Simon Fletcher knows a thing or two about rushing the passer, and what it takes to be a great pass rusher. The Broncos all-time sack leader, who amassed 97.5 sacks in his NFL career, joined the Orange and Blue 760 1st and 10 at 10 crew this morning to talk Broncos defense.
Fletcher was asked his thoughts on the Broncos first round pick thus far.
“He’s in his second regular season professional game, and I think he’s doing well”, Fletcher said. “It’s still a learning experience for him. Right now there’s a little bit of thought, and there will be for the foreseeable future, but he has the tools and the mentality that once that light goes off and he realizes he can play this game at this level and be a great contributor, I think Bradley Chubb going to be the guy we’re talking about when Von Miller is near the end of his career in a few years.”
Bradley Chubb has been impressive for the Denver Broncos so far.
— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) September 19, 2018
See how every first rounder has graded through two weeks ($)
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(via @PFF_Chichester) pic.twitter.com/WP8eJf5TWt
That’s high praise coming from a legend like Fletcher. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was his call-out of Chubb’s mentality. Later on in the interview he talked about when Steve Atwater joined the team in 1989 that he knew Steve was going to be good when he saw that mentality from him in practice.
Fletcher said, “the one thing that you know about rookie players from the first few practices is ‘this guy has the toughness, he has the mentality, and the guy’s willing to put in the work to constantly improve on his play. And that’s the thing that you see in a Steve Atwater, it’s something I saw in Rod Smith, Shannon Sharpe, and a number of other guys too.”
While Fletcher wasn’t specifically talking about Chubb in the quote above, I think it’s telling that he recognizes and commends Chubb’s mentality and approach to the game as that’s been something that we have all noticed and mentioned multiple times about this rookie class. They are hard workers, tough, and willing to put in the time and effort to get better.
I know he hasn’t set the league on fire quite yet, but I agree with Fletcher that once Chubb begins to get into a groove and get comfortable, good things are going to happen.