Breaking Down Whether Chubb Trade Was Worth It After He Joins Division Rival

One of the Miami Dolphins’ best leaders and highly touted players from recent seasons is joining an AFC East rival.

Just minutes after the team announced edge rusher Bradley Chubb was being released with a post-June 1 designation, multiple national reports surfaced that he was signing a three-year, $43.5 million deal with the Buffalo Bills.

This also came as the Dolphins made several moves to bolster their defense, including bringing back linebacker Willie Gay Jr., and signing Josh Uche to be one of Chubb's replacements on the edge.

For accounting purposes, Chubb’s money coming off the books in June means the Dolphins will save 20.3 million in cap space against a 10.9 million dead cap hit, according to Over The Cap.

That will help the Dolphins quite a bit, but the more interesting storyline is Chubb going to Buffalo — the team that terrorized the Dolphins during Chubb’s entire tenure.

Evaluating Chubb’s Dolphins Years

With Chubb officially heading elsewhere, it’s a good time to look back at the trade that brought him to Miami in the first place.

The Dolphins traded a 2023 first-round pick, running back Chase Edmonds, and a 2024 fourth-round pick to the Denver Broncos at the 2022 deadline for Chubb. Miami also gave him a five-year, $110 million extension.

In return, Miami got 40 starts, 22 sacks, 20 tackles for loss, and nine forced fumbles. Chubb was impactful when he was on the field, but he missed the entire 2024 season with a torn ACL suffered late in 2023.

That injury also kept him out of the team’s playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Chubb also made major contributions in the locker room. Although those can be hard to quantify, he was a team captain and clearly a respected leader. Given Miami’s myriad of reported locker room issues in recent years, that probably has more value than we’ll know.

So, was the Chubb trade worth it? In a vacuum, it’s hard to justify Chubb being worth a first and a fourth-round pick. He wasn’t a total bust by any means, but the injury and only solid production don’t make it a total win, either.

What Chubb on Bills' DL Means for Dolphins

Obviously, the Dolphins will have to face Chubb twice a season as long as he’s in Buffalo. However, this is a somewhat strange move for the Bills.

On the surface, Buffalo needs edge help, and Chubb certainly qualifies. That said, the Bills have been cycling through veteran pass rushers for a while now and haven’t really hit on one.

Joey Bosa was OK last season, but he fell off down the stretch. Before that, the team had Von Miller, who ultimately lost a lot of time to injury.

Instead of swinging on a younger option, Buffalo went for Chubb, who has an extensive injury history and very misleading numbers. Chubb had 8.5 sacks last season, but a lot of them were the product of being in the right place at the right time.

Funnily enough, Chubb’s best tape of the season came in Miami’s win against the Bills in Week 10. The rest of his tape shows a player who doesn’t have the same spring in his step that he once did.

So, while this might sting for Dolphins fans, there’s a chance this backfires on Buffalo.