Broncos' 2020 Roster Report Card: Grading the Offensive Line
Perhaps the most maligned unit on the Denver Broncos roster, it’s time to pick apart the offensive line. While not the worst O-line in football, there is no way around the fact that the Broncos’ trench play has left a fair amount to be desired over the past few seasons.
While the unit has steadily improved over the past few seasons under the direction of ex-OL Coach Sean Kugler as well as renowned O-line guru Mike Munchak, the demands of Broncos Country for quality has yet to be met.
Perhaps the expectations for the Broncos’ O-line are a bit overzealous. The unit has not been the dominant unit many had come to love over the Mike Shanahan years, but being squarely ranked middle-of-the-pack against other O-lines across the NFL would be far more reasonable than the cries from many emotionally-charged spectators.
Given the number of resources GM John Elway has poured into the unit, specifically at the offensive tackle position, it is fair to want a better return than the team has had recently — but as was made painfully obvious last year in the transition from the statuesque Joe Flacco to the spry and athletic Drew Lock, the quarterback play and players around the O-line make as much of a difference in the unit’s ability as the line’s talent itself.
With Lock entering year two of his career and Munchak having another season with the unit, the Broncos O-line is heading in the right direction and likely to be in the top half of the league in 2020, but how do the individual players patch together the line and what's the grade overall compared to the NFL?
I'm going to break it down. First, the names, which will be split up into three categories: roster locks, viable backups, and bubble guys. Let's get started.
Roster Locks
The Names: Garett Bolles (OT), Dalton Risner (G), Lloyd Cushenberry (C), Graham Glasgow (IOL), Ja’Wuan James (OT), and Elijah Wilkinson (T/G).
Quietly, the Broncos enter the 2020 season with one of the best guard duos in the entire NFL. Risner, after an up-and-down rookie season that included a lower-body injury down the stretch, looks to have ‘the goods’ to be a decade-long starter in the NFL. While not dominating in any aspect of the game, Risner plays with a solid balanced base and good hands to win most matchups. His ability to pull is underrated and his pass blocking is steady and should only improve.
Opposite of Risner, the Broncos paid Glasgow a handsome $11 million/year to leave Detroit to bring his talents to Denver. Glasgow has experience at center and guard, but his best work is at guard.
Not a mauler by any means, Glasgow is also technically proficient and does his best work in pass protection. The guard position is mostly considered not as valuable as tackle, but having Risner and Glasgow give the Broncos O-line a high floor in 2020.
Center is a position to watch in camp and preseason (whatever that looks like), as the team ramps up to the regular season. Using a third-round draft pick on Cushenberry from LSU, it does seem likely the rookie will be the starter at center to open 2020 and a roster lock in the least.
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He will have some competition, but Cushenberry’s intelligence and improvement over the past season (specifically in the Senior Bowl going up against No. 14 overall pick Javon Kinlaw) should make him the odds-on favorite to start at center — how good he will be his rookie year, though, remains to be seen as some rookie struggles should be expected.
The tackle position is, quite obviously, the elephant in the room entering the 2020 season. Many would argue that the position was the biggest weakness for the Broncos heading into this offseason, so it is quite surprising to see Elway do (practically) nothing to address the position.
The Broncos are coming off three losing seasons in a row, so not every roster hole or weakness could be addressed, but the concern is that tackle could be the iceberg that sinks the ship in 2020.
Bolles is not as bad as many make him out to be, but he also doesn’t appear to be a long-term answer at tackle with the Broncos opting to not extending the fifth-year option on him. There are flashes of good play from Bolles, but the lack of consistency, which is arguably the most important aspect in playing O-line, has grown tiresome. He will likely provide close-to, if not slightly better than, league-average play at left tackle this season, but he should feel the heat on him to perform.
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James played quite well last year — in a grand total of 63 offensive snaps. After getting huge money from Denver in free agency, the injury-plagued tackle lived up to those concerns by missing most of the 2019 season. If James can play at the level of his contract he flashes last season, we honestly could be talking about a potential top-10 O-line in 2020, but can the Broncos count on James?
He does have a trend of rotating seasons — one season injured, one season healthy — which would portend he'll be healthy in 2020 if the pattern continues, but how can the team count on that? James just might be the offensive X-factor for the Broncos offense in 2020.
Wilkinson played admirably in 2019 but was quite often the weakest link on the offensive line. The number of pressures and hits he gave up were quite concerning.
Wilkinson doesn’t receive the same scrutiny as Bolles, likely due to Bolles’ draft pedigree, but Wilkinson struggled to fill in at right tackle last year. Still, tackle is one of the most scarce positions in the entire NFL, so Wilkinson being the No. 6 offensive lineman with the ability to play tackle or guard makes him a lock and likely the first guy off the bench in case of injury or a projected starter failing to play to the expected level.
Viable Backups
The Names: Patrick Morris (C), Austin Schlottmann (G/C), and Netane Muti (G).
The camp battle that is going to be the center position is going to be one of the more underappreciated this summer. Everyone is assuming Cushenberry will be the guy at center, but given the weirdness of this particular offseason due to the pandemic, the door could be open for someone with more experience to take the center spot, at least to begin the 2020 campaign.
