Garett Bolles isn’t the NFL’s Protector of the Year.
A man who never tires of helping out — even when it means helping complete strangers change a tire.
Won’t lie: It’s been a brutal few days for the Grading The Week interns, who make scour social media for Front Range items of note. Especially as the Nuggets just performed one of the most epic face-plants in Colorado playoff history up in Minnesota.
Man, those memes are mean. And Jaden McDaniels was right, which stings even more.
But first, let’s get the good stuff. From a good dude.
Bolles’ tire-changing moment — A
Earlier in the week, to her feed showing a very large, muscular man with the number “72” on his right sleeve adjusting the bolts on the driver’s-side front tire on the side of a busy road.
In the video, our “72” — who’s clearly Bolles, the Broncos’ Pro Bowl left tackle and — appears to be explaining what he’s doing to a young man standing just behind him, taking mental notes, as the traffic passes them both.
“OK?” Bolles says at one point. “And you go around …”
The video loops from there, because, well, TikTok. But the accompanying caption sums it up rather neatly — which, when translated from its original Spanish, reads:
“Thanks to this gentleman, a player for the Denver Broncos, who helped me change my tire. He is an angel; God bless him.”
And let’s be straight — this tale fits GB’s M.O. to a ‘T.’ The former first-round draft pick, now 33, is also a former Eagle Scout. Bolles, the Broncos’ 2025 nominee for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, has been a fixture in the community over the last decade or so,
True hearts never lie. True protectors never rest. Like his ex-Broncos teammate Justin Simmons, who announced his retirement earlier this week, Bolles is one of those guys you’d be proud to call a friend or a neighbor.
Actually, he’s one of those guys you’d call to help you move. Or to help carry a piano up five flights of stairs. Or to help change a tire in a pinch.
At any rate, the next time one of our wheels comes off, Bolles is the guy we want in our corner. To say nothing of our pit crew.
Nuggets-Timberwolves — F-minus minus minus minus minus minus
For obvious reasons. Shot-making comes and goes. But effort is a constant you can control. The thing that stuck dagger after dagger into the hoops kids on the GTW crew was watching Minnesota in Game 6 — again, without Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo and Ayo Dosunmu — seemingly beat the Nuggets to every 50-50 ball.
And beating Denver to what felt like 70% of the loose balls and what felt like 75% of the possible rebounds. The more you think about it, the worse it looks — a Nuggets team that started two All-Stars lost in six games to a No. 6 seed that on Thursday was missing three wing guards who averaged 55 points and eight 3-point makes during the regular season. That’s not just an Aaron Gordon thing. That’s not just a Peyton Watson thing. It’s a culture thing. It’s an accountability thing.
David Adelman = New Tiger King? — F
Watching the Nuggets for the last eight days or so was a hard enough slog. But ever since compared a picture of Nuggets coach David Adelman to one of And Heaven help us, we’ve tried.
