1-on-1 with Panthers RB Chuba Hubbard, who has so much more he wants to do
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chuba Hubbard led the Panthers with 1,195 rushing yards and 11 total touchdowns in 2024.
- Hubbard signed a four-year extension in November and remains Carolina's feature back.
- Panther teammates praise Hubbard’s consistency ahead of Week 1 game vs. Jacksonville.
Much of the attention in the Carolina Panthers’ season opener will be focused on quarterback Bryce Young, due to the nature of the position he plays and the on-and-off career he has had.
But let’s not forget the man who serves as the soul of the current Panthers:
Running back Chuba Hubbard.
It is Hubbard who is arguably the best player on Carolina’s team; Hubbard who led the Panthers with 1,195 yards and 11 total touchdowns in 2024; Hubbard who gets the ball on fourth-and-1.
One of the last holdovers of the forgettable Matt Rhule era, Hubbard is still surviving and thriving under his fifth head coach (including interim head coaches) in his five NFL seasons. Hubbard also is probably going to get the ball on the very first play from scrimmage Sunday when the Panthers play at Jacksonville (1 p.m., FOX).
What does Hubbard expect Sunday?
He considers this question as we sit inside a quiet room at Bank of America Stadium, idly spinning a football on the table.
“To win,” Hubbard says. “Just exactly that.”
The lack of winning has been exactly the problem during the Chuba years at Carolina. He has been a bright spot on a bad team for his entire NFL career — the Panthers have gone 19-49 during Hubbard’s tenure.
If Hubbard was playing on a winning team, he’d be a contender for national profiles with his backstory (he’s from Canada), his side hustle (a luxury streetwear brand he plans to debut soon) and his consistent production.
Instead, Hubbard is mostly unknown outside the Carolinas, unless you count the fantasy football managers around America who value his production. Some of them like to reach out to Hubbard on social media and give their opinion of his performance each week.
“Not a big fan of all that, to be honest,” Hubbard says of fantasy football. “Some people — one week they love you. The next week, they hate you. Just keep it away from me. I just play football on Sundays.”
Hubbard plays it well enough that the Panthers made him one of the team’s centerpieces in November, signing him to a four-year, $33.2 million contract.
“Carolina is the team that gave me the opportunity and changed my life in doing that,” says Hubbard, who still maintains a home in Edmonton, Alberta, where he grew up. “It changed my family, too, and that’s something I’m forever thankful for.”
As a running back, Hubbard says he most wants people to think of him as consistent and versatile. He’s not a back with pure breakaway speed who’s going to score from midfield. In four NFL seasons, the longest of his 755 carries went for 38 yards. But he makes people miss, falls forward and has a career average of 4.2 yards a pop.
“To be honest, I like to be thought of as somebody that can kind of do it all,” Hubbard says. “Early on in my career, I had a little more speed. But I’ve had injuries, so I’ve had to definitely adjust certain things. But I try to just be consistent in everything I do, and to be someone that my teammates and coaches rely on. So even if I don’t do something out of this world, I know I can do a great job over and over with consistency.”
While obviously talented, Hubbard impresses teammates and coaches with other skills as well.
“He’s really meticulous in his studying — whether it’s in the run game, pass game, protections, all those things,” Panthers head coach Dave Canales says.
“He’s vocal,” Panthers starting center Austin Corbett says of Hubbard. “I’ve been with guys like Nick Chubb and Todd Gurley —top-tier running backs. Dang good. Just not vocal guys. But Chuba has that vocal side and that energy behind him. He raises the standard around here. That’s what he commands, and what we do.”
Hubbard also is prone to practice-field jawing or, occasionally, an outright scuffle. He and cornerback Jaycee Horn like each other but are frequent practice adversaries.
“Chuba is real competitive,” Horn says. “A lot of people get on my case, saying I’m hotheaded and stuff like that, but Chuba’s probably got me beat. It’s been like that since we were rookies. … He always had that edge about him. So he brings the juice on offense, I try to bring it for the defense and that just makes the energy of practice all the better.”
At 26, Hubbard is in his NFL prime. He had 293 touches in 2024, almost four times more than anyone else on the team, and will shoulder a heavy workload once again this year as the feature back. The Panthers would like to spell him a bit more in 2025 with new signee Rico Dowdle as their No. 2 back and Trevor Etienne (whose older brother plays for the Jaguars) as their No. 3.
But make no mistake, it’s Chuba’s show. He’s sick and tired of being sick and tired of losing, and he plans to do something about it. He’s loyal to the team that drafted him in the fourth round out of Oklahoma State in 2021, and he says he feels like there’s something “different” about this Panthers team than the ones he’s played on in the past.
Of his career, Hubbard says: “Obviously there’s been highs and lows. But through it all, I wouldn’t want to do it with anybody else. … Sometimes, with life, things don’t always go the way you want them to. But if you just keep chopping at the tree, eventually it’ll fall.”
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