Mile High Report
Denver Broncos left tackle Garett Bolles is currently the league’s best pass-blocking offensive tackle (and Mike McGlinchey is also high up there with him as well), and after last season, we shouldn’t be surprised. Bolles is the NFL’s equivalent to a fine wine. He’s aged perfectly.
His game against the Cincinnati Bengals may have been his best work of the season. Trey Hendrickson couldn’t do a dang thing for essentially the entire night.
Now we get to break down some of the greatness we’re seeing out of Denver’s longest active tenured player.
Garett Bolles played 74 offensive snaps that weren’t kneel downs. He missed one snap on the final drive in the game, but besides that he played every offensive snap.
Out of Denver’s 33 designed run plays, the ball was ran behind Bolles 12 times for 76 yards (6.3 YPC). Eight of those runs were at least five yard gains, and the longest one was a 16-yard carry by JK Dobbins. He gave up zero TFLs.
On Denver’s 41 designed pass plays, Bolles gave up one pressure, zero QB hits, and zero sacks.
Bolles had zero “Bad” blocks, four “Meh” blocks, 10 “Alright” blocks, 58 “Good” blocks, and two “Great” blocks for a score of 70 points, or 94.6%. One of the highest grades I have ever given out.
In the run he had a score of 31 points or 93.9%.
In the passing game he had a score of 39, or 95.1%.
Besides one pressure given up on the first pass of the game, Bolles was absolute money. Hendrickson, or any other Bengal, were completely useless on the left edge of this offensive line.
What stood out to me the most was just how smooth Bolles was in pass protection. 90% of his snaps looked essentially the same. He’d get a great initial pass set, get hands on, wall off the rusher, then get a hand on the hip and wash him up field. His mix of great technique, a solid base, good hips, and strength are all used in such an efficient manner. It looked like Hendrickson had zero answers for this, which was true.
And while he’s the best pass-protecting offensive tackle in the league, that doesn’t mean that he’s a slouch in the run game. In fact, I had much more fun watching his run game film. There’s a certain amount of aggression, nastiness, and play-through-the-whistle ability that he brings to the table.
Bolles was moving guys off of the line of scrimmage when called upon. Or he was effectively walling off the backside. There was a play that Dobbins had to bounce to the backside, and his chunk run was only made possible because Bolles stayed on the backside DE for so long.
And it feels like there’s always at least one play where Bolles is blocking a guy through the whistle, resulting in a much-irritated defender. It always gives me a good chuckle.
Bolles was a great...
