injury, suffered in Week 2 of the 2023 season. When he came back he only averaged more than 3.3 yards a carry once in his first six games back. He averaged 4.5 yards a carry against the Saints in a 35-14 loss with 50 yards on 11 carries.

The effort gave the Browns hope his condition was improving after four games, so they fed him the ball 20 times against the Steelers in a 24-19 victory. However, he produced only 59 rushing yard but did get two touchdowns.

A 21-yard effort and 2.3 yards a carry followed against Denver's third-ranked rushing defense.

However, in Chubb's last two games he put together efforts of 4.4 yards a carry and a season-high 4.6 yards a carry. They came against Pittsburgh (4.4) and Kansas City (4.6). The Chiefs obviously made the Super Bowl and had the eighth-best run defense.

Against the Chiefs, he suffered the broken foot after gaining 41 yards on nine runs.

It's easy to see interpret this as progress for Chubb at the end of the season. The broken foot should not be a problem.

There's no guarantee right now the Bears are even interested, only a rumor started from a report by someone who might be in position to know this--Cleveland sports radio talk show host and Browns radio network contributor Ken Carman.

And his comment only said NFC North, not the Bears.

It would make complete sense for the Bears to take a good look at their rookie, Kyle Monangai, and undrafted free agent Deion Hankins at rookie camp May 9-11 before rushing into anything.

If they are entertaining thoughts of a signing Chubb they most likely realize the odds don't favor older backs returning from an injury like he had.