Mile High Report
Of course the first film review of the regular season on a specific offensive lineman is about Quinn Meinerz. After how the game ended I needed a pallet cleanser and I figured Meinerz would be my best bet of physical dominance on film.
I was mostly right, but Meinerz was not perfect in this one. I think there’s some very fixable mistakes that we can take a look at and learn from though. Hopefully we can come out of this feeling a little better about Sunday by looking at one of the positives that came from that game.
The Denver Broncos had 55 offensive snaps against the Indianapolis Colts, not including plays that were called back due to penalties. They also stayed pretty balanced, calling 26 run plays and 29 pass plays.
The Broncos ran behind Meinerz eight times, gaining 30 yards (3.75 ypc) off of those runs.
Meinerz gave up zero pressures, QB hits, or sacks against the Colts.
Meinerz had three “bad” blocks, three “meh” blocks, 10 “alright” blocks, 38 “good” blocks, and one “great” block for a total score of 48.25 points, or 87.7%.
In run protection he had a score of 21.5 points, or 82.7%.
In pass protection he had a score of 26.75 points, or 92.2%.
Quinn Meinerz had a very solid game on Sunday. He was reliable, clean in pass protection, and usually was able to get good contact at the point of attack and create rushing lanes for the backs.
The biggest/ most common issue I had with his blocking against the Colts was his constant inability to get proper leverage on the defender. But also the more I think about this the more torn I become.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to zone blocking. One is to work through the right/left side of the defender, depending on where the ball is being ran. this allows for a vertical block while still cutting off the defender from the desired rushing lane.
The other school is to work through the defender as close to his centerline as possible. This allows for the running back to decide which gap he wants to go through. This is what we run at my high school. And it works well, depending on who is carrying the ball.
I think I only see Meinerz’ lack of choosing a side of a defender when on his base block as an issue when it’s compounded with the other lackluster part of his game on Sunday, which was his inability to get vertical displacement.
And this is what I was particularly surprised to see. Meinerz not being able to get movement off the ball is not a common issue with him, given the fact that he is one of the strongest and most physical offensive guards in the league. But he struggled to do that on Sunday when he was not working a double team. But it was very apparent as to...
