ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — As Bradley Chubb works his way back from the partially torn ACL that ended his 2019 season in Week 4, he says he's got only one goal in his recovery: to be ready for the start of the 2020 campaign.
Any timetables beyond that don't mean anything to him.
"I'm just hoping to feel the best I possibly can by the season's start," Chubb said Monday. "I'm not trying to put OTAs, camp or a date or anything. I'm just trying to feel 100 percent and make sure I'm good and the team's good."
In the meantime, Chubb will continue his rehab process into the offseason in Denver.
"It's going to limit my distractions a little bit, to be out here by myself and not have too many of my teammates here," Chubb said. "It's going to be good for me to just get away and focus on what I need to focus on."
This is Chubb's second time recovering from a torn ACL after suffering the injury to the same knee in high school, and he feels that this time the process will be even easier.
"I feel like it's better this time because I'm a professional athlete, so I'm around professionals," Chubb said. "In high school, I was around high school trainers for three days out of the week. Now, I'm here six days a week, doing everything I can. I feel like it's going a lot easier and it's going a lot smoother because I have that mindset that I want to be back, and I know the timetable. I feel like when I got hurt was perfect timing, so I'm just trying to get back as best I can before the season starts."
This time around, though, Chubb is taking what he's learned and applying it with an unwavering level of discipline.
"You've just got to be on top of it, 100 percent at all times, whether it be the diet, with the workouts or whatever," Chubb said. "My main thing is I'm trying to completely clean out everything bad that I've been doing and attack everything 100 percent — no distractions, no anything."
When he returns and begins his third NFL season, Chubb will rejoin a team that finished the season on a 4-1 run. With a young core of talented players on both sides of the ball, he's ready to help his teammates pick up where they left off.
"It's huge," Chubb said. "I feel like our class hit, this class was a hit and all we've got to do is get another one to hit. I feel like if we continue that momentum, we've got a good, young guys, a lot of people playing for each other, and I just can't wait to be back."