Denver Broncos: In-house candidate to replace Bradley Chubb

Bradley Chubb’s unfortunate injury for Denver Broncos opens all kinds of possibilities for the team and one might be in house.

It’s unfortunate the Denver Broncos and Bradley Chubb were dealt another injury with their Pro Bowl stud. The Broncos must now find ways to be creative in how they could potentially find production out of their pass rushers in his absence.

Two certainly come to mind in Malik Reed and Jonathon Cooper. Both players are the logical ones to fill in immediately with snaps. Undrafted rookie Andre Mintze is another name Broncos fans should become familiar with who can get playing time due to Chubb’s injury.

However, there’s a very interesting and intriguing name in-house to consider if you are Vic Fangio and Ed Donatell. Matty Mulls and I talked about this on the recent Manely Broncos podcast.

There were a lot of questions regarding the position of linebacker and whether the team would upgrade the depth they had at inside linebacker. Two candidates popped up in the third round of the 2021 NFL Draft: Baron Browning and Jabril Cox.

Browning ended up being the Denver Broncos selection with some Broncos fans sweating bullets whether he would be the pick. Browning is the fascinating player to follow here. Since OTAs and Rookie Minicamp, the Broncos mentioned they liked the prospect of Browning as an inside linebacker.

However, with Chubb’s injury, Denver could look at a different position entirely for Browning to generate playing time for the rookie.

During draft season, Browning was well regarded as a freaky athlete capable of playing multiple different positions. He compared favorably to first-round talent Micah Parsons who went to Dallas in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft. If Denver truly wants to get its best athletes on the field, then Browning should be one of the ones to get looks as a pass rusher/edge rusher in Chubb’s absence.

Browning provides the flexibility to obviously play inside, but he has a variety of pass rush moves to create opportunities to get to the quarterback. Like Parsons, who might become the inside linebacker of the future for the Cowboys, Browning might be best suited to see looks as an edge rusher just to get early reps in his career.

With his rushing ability, it would not surprise me if Denver went this route.

Denver has plenty of ways it can go to replace Chubb’s production in his time away. Browning is so gifted that if he sees success immediately at pass rusher it would not be a surprise if he’s the one in waiting if Denver chose to move on from Chubb.

The problem that potentially made Browning fall in the draft could not only be his processing but where teams viewed him positionally. Now he’s with a defensive genius in Vic Fangio who gets linebacker depth with Justin Strnad. Both should see playing time of some sort.

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Or for Browning’s case, the sack master variety early in his career.