Mile High Report
While the offensive line did a pretty bang-up job against the Packers, who boast a solid defense and front-seven, and didn’t have a single sack recorded against them, it felt like pass protection was a bit all over the place. Some plays you had the perfect pocket for Bo Nix to step up into and deliver a strike, while others he was running for his life.
Now, we’ll determine if that was his fault or the offensive line’s fault, and we’ll also take a look at what went wrong when it went wrong. And I think the best way to do that is by taking a look at an offensive tackle, particularly Mike McGlinchey.
It’s been a little bit since we focused on him, and it felt like he was due for his next film review. Let’s see how one of the best offensive tackles in the league did on Sunday.
The Broncos had 63 offensive snaps that weren’t kneel downs. 27 of them were designed run plays and 36 of them were designed pass plays. This was one of their more balanced games when it comes to play calling.
Mike McGlinchey would play all 63 of those snaps, and twice he would line up on the left side of the line in the on-ball TE position in their heavy sets.
McGlinchey finished the game with zero blown blocks, zero TFLs given up, four pressures, zero QB hits, and zero sacks. (I consider blown blocks as a block where the lineman gets beat immediately).
He had one false start penalty.
McGlinchey scored six “Bad” blocks, four “Meh” blocks, nine “alright” blocks, and 44 “Good” blocks. With the subtraction of points due to his penalty, this is good for a score of 52.25 points out of a possible 63, or 82.9%.
In run protection he had an unadjusted score of 80.6% and in pass protection he had an unadjusted score of 86.1%.
This was not McGlinchey’s best game on the year. In fact, it might have been his worst when it comes to pass protection. Statistically this is the most amount of pressures I’ve seen him give up in a single game. The false start, while not a regular occurrence, is not something we haven’t seen before. He now has four of those on the year. And he did have that block on the first drive where he got shed by Micah Parsons, who forced the fumble.
McGlinchey is an interesting blocker, and for a big chunk of his plays, you can predict the success of his block from just the initial contact alone.
In run protection, when McGlinchey is the one hitting first and getting his hands in the proper spot off the jump, he rarely loses that rep. However if he doesn’t have the needed leverage on first contact, it can be really hard for him to get it back. In pass protection it’s a similar idea. If he’s able to fend off...
