How Chubb Plans to Make Up for Slow Dolphins Start

Bradley Chubb is proposing that the Miami Dolphins invite fans to the team facility Thursday night for a draft party celebrating him.

We’re not certain the organization is fully on board with Chubb’s proposed plans, but it sounds like fun — a way to engage a fan base that likely will be able to skip the first round of the 2023 NFL draft because of Chub, and Miami’s misdeeds that resulted in the Dolphins forfeiting one of its two first-round picks because of the tampering they did trying to lure Sean Payton and Tom Brady last offseason.

Miami sent pick No. 29, which it had obtained from the San Francisco 49ers, tailback Chase Edmonds and a 2024 fourth-round pick to the Denver Broncos to acquire Chubb and a 2025 fifth-round pick at the trade deadline last season. So Chubb knows he’s the reason for what’s expected to be a quiet Thursday night during the first round of the NFL draft.

Chubb hopes to make sure Dolphins fans know he’s worth it.

“I have high expectations for myself. I just have to approach every day (knowing) they brought me here for a reason,” said Chubb, who has produced 28.5 sacks and forced seven fumbles in the 57 games he’s played his first five seasons. “I just have to live up to that reason.”

NEW START FOR CHUBB

Chubb likely will get that chance now that he’s been reunited with Vic Fangio, playing for the same defensive coordinator whose scheme he thrived under during their time together in Denver.

If there were in the 2023 draft a college version of Chubb, who produced 198 tackles and 25 sacks in his four seasons at N.C. State, that prospect probably would end up where Chubb was taken in the 2018 NFL draft — as a top five pick (he went fifth overall).

Outside of his numerous injury-marred seasons, Chubb hasn’t been an NFL disappointment. He’s been selected for two Pro Bowls.

“The type of player he is, and the type of person he is, he’s seeking to be great and win in a big way,” fellow pass rusher Malik Reed said of Chubb, a former teammate in Denver. “I feel like that’s the type of people you want to surround yourself with, not only on the field with football but in life.”

The Dolphins hope Chubb lives up to the five-year, $110 million contract extension they gave him back in November.

CHUBB'S 2022 DOLPHINS CHAPTER

While Chubb’s 2022 season, a year where he produced 39 tackles, eight sacks and three forced fumbles while playing eight games for the Broncos and eight for the Dolphins, helped him get selected to his second Pro Bowl, he openly admits the Dolphins chapter fell short of his expectations.

Outside of the broken hand and high ankle sprain Chubb suffered and played through, the 27-year-old admitted the biggest challenge being part of a midseason trade created was his unfamiliarity, which resulted in discomfort.

There was discomfort with the city (he dislikes South Florida's traffic).

There was an uneasiness in the defense he was learning while being on the field last season. Some of that will be cut down now that he’s playing for Fangio again.

And then there was the overall lack of familiarity with the figures involved, the people.

“Just knowing everybody, knowing people’s names. Knowing the people around the facility and being able to say, ‘What’s up with [their] name.’ Not having to say ‘What’s up bro,’ then wondering, what’s that dude’s name?” Chubb said. “All that plays a part into everything, how you approach every day. How are you going to go to war with somebody (when) you don’t even know their name?

“I was grasping a whole new defense, and a whole new set of teammates. I feel like I did OK. I for sure held myself to a higher standard. I wanted to be that guy who got 10 sacks in half a season but everything doesn’t work out like that. I look back at all that as fuel for this year. Where (could I) have been? Where this team could have been."

Those are the thoughts that drive Chubb and his teammates during the team's offseason training, which is in its second week.

“We had so many high expectations with me coming in, and finishing it out with just a playoff berth," that’s not what the goal is," Chubb said. "Not what the standard is. I’m using that for sure as fuel.”