Winter’s last gasp had only recently let go and gave way to spring when Mike McGlinchey first sized up the Broncos’ offensive line group back in May.
Lloyd Cushenberry? Really smart, he’d already figured out.
Guards Ben Powers and Quinn Meinerz? McGlinchey called them “as big and quick and powerful” as any guards in the NFL.
And what about him and Garett Bolles? The $17.5 million-per-year newcomer and the left tackle coming into a crossroads year in his career and after breaking his leg in 2022?
“I certainly believe in the two tackles we have here that we can be upper echelon and always planning to be the top in the league,” McGlinchey said.
Well, the snow’s flying again — football season snow this time around — and that notion is about to be put to the test in the most acute way.
Football gets the moniker as the ultimate team sport because everybody has to do his job. But McGlinchey and Bolles have particularly difficult ones against Cleveland on Sunday.
They’re tasked with slowing down Myles Garrett and Za’Darius Smith, bookends to one of the most disruptive defensive fronts in football.
“(Garrett) has been a special player in this league for a long time and he’s probably having his best year yet,” McGlinchey said. “He’s all over the tape. He’s all over the blockers he’s trying to face and he’s always around the football. The whole unit, not just Myles, presents a big-time challenge and they’re having a lot of success this year.”
Denver, no doubt, has faced its share of talented groups. Buffalo’s front can wreck a game even with Von Miller still searching for his old form. Kansas City’s Chris Jones is a force. Ditto for Green Bay’s Rashan Gary. Perhaps no team gave Denver more trouble up front than Washington in Week 2 before it dealt Montez Sweat to Chicago and Chase Young to San Francisco.
These guys from Cleveland, though? They’re normally the plow rather than the snowbank.
Garrett leads the NFL with 13 sacks in 10 games and has found the mark in all but two games this fall. He had 3.5 against Tennessee. He’s taken the opposing quarterback down in five straight games and logged 7.5 in that stretch alone.
Smith is a good foil, a veteran who won’t do much in the run game at this point but is more than capable of making a big play.
Garrett, though, is perhaps the freakiest athlete in a league full of them. At 6-foot-4 and 275 pounds, he doesn’t just accumulate sacks. He does so at sprinter speed.
In Week 3, he logged the second-fastest sack of the season at 2.27 seconds, . He also got one that week in 3.57. The next week? 3.07. Week 7? 3.17 and 3.2. Last week he got Pittsburgh’s Kenny Pickett in 3.02.
Think fast. Block faster.
Broncos coach Sean Payton will undoubtedly use tight ends, running backs and protection adjustments to try to provide as much help as possible against Garrett. At some point, though, Bolles or McGlinchey is going to have to stop him on a critical down and do it solo. Garrett moves around some, but plays mostly on the defense’s right side. That means the task likely falls to Bolles. His bookend, though, summed up the task aptly.
“Ric Flair always said, ‘to be the man you’ve got to beat the man’ and if we can do that up front, answer the bell for this challenge, it would be a great step forward for us,” McGlinchey said. “But we’re just worried about improving.”
Itap a showcase game both for the Broncos and their offensive tackles. Upper echelon? Or also-ran?
Number to know: 100
Thatap the number of tackles inside linebacker Alex Singleton has through Denver’s first 10 games. He racked up 16 against Minnesota and did so despite missing a couple that he should have made. Singleton also was involved in a third-and-20 play where running back Ty Chandler got free toward the sideline and had nobody around him, scooting for a frustrating first down. Thatap the wild thing about Singleton’s season so far. At times, he’s missed tackles or assignments Broncos fans are accustomed to seeing him make and yet he’s eighth in the NFL in tackles. Not only that, but the last time Singleton wasn’t on the field for a Broncos’ defensive snap was Week 3 against Miami. He’s carrying a heavy load and will likely continue to for Vance Joseph’s group.
Hindsight is 20/20
Jerry Jeudy has played 2,311 offensive snaps in the NFL and he’s never attempted a pass on any of them. He and the Broncos may be tempted after he fooled a Minnesota linebacker with an on-the-fly pump fake after catching a wide receiver screen early in the fourth quarter last week. Jeudy then finished the play by lowering his shoulder into a defender. Even though he’s not put up huge numbers, Jeudy has been engaged the past couple of weeks and is poised to break out at some point. Tall task against a rugged Cleveland secondary, but perhaps Jeudy can use the pump-fake again if he’s looking to slow the defenders’ reaction time down. Or maybe he’ll actually cut one loose down the field. That’d be a fun, albeit unlikely, wrinkle.
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