Morris would seem to be the most likely candidate to give Cushenberry a run for his money. A phenomenal athlete but small for the position, Morris was picked up by the Broncos from the Pittsburgh Steelers. After working under Munchak with the Steelers in 2018, there is reason to think Morris could be a darkhorse to earn not only a roster spot, but a starting job.
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If it’s not Morris that gives Cushenberry a fight for the center spot, it would seem like Schlottmann could be the other candidate. With the ability to play both center and guard, Schlottmann’s versatility alone may makes him worth a roster spot and gives him the nod over the more positional-limited Morris due to the latter’s lack of size and limiting him to center.
Schlottmann played some last year down the stretch after Ronald Leary got hurt and struggled, but he did enough last camp to make the Broncos move on from former sixth-round draft pick Sam Jones. If not starting, being cross-trained to play multiple positions on the O-line is the best way to stick, and Schlottmann has shown that.
A lottery ticket pick in the 2020 draft, the Broncos brought on the mauling but oft-injured Muti in the sixth round. Muti showed flashes of dominance in college at Fresno State, but has a horrifying list of injuries that were not only frequent but severe.
While Muti played tackle in college, it would be shocking to see him there in the NFL given his lack of footspeed and arm length (at 31-¾ inches, Muti’s arm length in the zero-percentile in the NFL among tackles). Muti’s injury history and recovery make him a strong candidate in my opinion for a ‘redshirt season’ on injured reserve where he can fully recover and make a full push in 2021.
Being behind Risner and Glasgow will make a path to start at guard difficult, but with excess draft capital and being selected so late, his upside was worth it even if he never works out.
Bubble Guys
The Names: Nico Falah (G/C), Tyler Jones (IOL), Jake Rodgers (OT), Calvin Anderson (OT), Quinn Bailey (OT), and Hunter Watts (OT).
The Broncos have a number of bubble guys on the O-line just because a team needs so many bodies just to run camp and preseason. Falah has had a number of injuries and seems like a long-shot to make it at center, but could conceivably outcompete Morris or Schlottmann and the same could be said of Jones but from my viewing, Jones appears more likely to be center bound rendering him less likely to make the team.
The real question is at tackle. With Bolles likely playing his last season in Denver, James’ injury history and contract structure making it possible for the Broncos to move on from him in 2020 if he is injured again or struggles, as well as Wilkinson appearing to be more of a guy you like to have as depth but don’t love seeing on the field, the fourth tackle spot is up for grabs and is not only important for 2020 but potentially for seasons to come. If someone can make an impact.
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Rodgers ended up as that fourth tackle last season (also another Munchak acolyte) but the more he saw the field, the worse he looked. Raiders’ rookie edge rusher Maxx Crosby was good last season but he wasn’t as good as Rodgers made him look Week 17 where the beleaguered right tackle triggered flashbacks of Khalil Mack destroying Michael Schofield.
Anderson is a smart and personable player according to those in the Broncos locker room, but with a stiff midsection in pass protection, 33-1/8-inch arm length, and heavy feet, he isn’t someone I would place bets on breaking through as a good starting option at tackle in the NFL.
Perhaps one of Bailey or the undrafted rookie Watts could end up winning the fourth tackle spot but both seem to be behind Rodgers and Anderson and more likely candidates for the practice squad in 2020. I hope for Watts’ sake he makes something of himself so that he can make up for this sad edit his alma mater made of him after he signed his college free-agent contract.
Grade: B-
The criticism of the Broncos O-line has been a bit overblown. With substandard quarterback play as well as a revolving door at offensive coordinator, the O-line has been closer to league-average than the abomination some fans and media scream about on the airwaves or on social media. Still, league-average isn’t the end goal for a unit as important as the offensive line.
The Broncos interior O-line could be good-to-great in 2020 and should really help the second-year Lock, who in college struggled far more with interior pressure than edge. With the ability to slide forward and escape rather than feeling pressure and throwing off his back foot, Lock should be able to somewhat overcome the tackle concerns on the Broncos roster.
The tackle position was always going to be a position of weakness for the Broncos after the brunt of the offseason had passed by, but even if the tackles are below average, the rest of the offense could have a synergistic effect to limit how detrimental they can be overall to the unit.
The 2020 O-line will not be a dominating unit, but it also won’t be horrific either. The switch form stone-footed, long wind-up, slow drop-back Flacco to the far quicker and more nimble Lock, in and of itself, should help the O-line a lot, along with the Broncos having a plethora of better weapons to help get open quicker and make defenses pay if they send too many rushers.
I debated giving the unit a C+ but in the end, the mere presence of Munchak was enough to bump the grade to a B-. The interior looks to be very good, but tackle is arguably the biggest concern on the roster this season, not only for the starters but the questionable depth and dearth of long-term options.
If the Broncos O-line can be league-average, that can be good enough with surrounding talent in 2020 to have Denver’s offense much improved and the team potentially playoff-bound this season.
Follow Nick on Twitter @NickKendellMHH and @MileHighHuddle.
