Mile High Report
There have been 90 different players to be a starting center in the NFL 2020 to 2025 (last six seasons). I define a starting center as a player who starts eight or more games in a season. The Broncos have had two of those, Lloyd Cushenberry III and Luke Wattenberg, and they drafted both of the players. Another starting center was drafted by the Broncos, Connor McGovern, but he was drafted before this time window.
So I wanted to know know often drafted offensive linemen become long-term starters in the NFL. I broke it down by position to keep it from being a huge article. I’m starting with centers.
There have been 63 drafted offensive linemen who have become long-term (you can miss one season) starters from the 2020 to 2025 drafts. This includes the rookie OL guys who were starters last season. Since LW didn’t become a starter until his third NFL season, he shouldn’t be on this list, but I am going to include him since this is a Bronco site.
Here are the centers: LC3, Tyler Biadasz, Creed Humphrey, Tyler Linderbaum, Joe Tippman, John Michael Schmitz, Graham Barton, Zach Frazier, and Cooper Beebe. Adding LW gives us ten centers from the last six drafts, so between one and two starting centers come from each draft. Here are their draft positions:
These are in chr0nological order, so it would appear that most starting centers are being drafted on day one or day two. Only LW and Biadasz were day three picks. Below are the progress (or lack) in terms of pass blocking both in blown block percentage and sack percentage allowed. 2025 is the dark green on the far left, so if a center is getting better these bars should be increasing if you go left to right – like John Michael Schmitz blown block percentage.
LW did not allow a sack in 2025 so his sack% was zero. This is not uncommon. In fact is rare for elite centers to allow sacks. Creed Humphrey has allowed five total sacks on 3502 pass blocking snaps in his career and three of those were in his rookie season. Zach Frazier has been the starting center for the Steelers over the last two seasons after being drafted in 2024. He has allowed one sack on 789 pass blocking snaps so far in his career. This, of course, magnifies the deficiencies of starting centers like LC3 and Graham Barton who allow sacks. LC3 allowed six sacks as a rookie on 613 passing snaps, or more than Creed Humphrey has allowed in his entire four year career....
