Nick Chubb TNF Spotlight: Player Props for Thursday Night Football Week 3

Cleveland Browns star running back Nick Chubb has taken a lot of heat after scoring a costly touchdown in Week 2.

In case you somehow missed it, Chubb could have gone down in bounds, allowing his team to run out the clock and secure a win. Instead, scored to put the Browns up by 13 with two minutes left... then Cleveland utterly collapsed and lost the game.

Lost in the shock of one of the biggest collapses in decades is that the Brownies' RB is a bona fide stud, and looking through the available Steelers vs. Browns picks markets for this week's TNF matchup provides us both some juicy Nick Chubb props and a chance for him to quickly wash the sour taste of that Jets loss out of his mouth.

Here are my three favorite free NFL picks for Cleveland's number two-four in Week 3's Thursday Night Football game.

Nick Chubb TNF prop picks

• Over 92.5 rushing+receiving yards
• Longest rush Over 18.5 yards
• To score Cleveland's first TD

Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.

Nick Chubb TNF props

Scrimmaging and foraging

Even with Chubb's "lapse" in judgment, opening the door slightly for the Jets (who then blasted it wide open), it doesn't take away from the fact that he has run for 228 yards on 39 carries through his first two games this season — good for 5.8 yards/carry.

Now, on a short week, Chubb and the Browns get to face a Steelers defense that uncharacteristically looks like a good matchup: Pittsburgh has given up the 11th-most rushing yards (128.5/game), the defense has been on the field for the most plays against (and sits 28th in time of possession) so far, and this is a short week, so there isn't much time for the Steel Curtain to recover.

That alone has me intrigued by Chubb's rushing total, which is currently sitting as low as 80.5, but after starting left guard Joel Bitonio missed practice yesterday due to injury (and head coach Kevin Stefanski said his status for TNF is "undecided"), while tackles Chris Hubbard and Jack Conklin are also questionable to return, the prospect of a very patchwork O-line has me thinking the more safe option is Chubb's scrimmage yards.

Chubb's rushing+receiving yards total is set at 92.5, which becomes really enticing considering:

A) Chubb averaged 2.8 targets and 20.4 receiving yards over his final 10 games in 2021.
B) He had 26 receiving yards last week against New York.
C) He had four catches for 69 yards against the Steelers in their last meeting (2021 AFC Wildcard Round)

Yes, Chubb had one catch for one yard in Week 1 — but he ran for 141 yards, so catching passes clearly wasn't necessary.

Chubb is the Browns' best offensive player and Stefanski will want to get the ball in his hands as much as possible. He has a scrimmage yards total that he could surpass on the ground alone, against a defense that has already played as much football as any unit, and we get to safeguard against a possibly depleted Cleveland offensive line.

Prop: Nick Chubb Over 92.5 rushing + receiving yards (-115)

Gain n' pain

Chubb possesses the rare blend of straight-ahead trucking ability, elusiveness to avoid the first tackler, and explosiveness to turn short runs into larger chunk plays.

Per NFL Next Gen Stats, Chubb has faced 8+ defenders in the box more than 23% of his runs, yet has 64 rushing yards over expected (fourth in the league), and is seventh with 82 yards after contact, because he can do things like this:

Nick Chubb is the lightest 227 pounds you'll ever see. pic.twitter.com/h08tDZeHx4

— Cory (@realcorykinnan) September 16, 2022

The Browns' star RB tends to do his best work up the middle, where he averages 6.3 yards per carry, but with Bitonio questionable, we could see a few more runs behind right guard Wyatt Teller, who through two weeks has the third-highest run-blocking grade among all guards from Pro Football Focus.

That option will also match up well in attacking Pittsburgh's biggest weakness on the defensive line so far: defensive tackle (and former Brown) Larry Ogunjobi. Playing 93.5% of his snaps on the left side of the Steelers D-line (matching up against Teller), the veteran DT has a run stop percentage of 10% and an average depth of tackle of 3.2 yards beyond the line of scrimmage — which is in the Bottom-30 of all defensive linemen.

Chubb currently leads the NFL with three rushes of 20+ yards and is second with four rushes of 15+, which comes after he was second in the NFL last year with 12 runs of 20+ yards and third with 17 of 15 or more.

Also, as mentioned above, Pittsburgh's defense has already been on the field a lot through two games — with just three days to recover and with another run-heavy script in the cards for the Browns, we could see the Steelers D wear down come the second half, conditions that are ripe for Chubb to rip off another chunk run. 

Prop: Nick Chubb longest run Over 18.5 yards (-115)

Leading the charge

Chubb's anytime touchdown market is currently in the -105 to -110 range — not particularly appetizing. Chubb to score the first touchdown of the game is +500 — but then he has to compete with, y'know, the Steelers potentially ruining that bet by scoring first.

So I'm finding a happy medium and going with Chubb to score the first Browns touchdown, which can be found as high as +280 and provides value considering Cleveland's reliance on its backfield.

A running back has scored Cleveland's first touchdown for eight times since the start of 2021, with Chubb scoring four times. Plus, one of those non-RB first scores was a Browns pick-six — but Chubb scored the team's first offensive touchdown in that game.

That includes both games in 2022, when Kareem Hunt found paydirt in Week 1 and Chubb scored the team's opening TD against the Jets last week.

Through the first two games of the season, Chubb is second in the NFL with eight red-zone carries — a big number considering Cleveland has just nine RZ pass attempts — while Hunt also has six carries in the RZ.

A prop at +280 odds is a 26.32% implied probability — but here's the thing: Chubb is getting 34.8% of the RZ opportunities so far this season, so him continuing to get roughly a third of those prime opportunities isn't unreasonable to expect to continue (and doesn't include any potential RZ passing targets).

He is also the team's biggest home run threat, as Jacoby Brissett sits 23rd among QBs in Intended Air Yards, 28th in Average Depth of Target, and has just four attempted deep throws on the season, which only further makes me like the value on this play.

Prop: Nick Chubb to score the first Browns touchdown (+280 at DraftKings)

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