To understand what makes Bradley Chubb great, you have to understand what makes him different

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — With a perfectly-fitted, grey, pinstripe suit hugging his eye-popping frame, a “Broncos Country” hat on his head and a grin akin to the Cheshire cat, newly introduced Denver Broncos first-round pick Bradley Chubb stood in front of a room of media and made his family proud.

“Being a Chubb is something different,” he said with three misty-eyed Chubbs looking up at him from the first row.

He’s not wrong.

You see, if you’re in the right part of the country, you wouldn’t even have to explain why being a Chubb is something different.

The story starts in the mid-1860s when a man by the name of Issac Chubb, a free black man and who worked as a blacksmith, uprooted his family—including eight sons—and moved from North Carolina to Northwest Georgia, where he purchased a plot of land.

The land would eventually grow into a place known as Chubbtown. 2,600 acres, all owned by the Chubbs, consisting of  a church, a post office, a school, a sawmill, a casket company, a cotton gin, a cemetery, a grist mill, a syrup mill, a wagon company, a lodge, a meeting hall and, of course, a blacksmith shop.

As you might imagine, it was not exactly common for a black family in the south to own any land at all in the 1860s, let alone an entire town, but in what makes for a bit of magic in the story, the all-black, self-sufficient town was left alone. In fact, legend says even the white residents of surrounding areas would come to Chubbtown to purchase goods and services.

But how?

Some say one of the Chubbs had a good relationship with the local sheriff, some say they brought value to the community. All say that no matter what it was, the foundation of it all was a combination of skills and hard work. They were a versatile family with the abilities to create 12 different skills-based businesses, and they had the work ethic to do it all on their own.

Skill and hard work. Now we’ve officially circled back to Bradley, who didn’t even believe Chubbtown was real until his father brought him there as an eighth-grader.

The anatomy of a top-five pick almost always involves a combination of skill and hard work. For the Broncos’ fifth-overall pick, while the skills are abundant, the recipe is heavy on the hard work.

Out of high school, Chubb was just a three-star prospect, standing at 6-foot-3 and just 220 pounds. While he had some high-profile offers, he was overlooked by Georgia, the alma mater of his mother, father and, of course, second cousin Nick.

After accepting his offer from N.C. State, the hard work took over. Chubb went from merely contributing on special teams as a freshman to becoming a defensive starter as a sophomore. By his junior season, he was a team captain, chasing team records. And when all was said and done, he was the team’s all-time leader in sacks and tackles for loss, surpassing former No. 1 overall pick Mario Williams in both areas.

Oh, and at the combine, he measured in a solid 49 pounds heavier than when he walked into N.C. State. Good weight, too.

“We work hard. We’re hard workers… That’s part of his work ethic,” said Bradley’s father, Aaron. “Over the years he’s learned it, you work hard for whatever you want. You want to achieve something? You have to work for it. The world is not fair, ain’t nothin’ going to be given to you, you have to work for whatever you want. That’s something he’s learned from playing ball, just keep working until you out-work your opponent.”

Pops is being humble. Playing ball may have reinforced it, but Bradley didn’t learn hard work from football. He learned hard work from his father, another in a long line of Chubbs carrying out the family legacy.

“Growing up, my dad would make sure he held us to a higher standard than everyone else around us,” Bradley said.  “I have to have a higher expectation for myself and for future generations to come as well.”

“It definitely comes from [the family values],” added brother Brandon. “That was instilled in us at an early age and that just kind of grew and grew and grew with everything we did. That hardworking mentality—Brad is going to play form the time the ball is snapped to the time the whistle blows. If he’s going to start a play, he’s going to finish the play. Just because the quarterback didn’t run your way or the running back didn’t run your way, or the quarterback scrambled out or something like that, you have to finish the play. We’re just hard-working, you know? Whistle to whistle.”

Usually, when you hear the scouting report on a top-five pick, you hear all about the size, the speed, the athletic ability and the potential. For Bradley Chubb, you certainly hear about many of those things, but you hear more about his motor, his relentless attack, his blue-collar approach and his hardworking nature.

That’s something different. Being a Chubb is something different.