Mile High Report
A data-driven comparative review of the play of all OGs in the NFL in 2024
This is a continuation of my full offensive line performance review for the 2024 season. This will look at all the offensive guards (as defined by SIS). These guys played the majority of their snaps at offensive guard.
I recently discovered the PFF allows greater data visibility in front of their paywall after the season is over so I will have some of their more advanced data for the Denver Broncos offensive guards (and the rest of the OL) to share in this that was not in the last two parts of this series.
According to PFF, Quinn Meinerz was the 3rd best guard in the NFL in 2024. His 80.3 pass blocking grade was 6th best and his 87.1 run blocking grade was 4th best. Ben Power was the 56th best guard (of 135). His pass blocking and run blocking were 48th and 73rd. In terms of pass blocking, Powers was the weakest link among our starting OL. Luke Wattenberg was the second best pass blocking center; Garret Bolles was the 4th best pass blocking tackle and Mike McGlinchey was the 38th of 141 tackles in pass blocking. Powers is the only starter who was in the bottom half of the league in pass blocking. Meinerz was the only starter in the top 10 in their position group for run blocking. Our next best run blocker, according to PFF, was Alex Forsyth, who was the 20th best run blocking center. His pass blocking was in the bottom half of centers though.
So let’s look at how SIS graded the play of our guards. We only had two play essentially as Meinerz played 1024 snaps and Powers played 1027. The only times that they weren’t in the game was in the end of blowout wins.
Among starting guards, SIS also had Meinerz as the t-3rd best guard with an overall score of 37. Only Landon Dickerson and Kevin Zeitler were given higher scores. Meinerz 16 total blown blocks was tied for 3rd lowest. Both Dickerson and Zeitler had only 11. Powers overall score of 28 was 28th among the 63 starting guards (min 500 snaps).
Four starting guards allowed zero sacks: Elgton Jenkins, Tyler Smith, Jordan Meredith and Lucas Patrick, but only Jenkins and Smith played the whole season. Two guards allowed a league-worst 8 sacks, Dillon Radunz and Anthony Bradford.
The two best guards by sack-stuff rate (sacks + run stuffs/snaps) were Trey and Tyler Smith. Both only allowed a sack or stuff on 0.10% of their snaps in 2024. Kenyon Green of the Texans was the worst starting guard with a rate of 1.83%. Only Zack Martin of the Cowboys, who just announced his retirement, was not penalized among starters, but he only played 594 snaps. Brandon Scherf and Joe Thuney were the only starting guards who were called for only one penalty while playing the whole season.
Scherf and Martin were also...
