A hidden reason why the Broncos offensive line is now a strength
Jul 22, 2024, 8:02 PM | Updated: 9:06 pm
For the Broncos, it starts in practice.
There was a time during training-camp sessions where the loudest voices came from the offensive-line area of the field, with position coaches whose verbal eviscerations could collaborate with the heat to melt the sport’s 300-pound leviathans into puddles, where every practice repetition could come with life-or-death gravitas.
But those days are gone.
It’s not that training-camp sessions don’t matter. They do. But they are a part of a greater whole and a longer path. And in the modern game, simply barking instructions to a group of players doesn’t yield the results it once did. It’s about using the practice field as a classroom to make each player more than they were before.
It’s about teaching. And when you watch the offensive linemen at work under line coach Zach Strief, you will see instruction in action.
“In our room, it’s my job is to maximize their potential,” Strief explained last month. “The only reason — in my opinion — for a coach to really jump on a player is for lack of effort. And rather than do that here, we just say, ‘Hey, if you’re not giving enough effort, we’ll just get rid of you. I don’t need you here.’
“I’m not going to coach your effort. I’m gonna coach you to be as good of a player as you can be.”
And to do that, Strief gives his players the freedom to use practice to try and add elements to their games.
“You have to trust that you can try something new,” Strief said. “I think with offensive lineman, new techniques, new ways to do things can be stressful because you don’t know what the result’s going to be. And that’s usually what causes linemen to fail in this league is this fear of failure.
“And I don’t want the player to be worrying about failing in practice. I want him to worry about mastering a skill so that he has confidence to put it into action in the game and believe in it, because I think that mental side is probably the piece for linemen that has been underutilized for years.”
There is a time for urgency. But it isn’t when training camp begins.
“Now, there’s times on game day where they the the coaching is different. Now, I’m a motivator,” he said. “You might need to just feel something different, more urgency, whatever. But the practice field is not for that. It’s a classroom — and we want them to feel like it’s a classroom so that these guys can grow and get better. And ultimately, that’s the goal is to build confident players that are developing.”
But in the midst of that teaching will come a path to evaluation. Because while 80-percent of the Broncos’ starting line appears set, the other 20 percent — in the wake of the Lloyd Cushenberry departure — represents a key storyline of the coming weeks.
CENTER: THE COMPETITION
The Broncos brought in free-agent Sam Mustipher to provide a veteran backstop. He was a first-teamer in Chicago, made spot starts in Baltimore and can do so again in Denver if needed.
But ideally, the Broncos would see one of their two Day 3 picks of 2022 and 2023 — Luke Wattenberg or Alex Forsyth, respectively — emerge as the answer.
“They’re all capable starters. I think we believe that very strongly,” Strief said. “Obviously Sam has played a bunch; he started 42 games in this league. You don’t have the game experience in Luke and Alex, but we’re super high on both of those players.
“And so, that competition is going to be — certainly in our in our room — as strong of a competition is any.”
Wattenberg is particularly intriguing — especially given the arc of Cushenberry last year, who responded to the change in philosophy with the best season of his career, effectively playing his way out of the Broncos’ price range relative to the salary cap.
Where Cushenberry was, Wattenberg stood nearby.
“What’s been kind of interesting with Luke is that Luke has some of the attributes that were really good in Lloyd,” Strief said. “For a center, he has a lot of length. He can become a very adept pass protector.
“And so, what was great last year is the the real transition for Lloyd was using that length effectively as a player. And while you’re coaching Lloyd, you have Luke standing behind him.
“So, I think what we seen out of Luke so far is a player who has a lot of length and can use it. You know, that’s a position where you can create players that are true shutdown protectors. And Luke has all those attributes.”
Wattenberg also added muscle in the past year while maintaining his agility.
“He told me last year, ‘I’ve never weighed 300 pounds before in my life,'” Strief said. “Luke’s running 312 pounds right now and youcan see it and you can see the strength on the field.
“Guys that attack their weaknesses end up being good players, and I think Luke’s in a good spot right now.”
So is Forsyth, who has his former college quarterback, Bo Nix, in tow. So trusted is Forsyth’s intelligence that Sean Payton reached out to him to learn more about Nix before finalizing the plan to select the former Oregon quarterback in Round 1.
Out of this mix, the Broncos believe they can find a top-line center.
“We have experience there,” Strief said. “We have two guys that have been in the system for a year. We have a guy we drafted a guy that was drafted before us.
