The NFL Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY) Award is usually given to the player who had the most outstanding season from a statistical standpoint each year. We’re talking about players who reach rare milestones, break records, or lift their offenses to new heights on the back of their own outstanding play.

Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb has a chance to do just that in 2023. According to the Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY) betting odds at FanDuel Sportsbook, Chubb is +2000 to win the award for the upcoming season, tying him with Tyreek Hill for the fourth-best odds among all NFL skill position players. Among running backs, only Christian McCaffrey of the San Francisco 49ers has better odds than Chubb to take home the award in 2023.

A Track Record of Excellence

The Cleveland Browns have been a disastrous organization for most of their existence, including much of the time that Chubb has spent with the team. He has managed to shine in spite of the franchise’s missteps since he entered the league.

Despite his second-round draft capital from the 2018 NFL Draft, then-head-coach Hue Jackson stubbornly sat Chubb on the bench for much of his rookie campaign in favor of Carlos Hyde, who was averaging a pedestrian 3.4 yards per carry as the team’s lead back. It wasn’t until the front office traded Hyde to the Jacksonville Jaguars that Chubb really got his chance to prove himself.

He’s done more than just prove himself in the years since. He has a career average yards per carry of 5.2, which is close to unheard of for a team’s primary running back. He has crested 1,000 rushing yards in each season since that rookie campaign (in which he finished with 996 yards) and has averaged over 90 rushing yards per game since 2019.

His outstanding consistency is even more impressive given the Browns’ tumultuous past few seasons. While the rest of the team crumbled around him, he still managed to put the offense on his back and produce like one of the best backs in the league.

His 2022 season was another prime example of Chubb’s ability to carry the Browns’ offense. The team entered the year with Jacoby Brissett as their starting quarterback while they waited out Deshaun Watson’s 11-game suspension. Then, he suffered through the final six weeks of the season while Watson struggled to play at even a league-average level. Chubb responded to those circumstances by carrying the ball a career-high 302 times for 1,525 yards and 12 touchdowns while catching 27 passes for 239 yards and another touchdown.

His season is even more impressive when you take a peek behind the curtains. His 2.3 yards after contact per attempt ranked fifth-best in the league. He racked up 83 missed tackles forced, which ranked second-best among all running backs. He also ranked second-best in rushing yards over expectation per carry (1.29 yards). He posted all of these impressive numbers while facing stacked boxes on 28.8% of his carries, the 11th-highest rate in the league.

Frankly put, we don’t get to see too many backs like Chubb in the NFL. He maintains the kind of efficiency we expect from change-of-pace backs while carrying heavy workloads against stacked boxes. He would pretty much be one-of-a-kind if it weren’t for Derrick Henry.

Running Backs and the OPOY Award

Speaking of Derrick Henry, the Tennessee Titans’ star has already provided us with an outline of how a running back can win the OPOY award. Henry took home the honors for his outstanding 2020 season, during which he rushed 378 times for 2,027 yards and 19 touchdowns. He became the eighth back in league history to eclipse the 2,000-yard rushing mark and now has the fifth-most rushing yards in a single season ever.

Reaching that 2,000-yard mark has seemed to provide a pretty clear pathway to winning the OPOY award. In addition to Henry, both Adrian Peterson and Chris Johnson won OPOY awards for their 2,000-yard seasons in 2012 and 2009, respectively. It’s an incredibly difficult feat to accomplish, and the AP’s voters seem to appreciate that when it comes time to choose an Offensive Player of the Year.

Running backs that didn’t rush for 2,000 yards have also won OPOY awards, giving running backs a few different paths to a title each season. Most of those seasons, such as Todd Gurley’s 2017 or DeMarco Murray’s 2014, saw the winning back amass over 2,000 yards from scrimmage, combining strong rushing performances with solid involvement in the passing game. Marshall Faulk famously won the award in three straight seasons by leveraging his top-notch passing game skills in the Rams’ high-flying offenses at the turn of the century. So, while a back doesn’t necessarily need to rush for 2,000 yards to win the award, they do typically need to amass 2,000 yards from scrimmage one way or the other.

2,000-yard rushing seasons don’t grow on trees. None of the incredible running backs to reach that mark were ever able to duplicate those results in a second season (though Henry will certainly continue trying for as long as he remains in the league). It takes a full season of elite-level play to even have a chance of reaching 2,000 rushing yards. Nick Chubb is closer to reaching that landmark than people may realize.

2023 Season Outlook

Chubb could realistically see the heaviest workload of his career in 2023 and might even get to play on his best offense yet while seeing that workload. For a back as individually talented as Chubb, those circumstances could produce the kind of numbers he’d need to have an OPOY-worthy season.

For all of Chubb’s production over the past few seasons, he has still had to share a backfield with other runners that garnered not-so-insignificant workloads. Most notable was Kareem Hunt, who led the league in rushing in 2017. That made it difficult for the Browns to give Chubb a Derrick Henry-esque workload over the past few seasons that they played together. Hunt’s play took a serious nosedive during the 2022 season, but prior to that, he played well enough to justify his usage alongside Chubb.

The Browns allowed Hunt to walk in free agency, meaning Chubb could very likely see the heaviest workload of his career in the upcoming campaign. Hunt averaged over 150 touches per season over the last three seasons, and the lack of proven talent on the team’s depth chart behind Chubb means he’s the likeliest candidate to absorb that workload. 2022 fifth-round pick Jerome Ford will see touches to give Chubb a breather, but 2023 could be the first time we see Chubb break 20 carries per game in his career.

You can’t expect someone to produce Derrick Henry-level numbers without a Derrick Henry-level workload, and the Browns’ offense seems poised to give Chubb that kind of volume in 2023.

He’ll hopefully get a little more support out of the Browns’ passing offense this year than he’s unfortunately grown accustomed to, as well. The Baker Mayfield years had their ups and downs (mostly downs), and Deshaun Watson was extremely disappointing in his abbreviated season last year, but things are looking up for Cleveland in 2023.

On the bright side, we’ve at least seen Watson play like one of the league’s best quarterbacks during his best years with the Houston Texans. It would be understandable if the former MVP candidate’s rough 2022 season had more to do with rust after his near-two-year absence than with a fall-off in his own play. It’s fair to question whether we’ll ever see Watson play as well as he did for the Texans again, but he should at least bounce back to an acceptable level of quarterback play in the upcoming season.

The Browns’ front office took steps to make sure that happens, as well. They’ll be returning all five of their strong starters on the offensive line for the upcoming season and rank second in Pro Football Focus’ offensive line rankings for 2023 as well. The dominance of their offensive line should both amplify Chubb’s effectiveness and keep the Browns’ offense on the field for longer drives.

The team also acquired wide receiver Elijah Moore via trade with the New York Jets, meaning they’ll be sending out a group of Amari Cooper, Moore, Donovan Peoples-Jones, and David Njoku as Watson’s supporting cast. On paper, it certainly looks like a balanced group with plenty of upside, so it shouldn’t surprise many if the Browns have their best season on offense in years. In spite of Chubb’s elite-level play, the Browns’ offense as a whole has never produced better than just an average NFL offense. If the rest of the group can at least look average, another season of elite play from Chubb could take them to the top of the league.

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