ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Edge rusher Bradley Chubb faced the Bills enough during his three-plus seasons in Miami to have several reasons to want to sign with Buffalo.
The team has been a consistent winner. And it has Josh Allen.
“I’m trying to win. I’m going to go through a season where I’m not frustrated every Monday coming into the building and upset, like, ‘Hey, man, we should have did this. We should’ve did that,’” Chubb said during a Zoom call
Thursday after signing his three-year contract with Buffalo.
“Playing this team for three-and-a-half years, you see that they know how to win. They believe in themselves to win,” he added, before referring to Allen by his jersey number. “And we got a guy like 17 running the show. It’s hard to feel like you’re not going to win, you know?”
Chubb knows. And so does Buffalo’s other major offseason addition, receiver D.J. Moore, who was acquired in a trade with Chicago.
“He’s a field general,” Moore said of Allen. “You see him out there trying to conduct things, and the way he does it is successful. And I just want to be part of that.”
Limited as the Bills were by the salary cap, general manager Brandon Beane addressed two key needs for a team in transition following coach Sean McDermott’s firing in January. Buffalo still has the core of a group that’s reached the playoffs in seven consecutive seasons.
The 28-year-old Moore has topped 1,100 yards receiving in four of his eight seasons, and upgrades a group of receivers that had difficulty getting open last year.
The 29-year-old Chubb, when healthy, has the potential to muscle up Buffalo’s middling pass rush for new head coach Joe Brady and new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard.
Chubb is familiar enough with Buffalo to know the team’s shortcomings.
There’s the Bills' failure to reach the Super Bowl, which led to McDermott’s firing. And there’s also the perception that Buffalo leans too much on Allen.
“I feel like the talk in the past was the offense go out there and put up how many points, and the defense don’t lose the game,” Chubb said. “Now we’re trying to be aggressive on defense and set the tone. And I feel like that’s what they brought me here to do, set the tone.”
Chubb has a history of injuries. He’s played 10 or more games in a season just four times and missed all of 2024 with a torn knee ligament.
He said it took him about a fifth of the way through last season to feel fully healthy. He finished with 8 1/2 sacks.
“I know what I can do. I know what I have left in the tank,” said Chubb, who hopes to exceed the career-best 12 sacks he had as a rookie in 2018 with Denver.
“I feel I’m going to hit my stride and this is going to be the perfect place to do it,” he added.
Moore is eager to reconnect with Brady, who was the Panthers' offensive coordinator during two of the receiver’s more productive seasons in Carolina.
“He said, ‘Get ready. Get ready to run,’” Moore said of his first conversation with Brady in Buffalo. “That’s what he told me when I was in Carolina, so he told me the same thing now. So I’m just ready for it.”
Though Moore’s production dropped in his final year in Chicago, he left the Bears on a high note by making his NFL playoff debut. Chicago beat Green Bay in the wild-card round before losing to the Los Angeles Rams.
“I look forward to getting back there with the Bills and going further,” Moore said.
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