As long as Garett Bolles lives on a football field, as long as he has a blind side to protect, he will find motivation from those who don’t want him there. Who didn’t want him there.
Bolles is in his ninth NFL season and has three kids. He has undergone one of the most drastic maturity shifts from 19 to 25 years old, and from 25 to now, of any man in the league. Few doubt Bolles any longer. But he’ll still look for the ones who do.
This summer, while scrolling through social media, Bolles landed on a preseason list ranking the top 10 tackles in the NFL in 2025. He wasn’t on it. So Bolles took a screenshot of it, as his uncle, McKinley Oswald, recalled.
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The sentiment was simple: OK, then.
“Itap still that screenshot of, ‘All right, you don’t believe in me,'" Oswald told The Denver Post this summer.
Bolles' internal fire once burned too bright. It left him angry. Unfocused. Susceptible to penalties. It is a controlled blaze now, at a more disciplined 33 years old. But he still hunts for kindling, a man who once found a way for himself out of the streets of Utah when precious few believed in him.
And his attention turned toward a new prize entering 2025. At a dinner for his Garett Bolles Foundation in Utah this offseason, Bolles told longtime friend and juvenile detention center director Eugene Forbes that he wanted to win the league's inaugural "Protector of the Year" award -- a new NFL trophy that'll be given to the best offensive lineman in the league.
"I wouldn't be surprised if he has his best season that we've seen, now that he has a new goal ahead of him," Forbes told The Post in August.
Three games into 2025, the Broncos' elder statesman at left tackle is indeed playing as well as he ever has. Bolles has shown plenty of mobility as a run-blocker -- on Sunday's flea-flicker attempt against the Chargers -- and has yet to allow a sack. And according to Pro Football Focus data compiled by The Post, Bolles has surrendered the second-best pressure rate (1.7%) out of 48 tackles across the NFL with at least 100 pass-blocking snaps.
He was dinged for a facemask penalty against the Chargers, a faint remembrance of a Bolles . Years later, though, one of the league's least-disciplined offensive linemen has become one of its steadiest, and a respected presence in Denver's locker room.
"Just the way he commits to work every single day, and how much he loves being a Bronco, everything that he's been through here," tight end Evan Engram told The Post in August, "he's definitely one of the guys that you come here and you learn the history of the team, and itap like, ‘OK, like, this guy’s really been here.'
"And it's like, 'OK, let's go to war for these guys,'" Engram continued. "'Let's win some ballgames for these guys.'"
Bolles is doing his part, even as the offense around him struggles to find any shred of consistency in a 1-2 start. Despite a sloppier Week 3 game against the Chargers, the Broncos' offensive line . Collectively, too, they've surrendered the third-lowest pressure rate in the league, as quarterback Bo Nix has had his share of clean pockets early in the year.
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That could be difficult to maintain Monday night, as Bolles and right tackle Mike McGlinchey will have their hands full with one of the NFL's best pass-rushers in the Bengals' Trey Hendrickson. After leading the league in sacks last year, Hendrickson's off to another early rampage in 2025, currently tied for third in the league in QB pressures under three seconds.
Hendrickson lines up more consistently on the right side of formations, though, as the Broncos will likely bring supporting help to McGlinchey for the Bengals' 265-pound terror. That'll likely leave Bolles working one-on-one against backup Joseph Ossai or first-round rookie Shemar Stewart (), with another chance to make a statement in a long pursuit of a trophy.
"I like to doubt the doubters, and I like to put the faith in myself and know that I’m going to rise to the (cream of the) crop," Bolles said this summer. "And I feel like thatap how itap been like for the rest of my -- for my whole life. Itap going to be like that the rest of my life, to be honest.
"And I’m never going to be the biggest name or the brightest star on the field. But I’m going to be the most consistent.”
