Can Randy Gregory, Bradley Chubb give Denver a top-flight pass-rush pair in loaded AFC West?

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – Once the Denver Broncos traded for Russell Wilson in March, the AFC West could readily stake its claim as the league's quarterback mecca.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that each of the four franchises in the division used extensive capital this offseason to fortify its pass-rushing groups in hopes of harassing Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert and Derek Carr.

The Los Angeles Chargers traded two draft picks to Chicago for Khalil Mack and will pair him with Joey Bosa. The Las Vegas Raiders gave veteran Chandler Jones $34 million guaranteed and up to $52.5 million over three years to bookend with rising star Maxx Crosby, who himself signed a massive four-year extension in March. The Kansas City Chiefs drafted Purdue standout George Karlaftis in the first round (No. 30 overall) in an attempt to bolster a group led by disruptive defensive tackle Chris Jones and veteran Frank Clark.

The Broncos’ pass-rush retooling has been a work in progress, essentially since trading revered outside linebacker Von Miller to the Los Angeles Rams last fall for two draft picks. This offseason, Denver general manager George Paton signed Randy Gregory to a five-year deal worth up to $70 million ($28 million guaranteed) and used his top draft pick (No. 64 overall) on Oklahoma pass-rusher Nik Bonitto to supplement a returning group led by fifth-year man Bradley Chubb.

“You can never have enough pass rushers,” first-year defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero said last month. “We'll take all of them. We’ll take every one of them.”

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In Denver, the question three months before the regular season begins is not about talent, but rather availability and reliability. Over 52 total NFL regular-season weekends the past three years, Gregory, the former Dallas Cowboys standout, and Chubb have only both been active a total of 12 times.

Gregory, of course, has been suspended several times, including for all of the 2017 and 2019 seasons, for violations of the league’s rules on substance abuse. Last year marked the first season since his rookie year in 2015 that he wasn’t suspended for some length of time, and production followed. Gregory registered six sacks and 29 pressures in 12 games around a four-game absence due to a calf injury.

Now he’s learning a new system and adjusting to new coaches and teammates while also rehabbing. He’s been around the team facility and on the practice field during OTAs even though he can’t take part.

“I ask ‘RG’ a lot of questions and he breaks things down, small things, whether it’s the set line of the offensive tackle or just if I could have taken a better approach,” said Baron Browning, who is back at outside linebacker after spending 2021 in the middle. “It’s just small things that he sees. I've even got with him after practice just to pick his brain one-on-one, so I definitely enjoy having him around and learning from him.

“He has a lot of knowledge in him that you can learn from him.”

The goal is to pair Gregory on the top line with Chubb, who is aiming to return to the level of production he showed as a rookie in 2018 as he enters the final year of his first contract.

The former first-round pick out of North Carolina State burst onto the scene with 12 sacks that year but has just 8 1⁄2 in the three seasons since. He missed all but four games of 2019 with a knee injury and nine games total last year with an ankle issue that required surgery.

“I can’t go back and change the past, I’ve just got to put my head down and work for the future,” Chubb said this week. “Of course it’s frustrating. Of course I came into this league wanting to be the best ever and these past couple years haven’t been showing it. I know that, everyone around me knows that. All I’ve got to do is go out there and do what I know I can do.”

Chubb has looked healthy and explosive so far in OTAs, though the true test, as for all players, arrives once the pads come on.

“He’s done a really good job,” head coach Nathaniel Hackett said this week. “He’s starting to feel it a little bit, both his pass rushing and his ability to stop the run. He’s a force.”

Added defensive tackle Mike Purcell, "You can tell he's comfortable. After last year, with the ankle, he'd come around the edge and he could feel it. Now you can see him running around the edge and it's nothing. He can bend, he can move.

"So, he's looking how he was his rookie year."

There is little doubt that if Chubb and Gregory are available and on the field consistently this fall, they’ll be productive. They’ve just both, for different reasons, missed extensive time over multiple seasons.

Behind them, Denver has an intriguing mix of production and youth from Browning, Bonitto, Malik Reed and Jonathon Cooper, who is aiming for a training camp return from a surgery on his left hand.

Reed became a full-time player early in 2020 with Miller out and has started 26 of the past 27 games he’s been active for, accumulating 13 sacks in that time. Bonitto is “a ready-made pass-rusher,” according to Evero, though Paton said after the draft that Denver needs him to keep putting on weight so he can hold up against the run. Chubb raved this week about the natural ability both Bonitto and Browning show, and the franchise hopes for a second-year jump from Cooper.

“That’s how you win, when you get a wave of rushers and you have an offense that can score points,” Paton told reporters before the draft this spring. “You get leads and then you can throw this pass rush at them. You look at the Rams, you look at the teams that have had success over the years — Indianapolis with Peyton (Manning) or Denver with Peyton — you get the lead, you have the pass rushers, you let them go. I think that’s the formula. You just can’t have enough of those players.”

In the end, though, the Broncos’ ability to cause problems for the star-studded crop of quarterbacks in their own division likely rests with Gregory and Chubb, who have missed 27 and 24 out of 49 total regular season games over the past three seasons, respectively.

Follow USA TODAY Sports' Parker Gabriel on Twitter @ParkerJGabriel.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Denver Broncos hope they have answer for AFC West's high-powered QBs