Dolphins Trade Deadline Splash for Bradley Chubb a Direct Message to AFC Contenders

The Miami Dolphins were one of the major players at the 2022 NFL trade deadline, swinging a splashy deal to acquire Bradley Chubb from the Denver Broncos. With the pickup, the Phins have loudly announced their intent to contend both this season and for the foreseeable future.

Chubb provides Miami with the high-end edge-rusher the club has sorely lacked. He had been one of the few bright spots for the disappointing Denver Broncos this year, notching 26 tackles—four for loss—16 pressures, eight QB hits, seven hurries, 5.5 sacks and three knockdowns across 409 defensive snaps.

The 26-year-old is having a resurgent campaign after missing more than half of the 2021 season with injury. While Chubb failed to record a single sack in the seven games he was healthy for last year and earned an abysmal 45.0 PFF grade, the site is giving him a much more respectable 74.9 grade for his efforts in 2022.

Chubb will reinforce a Miami defense that has recorded a mere 15 sacks across eight games. The Dolphins are the only squad among the 12 above.-500 teams with 15 or fewer sacks, showing how important getting after the quarterback is to success in the modern NFL.

Jaelan Phillips has tallied the most sacks for the Phins this year, but his three are tied for the 49th-most in the league. Chubb is tied for No. 13 in that category, while no other Miami player is in the top 80.

Miami’s poor edge-rushing capabilities are a major reason the team has struggled against the pass this year. The Dolphins have given up 262.1 yards per game through the air, with only six clubs conceding more aerial yardage on average.

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Since Miami isn’t scoring—the team averages a middling 22.3 points per game—at the same rate as the Baltimore Ravens (26.0 PPG), Buffalo Bills (29.0) or Kansas City Chiefs (31.9 PPG), the squad had to improve its ability to keep its opponent off the board. Having Chubb bearing down on opposing signal-callers should go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.

Assuming this move pushes the 5-3 Dolphins over the top and eventually into the postseason after they came tantalizing close for two straight years, Chubb will be the ideal weapon to deploy against the slew of elite quarterbacks blocking Miami's path to a Super Bowl.

Kansas City has made it to at least the conference championship game in each of the last four years, and it could very well get there again in 2022. The Chiefs are off to a hot 5-2 start despite trading Tyreek Hill to these Dolphins and appear poised for another deep run. Patrick Mahomes has found a way to thrive without his top playmaker and is leading the league in touchdown throws.

The few opponents who have found success against Kansas City’s offense have generally brought waves of pressure against its quarterback. The most notable example was in Super Bowl LV when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers pressured Mahomes on 37.5 percent of his dropbacks, hurried him 11 times, hit him seven times and sacked him thrice on the way to a 31-9 blowout victory.

The Phins might also meet up with a familiar foe in the Bills (6-1) come playoff time. Josh Allen’s evolution into a leading NFL MVP candidate has turned Miami’s AFC East rival into one of the most explosive offenses around.

Miami proved it can beat Buffalo this year, however, having accomplished the impressive feat in Week 3 with a 21-19 victory. Allen threw for 400 yards and two scores but needed a whopping 63 passing attempts to reach that mark and was sacked four times.

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Considering Allen is 6-0 when he’s been sacked two times or fewer this year and he’s averaged three sacks taken in his three career playoff losses, it’s readily apparent that putting him on his back is one of the bigger keys to toppling the Bills.

Sending an athletic 6’4”, 275-pound pass-rusher who ran a 4.65 40-yard dash—putting him in the 90th percentile for his size—after the likes of Mahomes and Allen may not always result in lots of sacks, but his presence will allow the team to generate pressures without having to blitz, something it largely has been unable to accomplish in 2022.

The dynamic pairing of Chubb and Phillips will open things up schematically for defensive coordinator Josh Boyer. The Dolphins have been relying heavily on the blitz—using it on 28.4 percent of defensive plays—to try to get some pressure in passing situations. Their rushers haven't been getting the job done, evidenced by a concerning No. 29 ranking in pressure rate. With Chubb on the field, the team can finally afford to drop more players into coverage.

If Chubb is as good of a fit as he seems on paper, it would be a no-brainer move for the Dolphins to extend his contract this offseason. The fifth-year veteran is playing out the final year of his rookie deal.

While he’ll likely command a large contract—Spotrac estimates Chubb’s value at slightly north of $13 million per season—the pass-rusher will be worth every penny if he can elevate Miami to a serious level of title contention.

And the Phins should want to extend him after effectively going all-in to acquire him. The MMQB’s Albert Breer noted that the team had already traded away two of the three first-rounders it received from the San Francisco 49ers last year—effectively getting Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill in exchange for them—and just utilized the final one to bring in Chubb.

With only a handful of selections in the 2023 draft, none of which are in the first round, it’s clear that the Dolphins' rebuild is officially over. If Chubb ends up being the missing defensive piece this organization has been waiting for, the rest of the league should be on notice for as long as the star pass-rusher remains in Miami.