Few players on the Broncos’ roster have more at stake from a future financial perspective this season than pass rusher Bradley Chubb.

The fifth pick in the 2018 NFL Draft is entering the fifth and final year of his rookie contract and is set to earn $13.9 million after the team exercised the final-year option on the deal last spring. Have a season like he did as a rookie, when he notched 12 sacks (a team record for first-year players) and started all 16 games, and Chubb could be on his way to a massive long-term extension with the Broncos or even a one-year franchise tag that would pay him north of $20 million in 2023. Suffer through another injury-plagued season with little production, like he did in 2021, and Chubb’s prospects next offseason will look far less lucrative.

The pendulum could swing either way, hitting any number of different scenarios in the process. But Chubb, as he begins an offseason program feeling as healthy as he has in at least three years, insists he isn’t spending much time thinking about how his contract future could unfold.

“I know I didn’t put my best foot forward last year on the field,” said the 25-year-old Chubb, who played in only seven games in 2021 after having two ankle surgeries and didn’t record a sack. “That’s what it comes down to, making plays and doing things for the organization to help us win. I feel I wasn’t in that position last year. My goal is to play 17 games and win as many as possible. That (contract) stuff is gonna come. If you stress about it, that’s when you start doing things you don’t need to be doing. So my thing is tunnel vision, looking forward and just trying to help this team win.”

The good news for Chubb is that he is approaching an offseason fully healthy for the first time since his rookie year ended. Four games into the 2019 season, he suffered a torn ACL. The following offseason was spent rehabbing from surgery. Chubb played in 14 games upon his return in 2020 and finished with 7.5 sacks, earning his first Pro Bowl berth. But his ankle began bothering him toward the end of the season, and just before the Broncos began OTAs last June, he had arthroscopic surgery to remove bone spurs in the ankle. Chubb played in one game in September before needing surgery on the opposite ankle, and he didn’t return until the end of November.

Now, Chubb says he is fully healthy, and it has changed the way he has been able to approach the offseason while taking on a larger leadership role on a defense that will enter a season without Von Miller for the first time since 2010.

“Whenever you’ve got a chance to take the offseason for what it is and better yourself mentally and physically, it takes you miles and leaps and bounds away from where you were in the beginning,” Chubb said. “Just to have that peace of mind and be able to focus on football has been fun.”

The Broncos are banking on better availability from Chubb. They signed free agent Randy Gregory to a five-year, $70 million deal, and he comes with his own availability concerns, having missed two full seasons due to suspensions and never playing more than 14 games in a season since being drafted by the Cowboys in 2016. Chubb believes “the sky is the limit” for the duo in 2022, noting that Gregory’s explosiveness will have a big impact on the defense as a whole. He also knows they both have to stay on the field to reach what he says is a considerable ceiling.

“I’m not going to lie to you and say I didn’t,” Chubb said Thursday when asked how he has kept from getting discouraged during the past three seasons as injuries have affected his availability. “There’s been countless times in my role where I’m like, ‘Man, am I gonna be OK?’ I’m supposed to be good, and I’d still feel this or this or that. … But I try not to think about (the injuries) anymore, man. I’m just focused on what I can control, and what I can control is being the best me, coming out here healthy and helping this team win.

“Sometimes you gotta go through the bad things to get where you want to be.”

Here are five other thoughts from the Broncos’ first week of voluntary offseason workouts:

1. The Russell Wilson trade in March has created a fun line of “Where were you when you got the call?” questions for Broncos players during media availabilities this offseason. Chubb’s may be my favorite so far. He was in a classroom at North Carolina State, taking a class toward a degree in sociology. Chubb was in the middle of a test, so his phone was in his pocket, on vibrate mode.

“I’m like, ‘What’s going on? Why is everyone calling me?'” Chubb said. “So I get out and my agent, my mom, my dad, my brother, everyone is calling. Everybody is just jumping up and down, happy that we got Russ.”

Chubb first met Wilson in 2014, when he was a high school senior and a coveted recruit who was attending the North Carolina State spring game. Wilson was having his jersey retired at the school that day.

“It was a quick little interaction,” Chubb said, “but when I found out we had him, it was crazy. I just jumped up and down. It’s been great so far to see his leadership style and how he attacks every day. It’s gonna be fun not only for me to learn from him, but for the receivers and O-line to learn from him and just for everybody to have that energy he brings and to adapt that and put it toward wins.”

2. There is no clear formula that can identify when — or if — a wide receiver will capture his previous form after suffering an ACL tear. Each recovery has its own timeline, its own ebbs and flows.

Cooper Kupp suffered a torn ACL midway through the 2018 season and bounced back the following season with 94 catches for 1,161 yards and 10 touchdowns, career-high numbers until he blew those figures away with his historic 2021 campaign. Will Fuller suffered an ACL tear the week before Kupp did in 2018. Though he returned in 2019 and was solid, it wasn’t until 2020 that Fuller fully regained his form, registering career-best marks in receptions (53), yards (879) and touchdowns (eight).

Courtland Sutton didn’t have a Kupp-like return from injury last season. Though he played in all 17 games one season after suffering a torn ACL, Sutton’s 13.4 yards per reception were the lowest of his career. In the final 10 games of the season, he recorded only 20 catches and no touchdowns. The Broncos still signed Sutton to a four-year, $61 million extension in November believing better performances were in store once he was further removed from the injury — and once the team had a better quarterback.

