Another concern pops up for Bradley Chubb

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — After only playing in one game in the first 10 weeks of the season, Bradley Chubb’s been back on the field for the Denver Broncos’ last two games.

But there’s some doubt that Denver’s star pass rusher will make it a third-straight game on Sunday.

An hour before Wednesday’s practice, the first of the week, Vic Fangio announced that Chubb will not practice due to multiple injuries he’s dealing with.

Not only is Chubb still listed with an ankle injury on the practice report, but he injured his shoulder during the Broncos’ 22-9 loss to the Chiefs on Sunday.

“He’s feeling alright. He got dinged in the shoulder the other night, which hurt his play a little bit,” Fangio said, not giving further details to Chubb’s new injury.

“But he’s fighting through it and I see improvements being made,” the head coach continued, when asked how Chubb has looked in his first two games back.

Despite being listed on the injury report for the entirety of last week with an ankle injury, Fangio wasn’t concerned that Chubb’s ankle was a recurring problem. Leading up to the Chiefs game, Chubb was a limited participant in practice on Wednesday, while being a full participant on Thursday and Friday.

The 6-foot-4, 275-pound pass rusher took a step back from where he was a week before as he did not practice on Wednesday leading up to the Lions game.

After playing in 19 snaps in Week 2, Chubb underwent an arthroscopic procedure to remove bone spurs in his ankle. He had a similar procedure done in May, which sidelined him for most of the team’s offseason workouts, on his other ankle.

The most recent procedure sidelined the outside linebacker for the team’s next eight games, before Chubb returned in Week 12 after Denver’s Bye Week.

In the three games he’s played, Chubb has not recorded a sack. In fact, Chubb hasn’t has a sack in the past six games he’s played in, dating back to the 2020 season.

On the year, Chubb has four tackles, including one tackle for a loss, and no quarterback hits.

However, whether it’s causation or correlation, the Broncos’ defense has been near its best in the three games he’s played in. Against the Jaguars (Week 2), the Chargers (Week 12) and the Chiefs (Week 13), Denver’s defense has given up an average of only 14 points per game.

Much like the 2021 Broncos, Chubb’s career has consisted of high peaks and low valleys.

As a rookie, Chubb’s 12 sacks flirted with the all-time rookie sack record. In an eight-game stretch, Chubb had a whopping 10.5 sacks. However, in his second season, Chubb missed 12 games after tearing his ACL. He bounced back in 2020 with a Pro Bowl season where he racked up 7.5 sacks. This year, the former No. 5-overall pick has only played in three games.

In April, George Paton picked up Chubb’s fifth-year option for the 2022 season, meaning he’ll have a cap hit of $12.7 million for the final year of his rookie contract. That is currently slated to be the fifth-largest cap hit on the team.

There was encouraging news on the injury front on Wednesday. Melvin Gordon returned to practice for the first time since suffering a hip injury against the Chargers. Denver’s starting running back was a limited participant during Wednesday’s practice after not play against the Chiefs.