Film Room: Has center Connor McGovern turned the corner for Broncos?

Connor McGovern had some hardships during the Denver Broncos preseason, but he also showed that he can be a capable center. There was a lot of talk about him during training camp, struggling to snap the ball when the quarterback was in shotgun, and we saw some of those issues early on in the preseason.

Thankfully for McGovern and the Broncos, the issues cleared up as the preseason went on, but will it stay fixed? After going over all of his preseason snaps, there were a lot of good plays to highlight that show just what he is capable of.

Here are three plays that really stand out and reveal how many cylinders McGovern is firing on heading into a contract year.

Play 1: vs. Atlanta

Denver is in 11 personnel with the QB under center. There were no issues snapping the ball, and McGovern is tasked to slide left to take the 3-technique with the left guard taking the 5-technique and the left tackle taking the wide 9-tech. The Broncos also kept the running back in for blitz pickup.

McGovern does his job perfectly taking on the 3-technique. He is able to muscle his guy to be perpendicular with the line of scrimmage. This not only gives the RB a clear angle to pick up the blitz, but if no blitzer comes, the QB has plenty of room to climb to pocket.

When initially engaging, McGovern doesn’t have the best positioning, which can be an issue with sliding to one side or the other. What McGovern does is fights and betters his positioning, and with a little help from the guard, he gets it and is able to such down his guy.

Yes, he got some help, but that happens a lot with the interior offensive line. Even if he didn’t get the help, McGovern still does enough to control this rep. Chemistry is vital for the offensive line, but especially so for the interior because of the help they give each other and the double teams they have to execute.

Play 2: vs. Seattle

This is Royce Freeman's big 50-yard run, which saw multiple players execute excellent blocks, but without McGovern executing his assignment, this play wouldn’t have succeeded at the scale it did. Of course, that can be said about a few others, but he did two key things to help on this play.

Off the snap, McGovern gives the LG a little help on the NT before climbing to the second level. This little bit of help is enough to get the NT off balance and the LG turns the NT perpendicular to the line of scrimmage, opening the hole.

Through the hole Andy Janovich goes and makes the huge lead block to clear the way. That's great, but what McGovern did was better.

After helping the LG win the rep to open the hole, McGovern climbs to the second level and meets the Mike LB. Before contact, McGovern lowers his shoulder and meets the Mike, knocking him off balance and allowing McGovern more time to square the block up.

When McGovern is squared up with the Mike, he also engages the Sam LB. Now, he doesn’t really shut the Sam down, but does enough to slow him down to where he isn’t making the tackle from behind. McGovern’s execution on this play bought Freeman time to burst through the hole, and made the Janovich lead block actually matter. If McGovern doesn’t engage the Sam, even briefly, this is likely a three- or four-yard run.

Play 3: vs. San Francisco

The LG is pulling to the right, which leaves McGovern one-on-one against the 1-tech. The NT has the advantage by getting the shoulder of McGovern and nearly blows up the play behind the line of scrimmage.

McGovern manages to recover enough and use his strength to slow down the nose tackle. He does a good job of using his strength to drive the defender down and hold him off long enough.

This rep could have been a lot better simply by being quicker into his block, but McGovern recovered enough to not completely lose the rep.

Follow Erick on Twitter @ErickTrickel and @MileHighHuddle.

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