The easiest way to find perspective on Bradley Chubb’s agonizing string of injuries in the last 24 months is to compare his ledger to that of his edge-rushing complement, Von Miller.
In 11 seasons, the Super Bowl MVP has missed 19 regular-season games due to various injuries, ranging from a fractured thumb to a torn ACL to a dislocated peroneal tendon. (Miller also missed another six regular-season games to open the 2013 season due to a substance-abuse suspension.)
But 16 of those were last season alone; at one point from 2014 through 2019, he played in 96 consecutive games, including playoffs. Miller was as sturdy as steel and as reliable as the sunrise.
Sadly for Chubb, such fortune has eluded him.
And if the 2018 first-round pick misses four games following arthroscopic surgery to remove bone spurs in his left ankle, then the Broncos’ Pro Bowl edge rusher will match Miller’s regular-season tally in not even three-and-a-half seasons. The procedure follows a May operation to remove bone spurs in Chubb’s right ankle, which sidelined him for OTAs and left him limited at the start of training camp.
With this latest procedure, Chubb is likely headed to injured reserve. That would guarantee at least a three-week absence.
Chubb has now missed 15 of the Broncos’ past 30 games dating back to Week 5 of 2019, which was one week after he tore an anterior cruciate ligament, ending his second season before October. That 15-game tally includes the Week 1 win over the New York Giants, when the Broncos rested him as he dealt with the bone spurs.
Dr. Robert Anderson, the Wisconsin-based specialist who will perform the surgery, has worked with the Broncos and Chubb while he struggled with the recent bone spurs. They opted for a conservative approach in recent weeks, hoping to avoid this week’s surgery.
After Chubb left last Sunday’s game in Jacksonville in the second quarter, those hopes evaporated.
“Sometimes when I turn the corner, it just gets a little annoying,” Chubb said on a video posted on the Broncos’ social-media feeds Tuesday. “It feels like a stab-type pain. I did everything I could to manage it and try to come back and play.
“The thing is now to just go in, clean it up and be right back,” he added later.
The Broncos can’t change the last two weeks. Having him try to work slowly through the injury to try to return was part of the conservative, non-surgical plan that is usually the first choice with this sort of injury.
Now, Chubb must not only prove himself again on the field — but he must prove that he can avoid further injuries. Unfortunately for Chubb, he is tagged with the dreaded “injury-prone” label. This is difficult to shake, and the only way he can do it is by returning and remaining healthy throughout the balance of this season and the entirety of the 2022 campaign.
“I feel like 2018 was my last full year healthy,” Chubb said, “and I feel like when I get done with this, I’m going to be 10 times that.”
He needs to be. He will be back with the Broncos for 2022 on the fifth-year option, but future decisions loom for the Broncos regarding his contract and the construction of their edge-rushing complement.
“When this thing is healed up, I expect you’ll see a whole new Bradley Chubb. A whole new animal. A whole new dog,” he said.
Whether he can do that will have a huge impact on the Broncos’ future plans. But at least when he gets back, he should do so unencumbered by the bone spurs that have dogged his season to date.
