Here's Why OL Quinn Meinerz is Poised to be One of Broncos' Biggest 2022 Risers
In the third round of the 2021 draft, pick 98 brought the Denver Broncos the talents of Quinn Meinerz, aka ‘The Belly’. Now elevated to presumed starter at right guard, he is as fierce an offensive line candidate as you could hope for.
Meinerz's nickname came from a decision he and his agent made in a well-chosen attempt to stand out more while he was at Wisconsin-Whitewater. They decided to put it out there that he played better with his shirt rolled up, and a local legend was born.
It wasn’t just good marketing that brought Meinerz national attention. When the D-3 school player was chosen for the Senior Bowl, after sitting out the 2020 season due to the pandemic canceling his Conference. He decimated players there and was invited to the NFL Combine. He looked the part of an NFL interior O-lineman and rocketed up the draft charts.
Meinerz's fans held signs saying, "Let The Belly Breathe", and were drawn to his outdoor training video, showing him hoisting 100-pound propane tanks and running with them, slamming his sizable mitts into tree trunks repeatedly to strengthen his punch, even knocking over a small (and partially rotted, to be fair) tree.
Meinerz taught himself to play center that offseason, employing a garbage can target for shotgun snaps and using a Go-Pro to create videos of himself. Quinn isn’t the kind of guy to stand still.
At 6-foot-3, 320 pounds, Meinerz was perfect for the gap blocking scheme Denver ran in 2021. He isn’t necessarily the body type you think of for a wide-zone blocking scheme, though.
After all, most of the best in Denver history have been a bit lighter — Tom ‘Nails’ Nalen, at 286 pounds, Brian Habib at 299, Mark Schlereth at 287 — but Meinerz is surprisingly light on his feet for his size and should make the change effectively. Watching him pull and fire into the second level in 2021 is encouraging.
Broncos' head coach Nathaniel Hackett was asked whether Quinn is a good fit in the new wide zone-blocking system. He did have to think about it.
“Oh yeah! Oh yeah,” Hackett burst forth. “He can run off the ball. Very strong, very excited for him.”
Meinerz's 33.375-inch arms are nearly typical of an interior O-line starter, but his 10.125-inch mitts are well-designed for controlling defensive players. Last season, injuries decimated the Broncos and the offensive line was no exception. Despite playing center exclusively in the preseason, he was tapped in Week 3 to play left guard in place of Dalton Risner.
It showed that Meinerz needs to improve his pass protection technique. Still, he showed the pulling, power, and pugnacious attitude a starting guard needs to display in the run game, going head-to-head with both Quinnen Williams and Folorunso Fatukasi in Week 3 against the New York Jets.
It became quickly apparent that the Broncos' whole O-line played better when Meinerz was in the lineup — his belligerent ‘you can’t beat me’ attitude was catching. The gap run scheme suited his skills well, and the game was by no means too big for him.
Meinerz is likely to be working hard on his zone-blocking technique before the spring practices start. One of his traits is his preparation for the things he wants, whether via his home-training system, his decision to learn the center position, and now, wide zone-blocking out of the right guard slot.
Meinerz has one trait in particular that will serve him as a zone-blocking guard: he loves moving to the second level. That desire and skill is essential for the zone blocking scheme which depends on the O-line moving horizontally; each blocker moves his man to the side and then sprints past him into the next level. That action creates split-second openings for the running back to exploit. Such openings open and close in the blink of an eye, requiring a back with good instincts, excellent vision, and quick feet. A back like Javonte Williams.
Meinerz’s responsibilities will include upping his pass protection skills to keeping a new kind of quarterback upright. Russell Wilson has had a high rate of sacks over the course of his NFL career and wasn’t all on the Seattle Seahawks’ O-line.
Wilson has excellent scrambling skills, making defenses respect his rushing (averaging over 390 yards per season) when he rolls out on outside zone plays and play-action. Such plays can develop organically when receivers at first fail to come open, taking time. It will be up to the Broncos' O-line to buy him that time, so Meinerz's pass protection skills will need to develop quickly.
It’s early in Meinerz's career, and there’s a fast-paced learning curve for O-line players in the NFL. But if the past is prologue, Meinerz will develop his pass protection skills fairly quickly.
The best guards in history have five things in common — good feet, great power, strong hands, dedication to their craft, and a merciless mentality. ‘The Belly’ Meinerz is cut from that same cloth, both physically and mentally, as some of the best.
While he’s still developing as a player, Meinerz derives a rich sense of personal enjoyment from destroying defenders. As a master of domination, depredation, and devastation, he’s yet another reason the Broncos' offense will be rewriting recent history in 2022.
Meinerz is a player you want to keep an eye on.
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