Breaking down Nick Chubb's injury

On Monday, September 18th, on a nationally televised Monday Night Football matchup between division rivals Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns, the entire NFL watched in horror as we saw Nick Chubb go down with a gruesome knee injury. So gruesome, in fact, that the NFL didn't at all show the replay (that's how you know it's pretty bad). The fans in the stadium were absolutely silent, and through the television broadcast, you could hear the crowd's reaction to the injury: lots of "oohs". Not the good kind of "oohs", either.

Recently, the sports world received Chubb's official diagnosis, and it isn't as bad as we thought, though it is still pretty bad. According to team doctors, Chubb has sustained a torn MCL and a sprained ACL, which will require season-ending surgery.

There are 4 ligaments in the knee: the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL), the Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL), The Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL), and me Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL). In this scenario, we're only focused on the MCL and ACL. The MCL is the ligament that runs along the inner side of your knee, and it mainly works to prevent your knee from bending too much outward. The ACL is the ligament that runs diagonally in the center of the knee. The main job of the ACL is to prevent the shinbone from sliding forward too much/rotating too much. On top of this, the ACL helps stabilize the knee during pivot movements or sudden cuts in direction.

I will not be showing the replay of the injury in this post due to it's graphic nature, so if you want to see that, you can look that up independently. However, if you watch the replay, you can see that during the impact he suffered to his left knee, you can see that his knee bends outwards significantly, which indicates an MCL injury; or in Chubb's case, a disintegration of his left MCL. And that matches up with the official diagnosis given to Chubb- according to multiple sources, Chubb has sustained a full MCL tear and a slight ACL sprain. Out of both injuries, the MCL is the primary focus of doctors, because the ACL sprain is pretty mild, so it's really nothing. The MCL tear, however, is not nothing; it's a pretty big deal.

According to multiple sources, Chubb will undergo surgery soon to repair the MCL ligament fully. Usually, if it was a partial tear of the ligament, athletes would go through physical therapy to avoid surgery and avoid missing out on playing time. However, because Chubb's MCL is practically nonexistent now, he has no choice but to get a full MCL repair. It is most probable that he will undergo MCL reconstruction, which involves taking tissue from other parts of the body (like from the patellar tendon or the hamstrings) and replacing the old and damaged MCL, effectively giving the individual a brand-spanking new MCL. The good thing about MCL reconstruction is that it gives Chubb a brand-new MCL, so he won't have any issues with that ligament once he recovers from the surgery.

But that's the kicker: recovering from the surgery. MCL reconstruction often takes 6-8 months to recover from, which is the exact timetable given for Chubb. He'll be back somewhere between March 2024 and May 2024, meaning he'll miss the rest of the season. And while he'll recover just fine, there's no guarantee that he'll be the same player again. Even though it isn't a doomsday scenario like a full ACL tear, there is still a good chance that he just isn't as good as he used to be when he returns to the field next year, and it has to do with his age. While he is relatively young at the age of 27, in running back years, he's on the older side. Now, when he tore almost every ligament in his knee back in 2015 at Georgia, he was only 19, so his very young age allowed him to bounce right back from that awful injury and not miss a step. But he's a full 8 years older now, with a lot more tread on his tires. So while he'll undoubtedly recover fully, there's a chance that he won't be as fast, or as agile, or as elusive as he was before his injury the second go-around. The 6-8 months that he'll be out of commission could prove to be too much to come back from because his body isn't as young and resilient as it was 8 years ago.

And as for the Cleveland Browns, it means two things, one in the short-term and one in the long-term. Short-term, their season just got screwed over. DeShaun Watson clearly isn't the same old Watson we're used to, and losing their biggest offensive start effectively ended their season before it really got started. And long term, this might force them to start looking for a new running back, probably one in college right now, as their current running back room is getting old and injured.

Regardless of how this affects both Chubb and the Browns, it is very unfortunate that he sustained this injury, especially with the type of season that he was having. As always, prayers up for him, and hopefully, he has a speedy and successful recovery.