Nick Chubb took monstrous pay cut to continue his rehab with Browns

Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.

Leftovers from Browns’ media availability at offseason program …

1. Chubb’s givebacks: Last summer Nick Chubb joined a Zoom call with all the major NFL running backs to discuss how backs were being underpaid by a system that indirectly penalizes them for doing their job and racking up yards. “Next year it could be me in the same situation,” Chubb said on the second day of camp at The Greenbrier Resort. Wow, how right he was. Last week, Chubb agreed to what amounted to a $9.5 million pay cut. With no guarantees in the final year of his contract that was due to pay him $11.775 million, Chubb had little leverage to demand much after suffering a hellacious knee injury doing his job in Game 2 in Pittsburgh. Rather than set off a firestorm in the locker room and fan base and release Chubb – which would have gained them about $11 million in cap room – the Browns offered Chubb $2.05 million in guaranteed salary and bonuses. Chubb will get another $225,000 in workout bonuses, which he is earning every day rehabbing from the knee injury. There are incentives to recoup about another $10 million, but they depend on Chubb getting back on the field as soon as possible and performing as if the injury never happened. Not likely. Chubb’s cap number was reduced from $15.2 million to $6.275 million. A brutal business, NFL football.

2. Defense staying under radar: It’s amazing how the Jim Schwartz defense has gotten a pass for the rotten egg it laid in the wild-card loss in Houston. Schwartz hasn’t had a media availability to explain why his defense didn’t show up, except for Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, in the 45-14 loss to the Texans. (Twenty-eight points were on the defense; 14 on Joe Flacco’s two Pick 6s.) Coach Kevin Stefanski and GM Andrew Berry have shrugged it off as “a bad day to have a bad day.” In offseason availabilities, Stefanski and Berry have hardly been asked about the defensive meltdown. It’s hopeful that the “bad day” will serve to motivate the defense, which has been kept fairly intact, through the buildup to the 2024 season. Cornerback Denzel Ward said he hasn’t watched the video of the game. “I think we got a lot of hunger with the guys that we got back and we got some great additions that came onto the team, and so we’re just looking to build on top of each other and just work towards our goals and being great this season,” Ward said.

3. Keep it together: Ward has heard the Greg Newsome trade rumors and he doesn’t like them. The Browns have until May 2 to pick up Newsome’s fifth-year contract option at a guaranteed salary of $13.3 million in 2025. That’s a hefty price for a nickel back, as Newsome is seen as the third cornerback after Ward and Martin Emerson. “I mean, that was one of the things I kind of been openly sharing. Like, I want to keep us together,” Ward said. “I feel like even AB [Berry] says all the time, you can never have enough great corners and enough corners on a team. And, I mean, that’s real. Guys go down and just having the ability to be able to match up with any teams across the board, whether that’s inside in the slot with Greg or outside with me and Martin, and being able to rotate and do different things and having multiple number one corners on the team. So we’re definitely in an ideal situation position. Those guys did a great job of drafting all of us and getting us all here.”

4. A Vrabel update: Coaching and personnel advisor Mike Vrabel’s role is loosely defined, but one thing he has taken an interest in is the new hybrid kickoff rule. Stefanski said, “We’ve spent a lot of time on that, Bubba [Ventrone, special teams coordinator], myself, Steven Bravo-Brown [assistant], coach Vrabel has helped in this as well because we’re all trying to understand this hybrid kickoff. It’s new for everybody. So, we look at that as a great opportunity in this league to add an exciting play for this game, and it’s another touch for an offensive player. It’s another opportunity to get a tackle for a defensive player or an offensive player on special teams. We’re excited about what it is, but we’re working through it.” Vrabel inherited a passion for special teams from Bill Belichick, whom he played for but never coached with. Media requests for Ventrone have gone unanswered since owners voted for the hybrid kickoff, which would reduce touchbacks, encourage returns and less the risk of injuries from high speed collisions. “Bubba’s been in the indoor, literally with a helmet on, taking drops, which is true. So we want to be as prepared as we can be. But I don’t know that there’s any club that knows exactly how it’s going to look,” Stefanski said. The format was used by the now-defunct XFL in 2020 and 2023. Strangely, it is not being used in the merged United Football League spring season now underway.

5. Take a bow: The ridicule I’ve seen for Christian Kirksey and Rashard Higgins coming back to sign 1-day contracts and formally retire as Cleveland Browns is ridiculous. Obviously, it meant a lot for these two popular players – both of whom played six years for the Browns – to bring their families to the team facility and be honored. These are two good guys who played their hearts out for Browns teams that didn’t win a lot of games. They deserve a formal farewell. Kirksey, for one, said it was important to him to come full circle. “Everything that I embody is Cleveland,” Kirksey said. “It’s a blue-collar city to where, like, you gotta work hard, you gotta believe in yourself if nobody else believes in you. And I feel like everything that Cleveland embodies, that’s me. So, I just wanted to come back and pay it forward and be a part of this organization and end my career here. So that played a big part in it.” I couldn’t believe this fact about Kirksey’s career with the Browns when I looked it up. The linebacker was a mainstay on the 1-15 and 0-16 seasons under coach Hue Jackson. In those seasons, Kirksey played every single one of the team’s defensive snaps – 1,111 in 2016 and 1,068 in 2017. How many bigger-named, higher-priced players came through Cleveland and lollygagged their time here?