Kiszla: On Broncos team that has suffered death by inches, is Bradley Chubb part of problem or solution?

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OK, so Broncos edge-rusher Bradley Chubb will never be Josh Allen or Quenton Nelson. He’s not a franchise quarterback or a sure-fire Hall of Fame lineman.

That’s not Chubb’s fault.

The blunder of not picking Nelson or Allen in the first round of the 2018 NFL draft is a big reason why George Paton is now the general manager of the Broncos rather than John Elway.

But entering the third year of Vic Fangio’s coaching regime, when is a team that desperately wants to change its losing culture going to finally put a halt to death-by-inches mistakes?

In a season when the difference between Denver winning 10 games and earning a playoff berth or losing 10 times and getting everyone fired will be all the small stuff, Chubb took time during this week of preparation for a gotta-have-the-W encounter with the New York Giants to stand on a gimpy ankle and explain to the Douglas Country sheriff why he had skipped out on an August court date for traffic violations.

Hey, it was a silly mistake anyone could make. That was Fangio’s take Wednesday, when Uncle Vic dismissed Chubb’s error in judgment by citing a “high-standing” friend who “laxed on paying a traffic citation and next thing you know, he went through the same thing that Bradley went through.”

It’s always something with these Broncos, isn’t it?

Fangio forgets to call timeout late in a loss to Tennessee. A Melvin Gordon fumble gives bad juju to another lopsided loss against Kansas City. Drew Lock allows his teammates to mess with COVID-19 protocols and that stupid stunt forces Denver to play New Orleans without a bona fide quarterback.

Way too often, stupid is as the Broncos do.

Although Paton has added talent to the roster, Denver remains a mediocre football team that needs to sweat every little detail if it wants to be successful in 2021.

For Denver to have any shot at making the playoffs, it’s time for the oft-injured Chubb to step it up on and off the field. Instead of making excuses for Chubb’s failure to take care of his legal business, maybe Uncle Vic should’ve shown “Astronaut” a little tough love for being a space cadet.

Is demanding excellence too much to ask?

Fangio won Elway’s trust and landed the Broncos coaching gig by vowing to return discipline to a team that had let too many losing habits seep into its locker room. When he took this job, Uncle Vic vowed no more death by inches and promised to eliminate the woulda, coulda, shoulda regrets that can kill championship dreams.

Remember?

“Those inches add up, and when those inches add up, you’re a losing program,” Elway said, when introducing Fangio in January 2019 as a coach who insisted: “We will not kill ourselves by inches.”

While losing all seven games in September during the Fangio regime, too often the Broncos have shot themselves in the hoof.

So now we have a team looking for a few good men to eliminate bad habits that have left Denver unworthy of serious playoff consideration for five consecutive seasons.

Analyze it any way you want, but Teddy Bridgewater won the starting QB job over Lock because the team needed an adult leading the offensive huddle. At age 25, Chubb should be entering his prime as a dominant defensive force. But between scuffles with offensive tackle Garett Bolles during training camp, an ankle injury Fangio admits has “been slow to come around” and his visit to the Douglas County Detention Center to post bond, something seems off with Chubb.

Once a losing culture takes hold of a locker room, the stench is tougher to get rid of than mold.

“We’ve been in a position last year where it wasn’t good. We started slow. We made good runs, coming back. But being in that hole, man, is not a good feeling. Coming down that stretch where it’s like you have to win to get in (the playoffs) is not a good feeling,” Gordon said.

“I’ve been a part of a winning team before and the atmosphere is just so much better. When you’re losing, everyone can feel it. Everything is so tense. It is what it is. That’s part of the game. Everyone’s tense. Everyone’s on edge. It’s just tough. When you’re winning, it’s loose. Loose is a better atmosphere, it’s a better place to be.”

With the Broncos opening the season against the Giants, Jaguars and Jets, whose cumulative record in 2020 was 9-39, anything less than a 2-1 record for Denver at month’s end would qualify as an unmitigated disaster.

Is Chubb going to be part of the solution? Or a problem?

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