Denver Broncos star pass rusher Bradley Chubb is the latest big-name player to be impacted by the early-season injury bug around the NFL.
The Pro Bowl defender suffered an ankle injury early Sunday’s win over the Jacksonville Jaguars and did not return to action.
Two days later, and the Broncos have announced that Chubb will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his ankle Wednesday. Other reports indicate that the surgery is to repair bone spurs, which typically sidelines a player for 6-8 weeks.
“I’m going to push everything I can to get back to these games and hopefully it’s sooner rather than later,” Chubb said following Tuesday’s news. “My mindset is just going to be attack it 100 percent every day.”
This certainly isn’t what the 2-0 Broncos wanted to announce mere days after dispatching of the aforementioned Jaguars.
Chubb, 25, has been a major pass-rush force when he’s been on the field since Denver made him the fifth pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. The issue here has been an inability to stay healthy.
Bradley Chubb injury issues and impact on the Denver Broncos
After putting up 21 quarterback hits, 12 sacks and two forced fumbles as a rookie back in 2018, this North Carolina State product missed all but four games of his sophomore campaign due to a partially torn ACL.
While Chubb returned last season to record 19 quarterback hits and 7.5 sacks, he also missed two more games to injury.
Denver enters Week 3 against the New York Jets as heavy favorites. They boast the fifth-ranked scoring defense in the NFL and have allowed an opposing 65.5 quarterback rating through two games.
A lot of this has had to do with success rushing the passer. It might not show up in Denver’s sack total (three), but getting to the quarterback creates more of an advantage for the Broncos’ elite-level secondary. Without Bradley Chubb in the mix, this is going to be challenged.
After taking on rookie quarterback Zach Wilson in Week 3, Denver has a stretch of games against some top-end signal callers. This list includes Lamar Jackson, Ben Roethlisberger, Derek Carr and Baker Mayfield over the next month.