The latter box was checked emphatically with the addition of Wilson, and Sutton can feel the benefit of the former already this offseason. He’s now working out without the knee brace he wore over his surgically repaired knee last season.

“My body feels amazing,” Sutton said Tuesday. “Everything feels really good. I’m just really excited to get these OTAs going, to get to training camp.”

If Sutton could replicate the Kupp 2019 line — or even land somewhere just a bit north of the Fuller 2020 line, provided Tim Patrick and Jerry Jeudy also up their production — sticking with him after his up-and-down 2021 will prove to be a wise choice.

3. Safety Justin Simmons was as excited as anyone else when he heard the team would be acquiring Wilson in a trade. But he was almost as excited to find out that Kareem Jackson, his partner in the back end of Denver’s defense the past three seasons, would be returning for a fourth year with the Broncos.

Some of the connection is personal. Simmons was entering his fourth season in the NFL when Jackson, already a decade into his pro career, arrived in 2019. During the pair’s first season together, Simmons had a career year, recording four interceptions while earning second-team All-Pro honors for the first time. At the time, Simmons credited Jackson’s mentorship for playing a big role in his growth as a player, and that has extended to advice Jackson has given him about fatherhood.

Simmons said Tuesday that the veteran’s presence is still aiding other players on the roster in similar ways, calling him the “unsung hero” of the secondary.

“I don’t think he gets enough credit, especially with the volume that he plays at going into Year 13,” Simmons said. “You can’t replace that. It means a lot for us as far as the verbiage. There are going to be some things that overlap (between new defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero’s scheme and that of former coach Vic Fangio), but there’s going to be a lot that is new. Having a guy like him who has been around and seen it and knows, that’s going to be great for our younger guys to learn from him and be able to say, ‘This is how we did it last year, but this is how it connects.’ Obviously, I can do those things, too, but not nearly at the level Kareem can do it. I love him, man. I’m excited to have him back.”

4. As if The Athletic’s Dane Brugler hadn’t put enough work in this month with the release of his annual draft guide, aptly named “The Beast,” he also published a pick-by-pick, seven-round mock draft Thursday with each selection from 1 to 262. That meant Brugler predicted all eight picks the Broncos are currently scheduled to make. Here is the list below, followed by a few thoughts:

While there are other needs I’d classify as bigger for the Broncos than depth at linebacker — cornerback, defensive line and offensive tackle, perhaps — general manager George Paton has put himself in a position to seek out the best talent available once Denver is on the clock. And it’s easy to envision Andersen residing high on the Broncos’ big board if he’s still available at pick No. 64.

There isn’t much recent precedent for what Andersen accomplished at Montana State. He was recruited as a running back and won the Big Sky Freshman of the Year Award after he rushed for 515 yards and five touchdowns. As a sophomore, injuries at quarterback sparked a position change for Andersen, and he became a first-team All-Big Sky selection at QB while rushing for 21 touchdowns and throwing for another three. He then converted to linebacker full time as a junior in 2019, believing the position offered his best shot at reaching the NFL. As a senior in 2021 (Montana State didn’t play games in 2020 due to the pandemic), Andersen was named the FCS Defensive Player of the Year after tallying 147 tackles, including 14 for loss, and two sacks. He followed that up with a strong performance at the Senior Bowl and a dazzling display at the NFL combine, where his 4.42-second 40-yard dash was the fastest of any linebacker.

The Broncos signed Josey Jewell to a two-year, $11 million contract in March, a sizable investment for a player who missed all but two games last season due to a pectoral injury, but one that represents Jewell’s standing as “the glue” for Denver’s defense, as Paton put it. But there is a clear need for future depth at the position. The Broncos signed former Eagles linebacker Alex Singleton, who happens to be a former Montana State player himself, to a one-year deal in free agency. Baron Browning, Jonas Griffith and Justin Strnad all started games for the Broncos in 2021. It’s not as if the cupboard is bare. But with only Browning under contract past 2023, it makes sense for Paton to target an impactful player at the position. The 6-foot-4, 235-pound Andersen could be just that, a player who has already produced at a high level and still has significant room for growth as he learns more nuances of his relatively new position.

Chad Muma, the Wyoming linebacker who visited with the Broncos on Monday, could be another intriguing option in this spot.

5. As for the other selections, there is a good mix of offense and defense at positions where the Broncos need to add depth. Tight end is one obvious such spot, and while UCLA’s Greg Dulcich isn’t on the level of Colorado State’s Trey McBride as a receiver, he did catch a career-high 42 passes for 725 yards and five touchdowns as a fourth-year junior in 2021. You can expect that Paton has strong intel on Dulcich. Not only did both play at UCLA, but Dulcich also hails from the same hometown (La Cañada Flintridge, Calif.) and attended the same high school (St. Francis) as Paton.

Like Brugler, I had South Carolina edge rusher Kingsley Enagbare going to the Broncos at No. 96 in my mock draft published earlier this month. I’d be very surprised if the Broncos didn’t emerge from Day 2, where they currently have three picks, without a pass rusher. DeAngelo Malone of Western Kentucky is another potential name here.

Brugler’s pick among the final five I found most intriguing? LSU running back Tyrion Davis-Price. The Broncos appear ready to move on from Melvin Gordon, the veteran who has had discussions with the Ravens about a potential deal, according to an NFL Network report. Davis-Price ran for 1,003 yards in 12 games as a junior last season, notching a career-high 4.8 yards per carry. His tough running style could pair nicely with Javonte Williams, who was among the league’s leaders in broken tackles last season.

(Photo: Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)