“Everyone’s kind of in a different place. And yet, they’re all kind of similar. They’re all really smart. They’re all tough.
“… Right now we feel awesome about where we’re at with the position.”
GUARD: THE BIG BRONCOS INVESTMENT
Payton has prioritized the guard position for his entire head-coaching career, so it came as no surprise that the Broncos would not only give Ben Powers a massive contract last year, but then they’d back up the armored truck for Quinn Meinerz.
When Meinerz’s contract kicks in, the Broncos will have a guard tandem that ranks third in the NFL in average-per-year contract value. With that sort of investment comes significant expectations — especially for Meinerz, who acknowledged last month that he probably thought too much about individual accomplishments, like making the Pro Bowl.
Strief wants Meinerzto possess those lofty goals — but also to have a focus on the day-to-day process of improving.
“I think what’s great is that Quinn does have an aspiration to be regarded as the best guard in football and he’s physically capable of that,” Strief said. “The fact that he mentally wants it is good. The question is, ‘How do you channel that?’
“And we talk a lot in our room about like, ‘Alright, if you want something to happen, what are the actual steps to cause it to happen?’ You can’t just want it so bad, and then it happens. So, for Quinn, it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s just be really intentional everyday, like what are we working on?’ And let’s see it in practice and be OK losing because you’re trying something new because you’re gonna master it in practice and you’re going to use it in the game.”
And Meinerz with some new tools on his belt could be a daunting prospect for opposing defensive linemen.
TACKLE: BOLLES IN A CONTRACT YEAR
Right tackle Mike McGlinchey is set, and restructured his contract this offseason to add a void year on the end of it. As is the case with Powers, Strief expects a second year in the scheme to benefit McGlinchey, who by his own admission had a season filled with “growing pains” as he adjusted. Free-agent pickup Matt Peart provides veteran depth if needed.
How would Mike McGlinchey describe his first Broncos season?
“Ups and downs,” he said as the campaign ended. “Obviously, learning a new offense and new expectations of what’s required of my job — you know, you go through some growing pains. But I certainly feel like …” pic.twitter.com/DIyiWhwWql
— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) January 22, 2024
But all the intrigue this year is around Bolles.
Last year, Bolles committed just 4 holding penalties. His rate of one holding call every 268 snaps was the best of his career — better, even, than the one-hold-every-254-snaps rate of the 2020 season that was his breakout year — and took place without fans in the stands.
Considering that Bolles’ improvement came after suffering a fractured ankle 5 games into his 2022 season — when he was on pace for the second-worst holding rate of his career — the impact of Strief and the teaching-based philosophy was palpable.
“Well, first and foremost … I think it’s very important that you build a relationship with Garett where he trusts (you),” Strief said.
“And for a player who’s had a lot of offensive-line coaches, he’s heard a lot of different ‘this-is-the-way-to-do-its.’ And so, you have a player with a lot of stuff in his head. He’s been told a lot of things are right a lot of things are wrong.”
So, last year for Bolles was about getting on the same page with a power-based scheme and the coaching he’d receive.
“I thought we built a good relationship last year,” Strief said. “I think he trusts me, and I think he trusts what we’re trying to do.”
But another aspect of what Strief and the Broncos coaches did was to focus on making Bolles the best player he could be within his skill set.
“You can’t reinvent a wheel with a guy who has 5000 reps in games, right? You have to you have to be able to tweak and you have to be able to find strengths and accentuate them and teach them how to stay out of weaknesses because you’re not going to change everything about him,” Strief explained.
“So, some of the stuff he does is a little different than the other guys but that’s because of his experiences. And it’s really a testament to Garett (to play) like he has [with] so many coaches. He has gone through this process so many times.”
Bolles is 32. But he bounced all the way back from his injury, and the work of tackles like Trent Williams and the recently-retired Andrew Whitworth shows that tackles can thrive deep into their 30s.
Still, if the Broncos choose to move on from Bolles, they likely create a top-priority need heading into the free-agency and draft process next year. “Likely” is the word because the door cannot be closed on the Broncos’ high-investment undrafted players of consecutive years in the Payton era: Alex Palczewski last year and Wyoming’s Frank Crum this year.
Palczewski lost his entire rookie season due to a hand injury. The Broncos designated him for return from injured reserve in time for the regular-season-concluding game at Las Vegas, but he saw limited practice work and was not activated for the game.
Returning practice-squad player Demontrey Jacobs is in the mix, too.
But for now, the conversation at left tackle starts — and ends — with Bolles.