Mile High Report
I’m going to start this review off with a spoiler: the Denver Broncos have found their new left guard.
Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but as soon as Ben Powers went down I was instantly hoping they’d just move their extra lineman into that LG spot. And while we can’t give Matt Peart a fair shake of things due to his injury, I do not think he’d have a game as good as Palczewski did against a comparable defensive line. Palcho held things down on Sunday.
He was not perfect in this game, and he did have some reps where he was outmatched or out-techniqued, but he was consistently getting movement on what is a pretty dang good defensive line and he filled in just fine when it comes to the chemistry side of things.
Let’s take a deep dive into Alex Palczewski’s first NFL game as on offensive guard.
The Broncos ran 76 offensive snaps (not including the two-point conversions) and Palczewski was on the field for all of them. They ran 24 designed run plays and 52 designed pass plays.
On three of Denver’s longest rushes, they were either running behind Palczewski or he was down the field lead blocking.
Palczewski played a clean game up front. He had zero blown blocks, gave up zero TFL’s, and gave up zero pressures, QB hits, or sacks.
Palczewski finished the game with one “Bad” block, eight “Meh” blocks, 12 “Alright” blocks, and 55 “Good” blocks for a score of 68 points or 89.5%. This is one of the better Bronco OG scores of the season.
In the run game he had 19 points or 79.2%. In the pass game he had 49 points or 94.2%.
At one point Palcho logged 18 “Good” blocks in a row. All but two of them were in pass protection and these were the final 18 plays of the game. Talk about being clutch.
There’s not too much more you could ever want from a player getting his first reps of offensive guard in the NFL while going up against guys like three-time Pro Bowler Dexter Lawrence II or two-time Pro Bowler Brian Burns. Palczewski flawlessly inserted himself into this dominant offensive line. The only thing that might have been different if they had Powers is that they would’ve pulled the left guard more (Power, Trap, or Counter were near non-existent, but that might have been a apart of the scheme of not running much Gap-scheme against NY).
In the run game Palczewski was stout, often getting the better of the defensive tackles on the initial contact. He had good feet, and was effective in his downfield blocking. And on his double teams he was getting good contact with whoever he was double teaming with and he quickly popped off to the linebacker and got sticky on them.
His pass blocks nearly all looked the same. Either it was him nailing the early battle for...
