Kiszla: Whether Broncos can be NFL’s best defense depends on tricky question linebacker Bradley Chubb has yet to answer

The Astro­naut is the X‑factor.

For the Bron­cos to be tru­ly dom­i­nant on defense, they need out­side line­backer Bradley Chubb wreak­ing hav­oc in the pass rush from Week 1. We know Chubb pos­sess­es the skills to do it. But in this vio­lent sport, where is the Astronaut’s mind­set after miss­ing 12 games in 2019, when a cor­ner­stone of Denver’s defense tore the ACL in his left knee on the last Sun­day of September?

“Chubb, we have to get him going. That, I think, will take some time. But we know what he can do,”  foot­ball oper­a­tions chief John Elway said Saturday.

Dur­ing a year in which COVID-19 has altered how we all go about our busi­ness, the pan­dem­ic has added a lay­er of uncer­tain­ty to Chubb’s recov­ery from a seri­ous injury.

This has been a train­ing camp unlike any we’ve seen, as NFL teams have placed empha­sis on play­er health over prepa­ra­tion for the sea­son. After an August in which the pre­sea­son sched­ule was can­celed, how much con­fi­dence can Chubb real­ly have in his sur­gi­cal­ly repaired knee, until he takes that first big hit at full speed against the Ten­nessee Titans?

Learn­ing to ful­ly trust the knee prob­a­bly will require more than one snap. It might take more than a month. And how long before he’s the Astro­naut again will go a long way to deter­min­ing how good Denver’s defense can be.

Mod­ern sports med­i­cine can make Chubb’s knee as good as new. But it’s not unusu­al for the recov­ery process from ACL surgery to require more than 12 months, espe­cial­ly in a play­er like Chubb, whose explo­sive burst is among more dan­ger­ous items found on his pass-rush­ing menu of attack.

I asked Bron­cos coach Vic Fan­gio: Will Chubb be on a “pitch count” that lim­its his snaps ear­ly in the reg­u­lar season?

“He may be on one. He may not be. We’re going to see how he does. He’s not 100 per­cent yet,” Fan­gio said.

“There’s a lot to over­come when you’re deal­ing with an ACL injury that he’s had, par­tic­u­lar­ly the posi­tion he plays, where he’s lean­ing on peo­ple a lot and tak­ing on the offen­sive line­men. It could be a pitch count, but I don’t think it’s a con­di­tion­ing pitch count. We’ll just see how it goes.”

How slow will the Bron­cos go with Chubb? It could reveal much about whether pro­tect­ing Chubb’s long-term health needs to take pri­or­i­ty over Fangio’s nat­ur­al desire to get the Bron­cos off to a fast start in his sec­ond sea­son as coach.

As a rook­ie in 2018, Chubb played 844 snaps. He was on the field for 78.4% of Denver’s defen­sive plays, evi­dence that reveals how inte­gral the Bron­cos viewed their young line­backer to the team’s success.

One of the more inter­est­ing mys­ter­ies as the Bron­cos head toward their home open­er on Sept. 14 revolves around how much Chubb will play. Will he be on the field 50% of the time? I’d be pleas­ant­ly sur­prised if it’s more.

And nobody would be shocked if Den­ver decides it’s wis­er to break Chubb in cau­tious­ly, as a sit­u­a­tion­al pass-rush­er when the Titans are like­ly to throw the football.

For all the X’s and O’s and video analy­sis in pro foot­ball, some­times coach­ing is more about pure gut instinct than 21st cen­tu­ry science.

The Bron­cos’ ear­ly sched­ule allows the team no time to ease into the sea­son, with four games that will go a long way to deter­min­ing whether they should be tak­en seri­ous­ly as a play­off contender.

Den­ver opens at home as slim 1.5‑point favorites against Der­rick Hen­ry and the rush-heavy Titans in a game that feels like a toss-up in no small mea­sure because no fans will be allowed in Empow­er Field at Mile High as a safe­ty pre­cau­tion in these pan­dem­ic times.

And the road ris­es steeply uphill from a sea­son open­er whose final play won’t be until near­ly mid­night. There’s a trip to Pitts­burgh, where Ben Roeth­lis­berg­er will be intent on prov­ing he’s not washed up, on a short week that will test Chubb’s pow­ers of recovery.

On the last Sun­day of Sep­tem­ber, how much can Chubb has­sle our old pal Tom Brady, wear­ing his new Tam­pa Bay Bucs uni­form? The fourth stop in the open­ing stretch will present anoth­er short week for Chubb, with a Thurs­day night tilt at the Jets, where the Bron­cos need to steal a road victory.

“We should be the best defense in the league, no ques­tion,” defen­sive end Shel­by Har­ris said dur­ing camp.

The best? While I admire Har­ris’ lofty ambi­tion, Super Bowl 50 was a long time ago.

Fan­gio was hired to do a rebuild­ing project that took that cham­pi­onship defense down to the foun­da­tion and studs. Com­pared to his first game as coach in 2019, there will be no few­er than five new starters on the defen­sive side of the ball when the Bron­cos take the field against Tennessee.

A dom­i­nant Den­ver defense would hide many of the inevitable grow­ing pains for young quar­ter­back Drew Lock. But how soon will this Den­ver defense be able to make Brady feel old and Patrick Mahomes feel mortal?

Not until Chubb again feels like his dom­i­nant self, and the Astro­naut takes flight.

(Vis­it­ed 1 times, 1 vis­its today)



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