Broncos Film Review: Luke Wattenberg vs the Chargers

The title of “Most Controversial Denver offensive Lineman” is a constant battle between Ben Powers and center Luke Wattenberg, and there is a clear winner in my book. It’s been quite a while since the Broncos have had a center they could truly rely on week-to-week, and they had that for one season in Lloyd Cushenberry III, but that’s about it. And over the last two years there’s been a position battle between Wattenberg and Alex Forsyth (maybe not actually, but us the fans have seemingly thought so) and Wattenberg has won them both.

This must mean that the coaching staff thinks Wattenberg is the best center on the roster. But does that mean he’s actually good?

We’ll be taking a look at how Wattenberg did against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 3 of the season. I know what I saw online, in our MHR chats, and how I felt after watching the game live. Spoiler alert: I did not feel good about his performance. Let’s see if the film agrees.

Stat crunch

Luke Wattenberg was on the field for all 47 offensive snaps. The Denver Broncos had 14 designed run plays and 33 designed pass plays.

Wattenberg gave up one TFL, four pressures, and one QB hit.

Wattenberg had five “Bad” blocks, nine “Meh” blocks, nine “Alright” blocks, 28 “Good” blocks, and zero “Great” blocks. This was good enough for 37.25 points out of a possible 47, or 79.3%.

Wattenberg’s run blocking grade was 76.8% (10.75 points) and his pass blocking grade was 80.3% (26.5 points).

In general

The worst parts of Wattenberg’s play haunted the Broncos in this one. He absolutely struggles against any sort of stunt by the defense. And in the second half the Chargers really started to dial those up, and that’s when Wattenberg really faltered. It just feels like he doesn’t have the instincts to pick those up. The rule is when someone goes away from you, expect someone to replace them. Wattenberg struggles to snap his head and expect the pressure coming behind the slant. There was even one play late where the slanting DT totally leveled him.

Most of his play though is just mediocre. His pass blocking when not facing a stunt is just decent. His run blocking, for the most part, is just decent. His decision making as a center is just decent. He’s not going to dig out a DT playing a 0 or 2i technique and he hardly get’s good vertical displacement on run blocks.

To his credit though, his game is not all bad. I was pleasantly surprised by his double team blocks on Sunday, particularly the ones on Outside Zone plays. He had a handful of plays where he showed really great technique on reaching a DT from the backside and bumping the guard off to the linebacker. This is definitely a part of his game that is new, and let’s give him some credit. And it wouldn’t be a offensive line article...